Answer Key

1. How many days does Georgia law give you to change your mind about the car you just bought and return it to the dealer?

a. 1 day
b. 3 days
c. None of the above

(Answer: c. In spite of what many consumers believe, Georgia has no blanket three-day right-to-cancel a purchase, except for some door-to-door transactions. So, once you sign the papers, the car is yours.)

2. The Georgia "lemon law" guarantees you can return your used car if it breaks down the day after you bought it.

a. True
b. False

(Answer: False. While some states do offer a lemon law for used cars, Georgia does not. Georgia's lemon law generally applies only to cars purchased new that are still under warranty. If you purchase a car "as is" -- the way most used cars are sold in Georgia Ð then you are stuck with it as soon as you leave the dealership.)

3. If you and a car dealer work out terms for financing a car purchase, and you both sign papers confirming the terms, that financing deal is locked in once you drive off the lot.

A. True
B. False

(Answer: False. The car deal is not likely to get any better for the you, the buyer. But car dealers can stamp your signed loan papers "conditional" and then tell you weeks later that you didn't qualify for the loan. You must then either return the car and pay mileage charges, or agree to terms for a new loan -- often at a higher interest rate than on the original loan.)

4. Under Georgia law, used-car dealers must guarantee which of the following works properly on vehicles they've sold?

a. Brakes
b. Engine
c. Taillights
d. Emissions system

(Answer: d. And that's only if you live in a metro county that requires emissions inspections. Your car can have faulty brakes and stop running a block from the dealer's lot, but that's perfectly legal in Georgia.)

5. If you have a dispute with a new-car dealer over the purchase of a used vehicle, the state's used car board is the agency charged with investigating the complaint.

A. True
B. False

(Answer: False. The state's used car board oversees only independent used car dealers. State law exempts new car dealers from state oversight, even though these dealers sell more used cars to Georgia consumers than the independent dealers.)

6. Georgia's Fair Business Practices Act, passed to protect consumers from deceptive acts in the marketplace, makes it illegal for a dealer to misrepresent the terms of a deal to a consumer.

A. True
B. False

(False: Court rulings on the Act have held that as long as a merchant clarifies its true intentions somewhere in a contract, then it's okay to mispresent the deal in a sales pitch or elsewhere in a contract. The court rulings put the burden on the consumer to be savvy, not on the merchant to be completely honest.)

7. When checking out a car dealer before you make a purchase, which government web site should you search to find if consumers have filed any recent complaints against the dealer?

A. Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs
B. Georgia's used car board
C. Georgia attorney general's office
D. None of the above

(Answer: D. Georgia makes it difficult to check out a car dealer. The used car board's complaints are kept confidential by law. The Office of Consumer Affairs does not make complaint information available. And the attorney general's focus is handling legal matters for state agencies, not consumer complaints. A private organization - the Better Business Bureau - is one of the few options Georgia consumers have when trying to check out the reputation of a car dealer.)