Back in October I bought a 1999 Pontiac Sunfire GT. When i first test drove it i noticed there might be a transmission problem (see this post.) The day I test drove the car before I bought it, the car salesman said that if it wasn't a good car in good working order, they wouldn't have accepted the trade in or they would have just gotten rid of it. Then last week when I was trying to get into a tight parking spot,while backing up and going forward a lot, there was a 6 or 7 second delay before the car would go from reverse to drive. Now today I got it checked out and the transmission place I brought it to dropped the pan and found a lot of debris in the transmission oil. I am guessing i am pretty much screwed, but was hoping there was some sort of lemon law that would protect consumers from this sort of thing. I am from Minnesota, but bought it in Iowa.

I'm pretty sure that lemon laws only cover new cars, not used. I bet your only recourse is if you bought it with a warranty, which I'm sure you didn't. You did learn the lesson of test drives the hard way, though. If you see *anything* wrong, don't buy it.

is it possible that this transmission has had work before? perhaps it has a warranty (separate from the whole car).
it's worth looking into.

The day I test drove the car before I bought it, the car salesman said that if it wasn't a good car in good working order, they wouldn't have accepted the trade in

[chortle, snort, guffaw...] Yeah, and they're selling those new cars for less than cost because they're overstocked, and they thoroughly examine every car they take in trade and put it in absolutely top condition, and "...don't worry, they all do that", and ...

Any time I buy a used car, I pretty much count on spending as much on repairs in the first year as I paid for the car. Of course, the most expensive car I've bought in the last 30 years cost me $2500.

tanstaafl.