The most-sued car brands under California's lemon law: what the data shows

Which car brands are sued most under California's lemon law? The most complete public answer comes from a May 2022 report, "The Auto Lemon Index," by the CALPIRG Education Fund, the Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS) Foundation and Frontier Group. Its authors counted lemon law lawsuits filed in California state courts from 2018 through 2021 and compared each automaker's case count with the number of its new vehicles registered in California over the same years.

This page reproduces the report's full ranking of 19 manufacturers, explains the method, sets out the limits the authors themselves listed, and adds newer figures on lemon law filings and state-certified arbitration with dates and sources. We have not added any conclusions the data does not support. A lawsuit rate is a measure of litigation, not a measure of how reliable any one vehicle is.

Key findings

• 34,397 lawsuits. The report identified 34,397 lemon law lawsuits against automakers in California from 2018 through 2021. The ranking table covers 34,136 of them; the other 261 named smaller manufacturers or non-car vehicles, such as motorcycles and RVs, for which registration data was not available.
• General Motors ranked first. GM had one lemon law case for every 78 new vehicles registered, and 9,892 cases, 29.0% of the cases in the table.
• Toyota ranked last. Toyota had one case for every 2,029 new vehicles registered, the lowest rate among the 19 manufacturers.
• About 26 times. By the report's measure, GM buyers were about 26 times as likely to file a lemon law case as Toyota buyers.
• Across all 19 manufacturers, there was one case for every 222 new vehicles registered.

The full ranking: lemon law cases per vehicle, 2018–2021

Ranked from most sued (fewest vehicles per case) to least sued. "Vehicles per case" is new California vehicle registrations divided by lemon law cases filed. All figures are from the report's ranking table.

Source: CALPIRG Education Fund, CARS Foundation and Frontier Group, "The Auto Lemon Index," May 2022. We checked that the case and registration columns add to the report's totals and that each "vehicles per case" figure matches registrations divided by cases, rounded. Notes from the report: Porsche and Maserati were sued under their own names and are listed separately; Tesla's figure may be affected by arbitration; Fiat Chrysler became part of Stellantis in 2021.

How the Auto Lemon Index was built

• Lawsuits. The authors searched Courthouse News Service's CasePortal database for California state court cases described as lemon law, warranty or repair-failure cases that named an automaker as a defendant. Federal cases were removed.
• Vehicles. Because sales by manufacturer are not published for California, the report used new vehicle registrations from the California New Car Dealers Association's California Auto Outlook as the closest available proxy.
• Grouping. Brands were grouped under parent companies, so, for example, Acura is counted with Honda and Lexus with Toyota.
• Duplicates. The authors removed duplicates by matching case numbers, transferred cases, and cases with the same plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers, unless they involved different vehicles.
• Scope. The count includes consumer and commercial suits, new and used vehicles under warranty, and leases.
• Authors. Tony Dutzik and R.J. Cross of Frontier Group, Rosemary Shahan of the CARS Foundation and Jenn Engstrom of the CALPIRG Education Fund.

What this data cannot tell you

The report is careful about its limits, and anyone citing it should be too. In the authors' own words and framing:

• It measures lawsuits, not defects. Most defective cars never reach court, and nearly all filed cases settle. The ranking describes litigation, not defect rates.
• Other factors drive lawsuit rates. The report notes that warranty length, how dealers respond to complaints and shortages of technicians can all affect how often a brand is sued.
• Arbitration hides some disputes. Tesla's arbitration clauses keep many disputes out of court, so its low count should not be read as proof of higher quality. Arbitration may affect other brands too.
• Registrations are not sales. Registrations can lag purchases by up to about 40 days, so some vehicles may fall in the wrong year.
• Data cleaning is imperfect. Some duplicates or irrelevant records may remain, and spelling variations in plaintiff names could not be fully resolved.
• Parent groupings blur brands. Cases against subsidiaries not listed separately may be counted in a parent's total.

Two more cautions from us. The data ends in 2021 and predates many current models, including most of today's electric vehicles. And the ranking says nothing about your vehicle. Whether your car qualifies depends on its own repair history, not its brand's rank.

What newer data shows

No one has published an updated, brand-by-brand index with the same method. These are the most useful later figures we could verify, with their sources and caveats.

Lemon law filings have grown

The Assembly Judiciary Committee's August 2024 analysis of AB 1755 reported 14,892 lemon law filings in California courts in 2022 and 22,655 in 2023. The figures in that analysis come from the committee's comments and from letters by supporters, and they vary: the same document describes 2023 as "nearly 23,000" and, in another letter, about 24,000. It also reports that courts projected "upward of 30,000" filings by the end of 2024, and that nearly 10% of all civil filings in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2023 were lemon law cases.

CalMatters, reporting in October 2024, described the same growth, from nearly 15,000 cases in 2022 to more than 22,000 in 2023, and cited the Auto Lemon Index for brand rates, including one case for every 78 GM vehicles, 107 Fiat Chrysler, 148 Ford, 304 Volkswagen, 476 Honda and 2,029 Toyota vehicles.

State-certified arbitration is a small share

The Department of Consumer Affairs' biennial report on its Arbitration Certification Program, published June 2024, reported 2,201 disputes across the three state-certified programs in 2022: 1,778 at BBB AUTO LINE, 409 at the California Dispute Settlement Program and 14 at CAP-Motors. The report's 2021 total does not match the sum of its program rows, so we cite only 2022. Our guide to arbitration vs. a lawsuit explains how these programs work.

The rules changed in 2025

The surge in filings was part of the backdrop to AB 1755 and SB 26, which created new procedures that apply only to manufacturers that opted in. Our AB 1755 guide explains them. Any future count of filings will reflect those changes as well as vehicle quality.

How to cite this page

For the ranking itself, please cite the original report: CALPIRG Education Fund, CARS Foundation and Frontier Group, "The Auto Lemon Index: Which top-selling auto manufacturers are sued the most, and the least, over defective cars in California?", May 2022. To cite this summary, use: LaCour Trial Lawyers, "The most-sued car brands under California's lemon law," lacour.law, October 11, 2026. Please keep the report's own caution that the data measures lawsuits, not defect rates.

What to do if your vehicle has a recurring problem

Whatever its brand, a vehicle that keeps going back for the same warranty problem may qualify. Keep every repair order, write down the days it is out of service, and talk to a lawyer before you sell or trade it in. Our brand guides cover documented recalls and reported cases for GM and Chevrolet, Ford, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Ram and Nissan and Infiniti. Our California lemon law team reviews cases free, in English or Spanish, and the manufacturer pays the attorney's fees when a claim succeeds.

Frequently asked questions

This guide is general information about California and federal law and about public records as of its date. It is not legal advice, and reading it or contacting us does not create an attorney–client relationship. Allegations in lawsuits are claims, not findings. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Attorney advertising.