Province moves to protect used and new vehicle buyers

Manitoba has enacted a new "lemon law," meant to protect the province's drivers from buying sub-standard or poorly repaired vehicles.

The Canadian Press reports that the law comes into affect Dec. 31, 2011 and will ask the province's dealers to provide much more complete information about the vehicles they are selling.

CP says info to now be disclosed includes: "if the vehicle was used as a taxi, police or rental car; it had significant repairs; it was declared an insurance write-off; damaged in a flood or declared a lemon in another jurisdiction."

The lemon law will be legally bound into the vehicle's sale contract. Penalties for skirting the law are widespread, from a dealer losing its business license, to jail time.

[The Canadian Press, via sync.sympatico.ca; photo: André Karwath via wikipedia.org]