General Motors sliding door van lemon-law case

Personal forensic case, 1985. The sliding side door of Tom's GM van fell off five times. After a nasty letter from the dealership owner, Tom filed lemon-law demand; GM offered an executive vehicle, then offered cash instead when the executive's loaner wasn't ready. Used as a narrative bridge into the Taurus case and to illustrate manufacturer response patterns.

I did that to General Motors once in 1985 and got them to buy back my car. It was a van, and had a sliding side door, and the door fell off five times. One time I had them come tow it out of my driveway because I didn't want to drive it over to the dealership — the door was just hanging by sheet metal. I was trying not to go lemon law on them, but the owner of the dealership wrote a nasty letter to me telling me it was my fault. I said, okay, I could have done lemon law after three, now it's five. Here's my lemon-law demand. General Motors came in and said, what do you want? Us to fix it, give you a brand new vehicle? I said I just wanted a van, I wanted to go on vacation with my family that summer, in two months. They said, we have this executive vehicle — you know the one that they let their people drive for 5,000 miles and give you a discount? We'll give you another one as soon as this is available. It was supposed to show up in three weeks. Well, they called me up and they said, sorry, the executive hasn't finished with it, we'd rather give you a check instead. I said, well I really wanted something to go on vacation. They gave me a check, I went out and I bought another vehicle at another dealership.