The Lemon Law Pre-Suit Notice: What CCP 871.24 Requires

Do I have to send a letter before suing under California's lemon law?

You must send a written pre-suit notice at least 30 days before filing suit if the manufacturer of your vehicle has opted in to the new lemon law procedures and you want to preserve your right to civil penalties. The requirement comes from Code of Civil Procedure section 871.24, one of the procedures added by AB 1755, the 2024 overhaul of the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. The notice provisions became operative July 1, 2025, so they govern suits filed against opted-in manufacturers after that date. Our AB 1755 hub covers the full set of changes.

Two important limits. First, under SB 26, these procedures bind only manufacturers that formally elected in with the Department of Consumer Affairs; if your manufacturer is not on the list, the old rules continue to apply, and this notice requirement does not govern your claim. Check the manufacturer opt-in list before assuming anything. Second, the notice protects the civil penalty portion of your claim, the up-to-double-damages remedy under Civil Code section 1794(c). Your core right to a buyback or replacement under Civil Code section 1793.2(d)(2) does not depend on the letter. But civil penalties are often the largest single component of a lemon law recovery, so skipping the notice is rarely a sensible choice.

What has to be in the pre-suit notice?

The pre-suit notice must contain four things: your name, the vehicle identification number (VIN), a brief summary of the problems with the vehicle, and a statement that you are seeking repurchase or replacement of the vehicle. Each element sounds simple, and each one is a place where letters go wrong:

• Your name. Use the name on the purchase or lease contract. If two people are on the contract, include both.
• The VIN. Copy the 17-character VIN directly from your registration card, purchase contract, or the plate at the base of the windshield. Do not type it from memory. A transposed digit means the notice describes a vehicle the manufacturer cannot match to its records.
• A brief summary of the problems. Describe the defects in plain terms that line up with your repair orders: what the vehicle does, when it started, and roughly how many times it has been in for repair. This is a summary, not a legal brief.
• A demand for repurchase or replacement. The letter must actually say you want the manufacturer to buy the vehicle back or replace it. A letter that only complains about the dealership, or only asks for another repair, does not satisfy the statute.

How do I send the pre-suit notice?

Send the notice one of two ways: by email to the email address the manufacturer prominently displays on its website for receiving these notices, or by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to the address the manufacturer provides in your owner's manual or warranty booklet. Those are the delivery methods the statute contemplates: the designated website email or the glovebox-paperwork address, not whatever contact you find first. Sending the letter to a dealership, a regional office you found online, or a customer service portal is a gamble: if the statute's delivery requirement is not met, the manufacturer will argue that no valid notice was ever given.

Keep proof of everything. For mail, keep the certified or registered mail receipt and the return receipt when it comes back. For email, keep the sent message and any delivery or read receipt. Calendar the mailing date, because the 30-day clock runs from your notice, and you will need to show a court exactly when it started.

What happens during the 30 days after I send the notice?

The manufacturer has 30 days to respond to your notice, and if it agrees to repurchase or replace the vehicle, it must complete that remedy within 60 days. This is the trade built into section 871.24: the consumer gives the manufacturer one clear, documented chance to do the right thing before litigation, and the manufacturer gets a defined window to take it.

Civil penalties are available only if the manufacturer fails to comply. If it responds within 30 days, agrees to the remedy, and completes the repurchase or replacement within 60 days, the civil penalty claim is off the table, but you also have your money or a new vehicle without filing a lawsuit. One more protection worth knowing: an opted-in manufacturer cannot condition your buyback or replacement on signing any release other than the standardized Song-Beverly release template. If a settlement packet asks you to waive unrelated claims or keep the deal confidential as a condition of payment, that is not a term the statute lets an opted-in manufacturer insist on.

How can a defective notice forfeit my civil penalties?

A notice that fails to meet the statute's requirements, such as never demanding repurchase, describing the wrong vehicle, or going to the wrong address, puts your civil penalty claim at risk. The statute makes a compliant notice the precondition to penalties, though it also says minor deviations do not disqualify a consumer, so the fight is usually over whether a defect was material. Manufacturers scrutinize these letters, so the common failure points are worth avoiding:

• A mistyped or incomplete VIN that does not match the vehicle in the manufacturer's warranty records.
• No express demand for repurchase or replacement, just a description of frustration with the dealership.
• Wrong recipient: a letter mailed to the selling dealer or a random corporate address instead of the address in the owner's manual or warranty booklet.
• Bad timing: filing suit before the full 30 days have run.

To be clear about the stakes: the notice protects only the penalty claim. You can file suit without any notice if you are not seeking civil penalties, and the buyback claim itself survives a defective one. What a bad letter risks is the civil penalty, which under section 1794(c) can be up to two times your actual damages. On a $45,000 vehicle, a forfeited penalty claim can mean tens of thousands of dollars left behind because of a letter that took ten minutes to get wrong. This is one of the cheapest points in a lemon law case to get professional help, and fee-shifting under section 1794(d) means the manufacturer, not you, pays a prevailing consumer's attorney fees.

Two more traps worth flagging. The civil penalty remedy is tied to the consumer still owning and possessing the vehicle at the relevant times, and selling or transferring the vehicle after you send notice carries additional notice obligations of its own. If you are thinking about selling a problem vehicle mid-claim, get advice first: the timing can change what your claim is worth.

Does the pre-suit notice change my filing deadline?

The notice does not extend your deadline, so you must build the 30-day waiting period into your timeline before the limitations period runs. For opted-in manufacturers, AB 1755 created a much shorter filing window: generally one year after the express warranty expires, and never more than six years after original delivery. If you wait until the last month to send your notice, the mandatory 30-day wait can collide with the filing deadline. The safe practice is to act a full 60 to 90 days before any deadline. The details, with worked examples, are in our guide to the new lemon law deadlines.

One more thing to plan for: if the notice period passes without a resolution and you file suit against an opted-in manufacturer, the case moves into a mandatory early mediation with a stay on most discovery. Our mandatory mediation guide explains what that stage looks like. For background on the lemon law itself, including what qualifies as a lemon and how a buyback is calculated, start with the California lemon law guide.