LUXURY CAR BECOMES NIGHTMARE FOR BUYER

		By Kathleen Holder
		The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--Kelly Weidemann thought she was getting her dream 
car when she bought a used Chrysler New Yorker in 1993--her first luxury
sedan.
	But after repeated brake failures, transmission problems and
electrical shorts, the car now sits idle in the driveway of Weidemann's
Fresno home.  It is one of several vehicles that are the focus of consumer
lawsuits and state action against Chrylser Corp.
	"It turned out to be an absolute nightmare,"  Weidemann said.
	On Friday, the state announced that an administrative law judge 
has proposed barring Chrysler from doing business in California for
60 days for allegedly reselling the New Yorker and other "lemons."
	Weidemann, who has been battling Chrysler for two years, was ecstatic.
	"Right on!" she said in a telephone interview.  "A day (of state
sanctions) would make me happy.  These people, the misery they put me
through."
	Weidemann said she learned several months after buying her car 
that it had been bought back from the first owner as a lemon, "laundered" 
in Oregon and then resold to a Cadillac dealer in Fresno, where she 
purchased it for $19,000.
	The car had had its brakes replaced, rotors and all, at least 10 
times that she could document.
	"You could be driving down the street.  It would make a loud 
screeching sound and when you pushed on the brakes, they were gone,"
Weidemann said.
	A mother of four children from age 5 to 14, Weidemann said she 
never had an accident because she would immediately pull over and come to 
a stop.  But she said her family is stuck with a car it cannot drive.
	The first owner, Margie Weeks of Grass Valley, testified at an 
administrative law hearing March 1995 that she had some close calls in 
the Sierra Nevada foothills, where she works as a real estate broker.
	Once, just after major brake work was done, the brakes failed as 
she was exiting a freeway.  She--and the client's family riding with her--
went around a car stopped at an intersection, crossed four lanes of 
traffic, bounced over a curb and came to a stop in some bushes in a 
parking lot.
	The brakes failed another time as she drove down a hill past a
bicycle race.  The car spun out in a sudden turn.
	Weeks said she had the brakes repaired nine times before the car 
had 20,000 miles on it.
	Two years after she bought the car new, and after the complaining 
to the company about 15 times, Chrysler bought it back for $18,000, she 
said. 
	Chrysler spokesman Jim Crawford said he was unfamiliar with the 
case, but that the company complied with state law to provide disclosure 
and a one-year warranty on cars bought back, then resold.
	After that, he said it's the dealer's responsibility.
	But Rosemary Shahan, head of a grassroots nonprofit group called 
Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, said Chrysler never disclosed 
the cars were bought back as lemons.  Instead, the company called them 
"good will buybacks" from dissatisfied customers, she said.
	Crawford said only cars that can be repaired for safe operation 
go back to auction.  Dangerous cars are scrapped, he said.
	But Weeks said in her testimony that she was outraged to learn 
her car was sold to another driver.
	"I could not believe that Chrysler Corp...would put that car back 
out on the raod where it could kill someone," she said.

	(Picture of Keely Weidemann of Clovis, CA, poses with her
1990 Chrysler New Yorker.)

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SANTA ANA, Calif.
Friday, May 31, 1996
The Huntsville Times

LEMON-LAUNDERING SANCTIONS SET
California accuses Chrysler of deceiving used-car buyers

by Andre Mouchard
Orange County Register

The California Department of Motor Vehicles said Thursday that it expects to
announce sanctions as soon as today against Chrysler Corp., ending a two-
year investigation into the biggest case yet uncovered of so-called lemon
laundering.

Chrysler, which has denied wrongdoing, it accused of reselling 116 defective
cars and trucks through an auction house in Northern California. The company
declined comment Thursday.

The vehicles allegedly resold by Chrysler eventually wound up on used-car
lots, where they went to consumers who weren't told that the cars had
previously been bought back by Chrysler from other unhappy consumers.

Chrysler faces a fine of up to $1.5 million, or, in a worst-case scenario
for the company, a suspension of its business license for up to 90 days.

Consumer groups believe the practice known as lemon laundering isn't limited
to one carmaker.

"This is a national problem," said Rosemary Shahan, founder of Consumers for
Auto Reliability and Safety.

"The California DMV deserves credit because it's the only agency that has
gone so far as it has, often against political pressure from the auto
industry."

"But California is definitely not the only state where this happens, and
it's definitely not just Chrysler doing this."

The sanction against Chrysler will mark the second time in three years that
a carmaker has been punished for lemon laundering in California.

In 1993, General Motors paid a fine of about #365,000 after being accused of
reselling 71 defective cars without proper labeling.

California is the nation's biggest used-car market and a source of used cars
for dealers throughout the country.

In a letter dated Feb. 23, 1995, the American trade group representing
Chrysler, Ford and General Motors---complained to the DMV that contacting
owners of "approximately 10,000 vehicles throughout the state of California"
would hurt consumers by driving down the value of those cars and hurt
automakers by encouraging lawsuits.

Though the DMV replied Feb. 28,1995, saying it wasn't sure how many cars in
the state might be mislabeled, a DMV spokesman indicated Thursday that the
practice may be widespread.

According to Shahan and others, as many as 50,000 used cars and trucks may
be sold nationally every year without full disclosure that the vehicles may
be defective.