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San Antonio Lemon Law

Lemon Law Attorneys in San Antonio

At RockPoint Law, lemon law is the whole practice. We act for San Antonio drivers whose new vehicle keeps going back to the same service drive for the same fault, whether that is a transmission that shudders every time you climb the Loop 1604 grade out of Stone Oak, an engine that stalls in the I-10 and Loop 410 merge at rush hour, or an air conditioning system that quits in August and comes back three weeks later doing exactly what it did before. Texas gives you a real remedy for that, and it runs through the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles rather than through the Bexar County Courthouse.

$35 to file, online with TxDMV Two repairs on a serious safety hazard No fee unless we recover

Our Texas attorney: Aaron Waldo, Texas Bar No. 24107954, licensed in Texas since 2018.

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Three quick questions. No cost, no obligation.

  • The year and make of your vehicle
  • What the dealer has already tried
  • How to reach you, and we review it
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Sending this does not create an attorney-client relationship. A case evaluation is a first step, not legal representation.

The Short Answer

The Lemon Law for a San Antonio Driver, in Brief

Yes. San Antonio drivers are covered by the Texas Lemon Law, and there is no separate San Antonio ordinance to learn. If your new vehicle carries a defect that survives a reasonable number of repair attempts, the manufacturer can be ordered to buy it back or replace it. The complaint is filed online with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, it costs $35, and it is decided by a TxDMV hearings examiner rather than by a judge at the Bexar County Courthouse. If it goes to a hearing, that hearing is held in San Antonio: TxDMV runs one of its seven statewide hearing locations here.

The statute is Subchapter M of Chapter 2301 of the Texas Occupations Code. It runs from § 2301.601 through § 2301.613, and TxDMV publishes the eligibility tests, a sample notice letter and the repurchase worksheets its own examiners use.

What changes when the driver is in San Antonio is not the law. It is the geography. Three things about a Bexar County claim surprise people, and it is better to know them before you start than after.

The claim is not filed at the courthouse downtown. It is filed online, to TxDMV, and the fee is $35 under § 2301.712(a).

The person who decides it is a hearings examinerA lawyer employed by TxDMV and licensed to practice in Texas, who takes evidence, puts witnesses on oath and issues the final order. Not a judge, and not one of the three-citizen panels Florida uses., a department lawyer, not a Bexar County judge and not a jury. Section 2301.704(a-1) carves Subchapter M out of the ordinary route to the State Office of Administrative Hearings and hands it to that examiner, and § 2301.704(c) says the examiner issues a final order.

The hearing, if there is one, is in San Antonio. TxDMV's Office of Administrative Hearings names San Antonio as one of seven main hearing locations in the state, and says hearings are “conducted in or near the complainant's city of residence.” You bring the vehicle with you.

But if the order goes against you and you want a court to look at it, that court is not in San Antonio. Section 2301.609(a) sends judicial review to a district court of Travis County, on the substantial evidence ruleThe reviewing court asks whether the record reasonably supports what the examiner decided, not whether it would have decided the same way. It is a deferential standard, which is why the hearing is the main event and the appeal usually is not.. From Bexar County that is about eighty miles up I-35.

The law reaches new cars, trucks and vans bought or leased in Texas, and it reaches leases. It does not create a used-car remedy: TxDMV is direct about that, and only a new vehicle can be ordered repurchased or replaced. Where Subchapter M stops, the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act often keeps going, and under 15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(2) a consumer who finally prevails can recover costs and attorney fees from the manufacturer.

Which route fits your vehicle is the first real decision, and it turns on your paperwork rather than on your postcode. The standard itself is set by § 2301.604(a): a nonconformityTexas's word for the defect. Section 2301.604(a) frames the standard as a defect that creates a serious safety hazard or substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle, and § 2301.601(1) defines impairment of market value as a substantial loss in market value caused by a defect specific to a motor vehicle, so an argument about how the model depreciates generally is not this. that creates a serious safety hazard, or that substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle. Our Texas lemon law guide sets out the statute in full. For a Bexar County driver the two questions that decide things are where each stage of the claim physically sits, and which of the deadlines closes first.

If your vehicle keeps failing anywhere in Bexar County, send us the repair orders and we will tell you which test your record meets.

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Eligibility

What Qualifies for the Lemon Law in San Antonio?

Texas sets out when the manufacturer has had a reasonable number of attempts to fix your vehicle, and § 2301.605(a) gives three routes. Any one of them is enough on its own, and all three have to happen inside the rights period. These are rebuttable presumptions rather than hard gates, so a driver can still succeed on fewer attempts and a manufacturer can argue one away under § 2301.606(b). The fault has to be a real one: not a rattle or a loose trim piece, and TxDMV says as much in its own words when it excludes “minor rattles, radio static, etc.”

The Four-Times Test

The same nonconformityTexas's word for the defect. Section 2301.604(a) frames the standard as a defect that creates a serious safety hazard or substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle, and § 2301.601(1) defines impairment of market value as a substantial loss in market value caused by a defect specific to a motor vehicle. goes back for repair four or more times and still exists. All four attempts have to fall before the earlier of your express warranty expiring or 24 months or 24,000 miles from original delivery, under § 2301.605(a)(1). It is a flat four, with no sub-limit inside it.

A San Antonio example A new pickup back at a Northwest Side dealer four times for the same stalling fault, still stalling at 19,000 miles

The Serious Safety Test

A defect that amounts to a serious safety hazard gets a lower bar: two failed repair attempts rather than four, inside the same window, under § 2301.605(a)(2). Section 2301.601(4) defines the term tightly, as a life-threatening malfunction that either substantially impedes your ability to control or operate the vehicle for ordinary use, or creates a substantial risk of fire or explosion. Georgia qualifies a serious safety defect after one failed repair. Texas asks for two. Florida has no safety route at all.

A San Antonio example Brakes that have twice failed to hold after repair on the descent into the I-35 and I-10 interchange downtown

The 30-Day Test

The vehicle is out of service for repair for a cumulative 30 days or more inside the rights period. Two details decide most of these. Section 2301.605(a)(3) says “a nonconformity,” so the days do not all have to be for the same defect and you can add up time lost to different faults. And § 2301.605(c) excludes any period when the manufacturer or distributor lent you a comparable vehicle while a franchised dealer had yours. Days in a courtesy car do not count toward the 30.

A San Antonio example A vehicle that sits at a Bexar County service department across three visits for three unrelated faults and passes 30 days in total, with no loaner offered

Inside the Rights Period, and Why the Miles Usually Run Out First

The rights period is 24 months or 24,000 miles from original delivery, whichever comes first, under § 2301.605(a)(1)(B). In San Antonio the miles almost always arrive first, and that is a practical difference rather than a legal one. This is a city built around two rings, Loop 410 and Loop 1604. A commute from Stone Oak or Alamo Ranch to a job downtown, or from Boerne or New Braunfels into the city, puts 24,000 miles on a vehicle well inside two years. So the sentence that matters for most Bexar County drivers is not “you have two years.” It is: watch the odometer. Then a second clock starts. Section 2301.606(d) gives you six months after the earliest of three events to commence the proceeding: your express warranty expiring, 24 months passing, or 24,000 miles passing. Whichever arrives first is the one that starts your six months.

A San Antonio example A fault first written up at 23,400 miles on a truck that runs I-10 to Boerne daily and will pass 24,000 inside a fortnight. The rights period closes on the miles, and the six months starts counting from that day

Clearing one of those tests is where a case starts, not where it finishes. Three things still have to happen after it. Written notice of the defect has to reach the manufacturer, converter or distributor, and that party has to get a chance to put the vehicle right, both of which § 2301.606(c) requires before TxDMV can order a refund or a replacement. A copy of that letter is a required upload when you file. And the paperwork has to hold up, so keep every repair order, service invoice and the purchase or lease agreement, with the date and the odometer reading on each one. The mileage does double duty in Texas: it proves you were inside the rights period, and it feeds the two-tier buyback arithmetic, where the reading on the day you first reported the defect is the number that splits your miles into full-rate and half-rate.

Not sure which of the three tests your repair history clears? Send it over for a straight read.

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Where Your Case Is Heard

Filing From San Antonio: Where It Goes, Who Decides It, and Which Courthouse You Never See

The question San Antonio drivers ask first is whether a lemon law claim means a day at the courthouse on Dolorosa. It does not. A Texas lemon law claim is an administrative complaint before it is anything else, filed online, and almost all of it happens on paper. What matters before you start is where each stage physically sits, because for a Bexar County driver the answer changes from stage to stage, and two of them are right here in the city.

Stage One Is in San Antonio: the Repair Record

Everything that decides your claim is created here, in a service drive somewhere in Bexar County. The repair orders, the dates, the odometer readings, the loaner paperwork. A claim is won or lost on those documents long before anyone in Austin reads them, and there is no state record running alongside them any more. Since 1 January 2025 a non-commercial Texas vehicle no longer gets an annual safety inspection, so the only dated third-party record of your vehicle's condition is the one your dealer writes. Ask for a printed copy of every repair order before you leave, and check that the odometer reading is on it.

Stage Two Is in Austin, and It Is Online

The complaint goes to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, not to a Bexar County clerk. Filing is through TxDMV's online complaint application and the $35 statutory fee is taken at submission. Section 2301.712(a) sets that at thirty-five dollars for a Subchapter M complaint against two hundred for anything else, and § 2301.712(b) makes the non-prevailing party reimburse it, which in practice means the thirty-five dollars is added back into a successful repurchase total. Two things to know before you sit down to file: there is no downloadable complaint form any more, and the online application cannot be saved and resumed. Have every document and the payment ready in one sitting.

Stage Three Is Mediation, and Plenty of Claims End There

Before any hearing, a TxDMV staff case advisor is assigned and mediation is mandatory and nonbinding. Section 2301.160 tolls the chapter's time limits while required mediation is pending, so the clock is not running against you while it happens. Nobody travels for this.

Stage Four Comes Back to San Antonio, and You Bring the Car

If mediation does not resolve the complaint, the hearing does not happen in Austin. TxDMV's Office of Administrative Hearings holds hearings around the state and says so plainly: “OAH attempts to set the hearing in a location near the Complainant's home,” and “All hearings are scheduled for four hours and are conducted in or near the complainant's city of residence.” The department lists seven main hearing locations, and San Antonio is one of them. The others are Austin, Carrollton, Corpus Christi, Fort Worth, Houston and Pharr. The examiners are based in Austin and travel to hold the hearings. Bring the vehicle: TxDMV's own rules generally require the complainant to bring the subject vehicle to the hearing so it can be inspected and test driven, unless the examiner excuses it for good cause. The person deciding your case will, in the ordinary run of things, drive your car.

A hearings examiner, not a judge and not a jury

Section 2301.704(a) sends most Chapter 2301 hearings to an administrative law judge at the State Office of Administrative Hearings, but subsection (a-1) carves Subchapter M out and requires a hearings examiner instead, and subsection (c) says that examiner “shall issue a final order.” A hearings examiner is a TxDMV employee and a licensed Texas attorney. The examiner can put witnesses on oath, subpoena them and compel documents. It is a final order, not a recommendation somebody else signs off.

Stage five is Travis County, and this is the one people get wrong

If the final order goes against you, § 2301.609(a) gives judicial review “under the substantial evidence rule in a district court of Travis County.” Not Bexar County. Government Code § 2001.176(b)(1) says the same thing for contested cases generally, and § 2001.176(a) gives you until the 30th day after the order is final and appealable to file the petition.

So a San Antonio lemon law claim that goes all the way ends up eighty miles north of San Antonio, in a courthouse most Bexar County drivers will never otherwise visit. Georgia leaves venue to its ordinary rules and gives you a fresh trial; Florida gives a trial de novo in the consumer's own county if the consumer chooses it. Texas gives one county for the whole state and a deferential standard of review. That is why the hearing is the main event and the appeal usually is not.

And the appeal after that never reaches San Antonio's own appellate court

Bexar County sits inside the Fourth Court of Appeals District, which Government Code § 22.201(e) composes of thirty-two counties, and the Fourth Court sits in San Antonio. A lemon law order will not go there. Government Code § 22.220(d)(1) gives the Fifteenth Court of Appeals exclusive intermediate appellate jurisdiction over civil matters brought by or against a state agency, and § 22.201(p) composes that district of every county in the state. TxDMV is a state agency, so the road out of a Travis County district court runs to the Fifteenth Court in Austin.

There is a second judicial review provision in the chapter, and it is easy to read the wrong one. Section 2301.751(a), the chapter-wide judicial review provision, lets a party go either to a Travis County district court or directly to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals. That is the route for a warranty performance complaint under § 2301.204 and for dealer licensing matters. It is not the route for a lemon law claim. Subchapter M has its own provision, § 2301.609(a), and it names one forum: a district court of Travis County. TxDMV's own hearings page still describes that alternative route as going to the “Third Court of Appeals,” which the Legislature changed to the Fifteenth in 2023. Read the section, not the webpage.

Rehearing and judicial review: the day counts, and where they come from

Section 2301.609 sets the venue and the standard but states no number of days. The counts come from Government Code Chapter 2001, the Administrative Procedure Act, which § 2301.609(b) expressly incorporates.

  • A motion for rehearing is due by the 25th day after the decision or order is signed, under Government Code § 2001.146(a). Section 2301.713(a) sends you to Chapter 2001 for the procedure, and § 2301.713(c) requires the motion to be filed with the chief hearings examiner.
  • A reply to that motion is due by the 40th day after the order is signed, under § 2001.146(b).
  • The agency must act on the motion by the 55th day, under § 2001.146(c), or it is overruled by operation of law. Extensions are possible, never past the 100th day.
  • A petition for judicial review is due by the 30th day after the order becomes final and appealable, under Government Code § 2001.176(a), in a Travis County district court, on the substantial evidence standard.
  • Government Code § 2001.145(a) makes a timely motion for rehearing a prerequisite to an appeal in a contested case, subject to the exceptions that section names. Whether that applies to a Subchapter M order is a question to put to a Texas-admitted attorney on your own facts before you rely on either answer.

A rehearing motion has to be specific. It must identify with particularity the findings of fact or conclusions of law complained of, and any evidentiary or legal ruling said to be wrong.

The Bexar County courts a warranty case can actually reach, and the federal one

A lemon law order is not the only route a San Antonio driver has, and the alternatives do sit in Bexar County.

Justice courts. Government Code § 27.031(a)(1) gives a Texas justice court original jurisdiction where the amount in controversy is not more than $20,000, exclusive of interest. Bexar County's justice courts sit across the county's precincts, and a corporation does not need a lawyer to appear in one under § 27.031(d). For a small out-of-pocket warranty dispute that ceiling is often enough.

District and county courts at law. A larger warranty suit, or a Deceptive Trade Practices Act claim against the manufacturer, is filed in Bexar County's civil district courts or its statutory county courts at law, downtown. Bexar County runs 27 district courts, 14 of them civil, and 15 county courts at law.

Federal court. A Magnuson-Moss claim can be filed in the Western District of Texas, and 28 U.S.C. § 124(d)(4) composes the San Antonio Division of Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Dimmit, Frio, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Karnes, Kendall, Kerr, Medina, Real and Wilson counties, fourteen counties, with court held at San Antonio. The district clerk's San Antonio office is at 262 West Nueva Street, Room 1-400. Federal court stays the exception: 15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(3) bars a Magnuson-Moss claim from federal court unless the amount in controversy reaches $50,000 exclusive of interests and costs, and most single-vehicle claims do not reach it. The fee-shifting provision in § 2310(d)(2) applies just the same in a Texas state court.

Exhaustion, and the door the DTPA opens afterwards

Section 2301.607(a) makes exhaustion mandatory: no refund or replacement under the subchapter without going through TxDMV first. Section 2301.607(b) then splits the difference. The subchapter's remedy is not available against a seller under Business & Commerce Code chapter 2 or 17, but it is available against a manufacturer, converter or distributor in a Chapter 17 DTPA action, after exhaustion.

If that door opens, the DTPA brings its own rules with it. Section 17.505(a) requires 60 days' written notice before filing suit, setting out the complaint in reasonable detail and the amount claimed. Section 17.50(b)(1) allows economic damages, and up to three times economic damages where the trier of fact finds the conduct was committed knowingly. Section 17.565 gives a two-year limitation from the act or from the date the consumer discovered it, or reasonably should have, extendable by 180 days in the narrow case that section describes. A straight breach-of-warranty claim runs on a different clock again: Business & Commerce Code § 2.725(a) gives four years, and subsection (b) says the cause of action accrues on tender of delivery unless the warranty explicitly extends to future performance.

The 150th day, and what happens on the 151st

Section 2301.607(c) puts a limit on how long TxDMV can take. If it has not issued a final order before the 151st day after your complaint was filed, it shall send written notice by certified mail to you and to the manufacturer, converter or distributor, stating that the 150-day period has expired and that you have the right to file a civil action. Section 2301.607(d) then lets you sue any person named in the complaint, the exhaustion requirement notwithstanding, and § 2301.607(e) adds that a failure to send the notice does not affect that right. The department must extend the 150 days where the delay was your doing.

Three possible defendants, and one of them is a Texas invention

Section 2301.603(a) names the manufacturer, converter or distributor. “Converter” is a Texas concept, defined in § 2301.002 as someone who, before the retail sale, assembles, installs or affixes a body, cab or special equipment to a chassis. On an upfitted work truck, a service van or a motorhome that is a genuinely different defendant from the chassis manufacturer, and TxDMV's own filing form asks for a copy of your notice letter to the converter or distributor where one applies.

The two dates that close a San Antonio claim

Neither of them moves, and neither of them is the date you bought the car:

  • The rights period. Section 2301.605(a)(1)(B): 24 months or 24,000 miles from original delivery, whichever comes first. Your repair attempts have to fall inside it. In Bexar County the miles usually get there first.
  • Six months after that. Section 2301.606(d): six months after the earliest of your express warranty expiring, 24 months passing, or 24,000 miles passing. Whichever arrived first is the one that started your six months.

If you are anywhere near either date, do not wait to organize your paperwork first. We date the rights period from the delivery record rather than from memory, which is usually where the confusion starts.

Not sure which of your three clocks started the six months, or which of the three tests your record clears? We work that out first, at no cost.

  • Bring your repair invoices and the dates. That is usually enough to see whether your record clears the four-times, the two-attempt safety or the 30-day route.
  • You speak with the people who would work the file, not an intake desk.
  • The six months under § 2301.606(d) is already running while the paperwork gets sorted out. Waiting is not free here.

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    A San Antonio driver on the phone at home while a TxDMV Lemon Law complaint is prepared and filed online for them
    You Stay Put

    Most of a San Antonio claim happens on paper

    People hear “hearing” and picture a day off work and a drive to Austin. Neither half of that is usually right. The complaint is filed online with TxDMV, reviewed by Lemon Law Section staff and an assigned case advisor for completeness and eligibility, and then put through mediation before anything is scheduled. Plenty of claims end there. And if one does not, San Antonio is one of the seven cities where TxDMV holds its hearings, so the hearing comes to you rather than the other way round.

    We prepare the notice letter, count the days, work out which of the three clocks in § 2301.606(d) started your six months, assemble the repair history, file the complaint and deal with the manufacturer. Your part is the first conversation and the box of repair orders.

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    How It Works

    The Lemon Law Process for a San Antonio Driver

    Texas gives you more ways to qualify than most states and less time to use them. Five stages, two of them in San Antonio, and one clock that is already running while you work out which of three events started it.

    Sculpted marble figure reviewing an open warranty booklet and a delivery record, checking a San Antonio vehicle against the Texas 24-month, 24,000-mile rights period

    Check the Vehicle Is Still Inside the Window

    Before anything else, find your original delivery date and today's odometer reading. Section 2301.605(a)(1)(B) sets the rights period at 24 months or 24,000 miles from original delivery, whichever comes first, and in a city built around Loop 410 and Loop 1604 the miles are usually the one that closes. If a defect was first written up while you were inside that window, you are in the conversation even if the window has since shut, because § 2301.606(d) then gives you six months from whichever clock expired first.

    Sculpted marble figure stacking repair orders from a Bexar County service department, the dates and odometer readings a Texas four-times or 30-day count is built from

    Get Every Repair Order, With the Odometer On It

    The dealer's paperwork is the case. Collect every repair order and invoice from every Bexar County service department that has touched the vehicle, with the drop-off date, the pick-up date and the odometer reading on each. Ask for the ones you were never handed. Since Texas stopped inspecting ordinary cars in January 2025, no annual state record runs alongside your repair history any more, so TxDMV's own advice is to keep every order and to “maintain a log that describes the issue with date/time and location recorded.”

    Sculpted marble figure posting a certified-mail notice to a vehicle manufacturer, the written notice and opportunity to cure that Section 2301.606(c) requires

    Send Written Notice to the Manufacturer, Not to the Dealer

    Section 2301.606(c) says no order can require a refund or a replacement unless written notice of the defect reached the manufacturer, converter or distributor and it was given an opportunity to cure. The notice goes to the manufacturer's address, which is printed in your owner's manual, by certified mail with the receipt kept. Handing a letter to the service adviser you have been dealing with for a year feels like the same thing. It is not, and a copy of the real letter is a required upload when you file.

    Sculpted marble figure completing the TxDMV online Lemon Law complaint from home in San Antonio and paying the $35 statutory filing fee

    File Online With TxDMV, Inside the Six Months

    Filing is through TxDMV's online complaint application and the $35 fee is taken at submission under § 2301.712(a). The deadline is § 2301.606(d): six months after the earliest of your express warranty expiring, 24 months since original delivery, or 24,000 miles since original delivery. Have every document and the payment ready, because the form cannot be saved and resumed. Staff then review the complaint for completeness and eligibility and put the parties through mediation, and § 2301.160 tolls the chapter's time limits while required mediation is pending.

    Two sculpted marble figures at a hearing table in San Antonio, one of seven TxDMV hearing locations, where a hearings examiner issues a final order

    The Hearing in San Antonio, the Final Order, and the 151st Day

    If mediation does not resolve it, a TxDMV hearings examiner holds the hearing, in San Antonio, one of the department's seven statewide hearing locations, and issues a final order rather than a recommendation. Bring the vehicle: TxDMV's rules generally require the complainant to produce it so it can be inspected and test driven. Section 2301.604(a) then makes the manufacturer, converter or distributor reimburse your reasonable incidental costs from loss of use and either replace the vehicle with a comparable one or take it back and refund the purchase price less the allowance for use. Either side can seek a rehearing from the chief hearings examiner by the 25th day, and judicial review in a Travis County district court by the 30th day after the order is final. And keep one more date in view: if no final order has issued by the 151st day after you filed, § 2301.607(c) obliges TxDMV to write and tell you that you may go to court instead.

    Each of those five stages is a place a San Antonio claim comes apart: a repair order printed with no odometer reading, a notice letter posted to the dealership instead of the manufacturer, a fourth repair attempt logged at 24,300 miles, a complaint filed seven months after a warranty quietly expired.

    You can run this yourself, and some drivers do. No one can promise a result, and anyone who does is telling you something they cannot know. What a firm that handles these claims can do is read the repair record against all three tests, send the notice to the right party, and work out which of the three clocks in § 2301.606(d) started your six months, because it is already running while you work that out.

    Outcomes

    What Compensation Can You Receive?

    When a claim succeeds, § 2301.604(a) does two things at once. It makes the manufacturer, converter or distributor reimburse your reasonable incidental costs resulting from loss of use, and then either replace the vehicle with a comparable motor vehicle, or accept its return and refund the full purchase price, less a reasonable allowance for use and any other allowances or refunds payable. The statute gives the owner no stated choice between those two. The order decides. Florida gives a consumer an unconditional right to take the money instead; Texas does not.

    The refund is the purchase price including tax, title, license and registration, but not the interest you paid on the loan. Where there is a lienholder, § 2301.604(b) splits the refund between you and the lender in proportion to each person's interest in the vehicle. On a leased vehicle, § 2301.608(c) lets the final order terminate the lease outright and apportion the allowances between lessee and lessor.

    The allowance for use, in two tiers

    The allowance for use is where the money actually moves, and Texas runs it in two tiers. TxDMV publishes the worksheet its own examiners use, and 43 TAC § 224.260(b)(2) runs it against a useful life the rule presumes at 120,000 miles. Your mileage is split at one specific point: the reading on the day you first reported the defect.

    • Unimpaired miles, from delivery up to that first report, are charged at the full rate: unimpaired miles divided by 120,000, times the purchase price.
    • Impaired miles, from that first report through to the hearing date, are charged at half rate.

    The two are added together, deducted from the purchase price, and the $35 filing fee is added back in under § 2301.712(b). So the miles you put on the car after you reported the fault cost you half what the earlier ones do. The statutory root is § 2301.601(3), which defines a reasonable allowance for use as the amount attributable to use “when the vehicle is not out of service for repair.” That is why the odometer reading on that first repair order matters so much, and why we ask for it before anything else.

    For a San Antonio driver this is not an abstraction. If your commute is Alamo Ranch to downtown and back, the difference between reporting a fault at 9,000 miles and reporting it at 15,000 miles is thousands of dollars off the same buyback. Report it early, in writing, and get it on a repair order. A towable recreational vehicle is calculated the same way but in days rather than miles, against a useful life of 5,475 days, which is fifteen years, under 43 TAC § 224.260(b)(3).

    Who pays the attorney fees, and where they come from

    First, the part that touches your own pocket. You are not billed for this. We take qualifying lemon law cases on contingency, so there is no fee unless we recover for you, and where fees are awarded it is the manufacturer that pays them, not you.

    Where those fees come from is a question about the statutes rather than about your invoice. Subchapter M carries no fee-shifting provision of its own. What it does is preserve other routes. Section 2301.607(b) opens a DTPA action against the manufacturer, converter or distributor after exhaustion, and Business & Commerce Code § 17.50(b)(1) allows up to three times economic damages where the conduct was knowing. The federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act lets a consumer who finally prevails recover costs and attorney fees under 15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(2). Those are the provisions that carry fees in a Texas warranty case.

    What a buyback carries with it

    Section 2301.610(a) obliges the manufacturer to issue a disclosure statement through its franchised dealer, and that statement travels with the vehicle through its first retail purchase, carrying TxDMV's toll-free number so the next buyer can find out what the defect was. Section 2301.610(b) requires the cause of the repurchase to be restored to factory specifications and a fresh 12-month, 12,000-mile warranty issued. Section 2301.611 then makes TxDMV publish an annual report naming repurchased vehicles by brand and model with a description of the fault. Your own file stays private while it runs: § 2301.612 keeps information filed under the subchapter out of the public record until the complaint is resolved by a final order.

    Outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case, so no attorney can promise a particular result.

    Possible Outcomes

    Repurchase

    the full purchase price including tax, title, license and registration, less the two-tier allowance for use, with the $35 filing fee added back under § 2301.712(b)

    Replacement

    a comparable motor vehicle, acceptable to you, with any upgrades at your own cost

    Repair

    the route for a used vehicle still inside the original factory warranty, with out-of-pocket costs that should have been warranty-covered reimbursed

    Collateral and incidental costs

    reasonable incidental costs resulting from loss of use, under § 2301.604(a)

    Attorney fees

    paid by the manufacturer, not by you, and there is no fee unless we recover for you; the fees themselves come from the DTPA route § 2301.607(b) opens and from 15 U.S.C. § 2310(d)(2), because Subchapter M carries none of its own

    Vehicles We Handle

    Which Vehicles the Texas Statute Reaches, and Which It Does Not

    Texas is broader than most states on vehicle type and narrower than most on vehicle age. The standard under § 2301.604(a) is a defect that creates a serious safety hazard, or that substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle, and it reaches a vehicle bought or leased new in Texas. In a city that buys as many trucks as this one, the question that comes up most is not what kind of vehicle it is. It is who built the part of it that keeps failing.

    Cars, Trucks, Vans and SUVs

    Covered, bought or leased new in Texas, and leases are in by name. The Texas test under § 2301.604(a) is a defect that creates a serious safety hazard or substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle, and § 2301.601(1) ties market value to “a substantial loss in market value caused by a defect specific to a motor vehicle”, so an argument about how the model depreciates generally is a different argument. See our practice areas.

    Pickups and Work Trucks

    Covered, and this is the class that raises the converter question. Where a body, a cab or special equipment was fitted to somebody else's chassis before the retail sale, § 2301.002 makes that business a converter, and § 2301.603(a) names it as a defendant alongside the manufacturer and the distributor. On a service body, a flatbed or a utility van, which of the three owes you the remedy is a real question rather than an academic one, and the notice under § 2301.606(c) has to reach the right one. Derate and emissions-system faults are the pattern we see most on these, and they support a diesel emissions claim as well.

    Motorcycles

    Covered. Texas does not carve motorcycles out of Subchapter M the way Georgia does at O.C.G.A. § 10-1-782(15), so a motorcycle claim runs on the same 24-month, 24,000-mile rights period, the same four-times and two-attempt tests, and the same six-month filing window as a car. The practical difference is evidentiary rather than legal: a motorcycle spends less time in a service bay, so the 30-day route under § 2301.605(a)(3) comes up far less often than the repair-count routes. See our motorcycle lemon law page.

    RVs and Motorhomes

    Covered, and this is where the converter point bites hardest, because a motorhome is very often a coach built onto a chassis somebody else made. Section 2301.002's converter definition and § 2301.603(a)'s list of defendants decide who owes the remedy, and on a coach the answer is frequently not the company whose badge is on the engine. A towable recreational vehicle is covered too, with its allowance for use calculated in days rather than miles under 43 TAC § 224.260(b)(3), against a useful life of 5,475 days. Our RV and motorhome page goes further.

    Electric Vehicles

    Covered on the same terms as any other new vehicle bought or leased in Texas. Battery, charging, drive-unit and software faults are the patterns we see most, and § 2301.604(a)'s standard suits them: a defect that substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle does not have to be a safety hazard to qualify. A software fault that keeps coming back sits squarely inside § 2301.605(a)(1)'s “the same nonconformity ... and the nonconformity continues to exist”, provided each visit is written up in the same words. Our electric vehicle lemon law page goes further.

    Used and leased vehicles, which are two different answers

    A lease is covered, and § 2301.608(c) lets a final order terminate it and apportion the allowances between lessee and lessor. A used vehicle is a different route rather than a weaker version of the same one. Texas has no used-vehicle lemon law, and TxDMV is blunt that only a new vehicle can be ordered repurchased or replaced. What the warranty performance provisions still reach is a used vehicle while the original manufacturer warranty is alive, or where the defect began and was reported during that warranty and still exists, and the remedy there is repair, with out-of-pocket costs that should have been warranty-covered reimbursed. An extended service contract is not the original warranty for this purpose.

    Not sure whether the fault sits with the manufacturer or with a converter that upfitted your vehicle? We can tell you from the paperwork.

    See All Practice Areas →
    Why RockPoint

    Why San Antonio Drivers Choose RockPoint Law

    Lemon law and consumer warranty work is the whole of our practice. We act for drivers across Bexar County and the counties around it, and because a Texas complaint is filed online with one statewide agency, where you live does not decide whether a claim is worth bringing.

    Lemon Law Is the Whole Practice

    It is not a sideline next to personal injury and family law. Warranty and lemon law is what the firm does, day in and day out, for drivers with defective vehicles.

    Bexar County and the Counties Around It

    We take claims from across Bexar County and from Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, Wilson and Atascosa, the counties that share the San Antonio Division of the federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 124(d)(4). A TxDMV complaint is filed online, so where you live does not decide whether you can bring one.

    We Work Out Which Clock Started Your Six Months

    Section 2301.606(d) runs from the earliest of three events: your express warranty expiring, 24 months, or 24,000 miles. Working out which one arrived first is the first thing we do, and in San Antonio it is usually the odometer.

    Clear Communication

    You speak with the people who would work the file, not an intake desk. Straight updates at every stage, no silent stretches and no surprises.

    No Upfront Legal Fees

    Qualifying lemon law cases run on contingency. You do not pay a fee unless we recover for you. Subchapter M carries no fee-shifting clause of its own, so we explain at the start where fees would actually come from in your case.

    The people who would work your file are the people you speak to first.

    Meet the Team →
    Side-by-Side

    Handling a San Antonio Claim Alone vs With an Attorney

    Flip the switch to see the same four moments from both sides.

    Vehicle repair invoices spread across a kitchen table with a hand hovering over them
    On your own1 / 4

    Guessing which of the three tests your repair record meets

    Four repairs of the same nonconformity under Sec. 2301.605(a)(1), two repairs of a serious safety hazard under Sec. 2301.605(a)(2), or 30 cumulative days out of service under Sec. 2301.605(a)(3). They are alternatives, and they count different things. The four-times route needs the same defect every time. The 30-day route adds up days across any number of defects, and Sec. 2301.605(c) then subtracts the days you had a comparable loaner.

    A person on the phone at a home desk with a notepad of call notes
    On your own2 / 4

    Sending the notice to the dealership instead of the manufacturer

    Section 2301.606(c) requires that written notice reached the manufacturer, converter or distributor and that it was given an opportunity to cure. The address is in the owner's manual. The service adviser at the dealership is not that address, and TxDMV requires a copy of the real letter as an upload.

    A wall calendar with deadline dates circled in red beside a set of car keys
    On your own3 / 4

    Missing which of three clocks started the six months

    Section 2301.606(d) runs six months from the EARLIEST of your warranty expiring, 24 months, or 24,000 miles. Most people count from the date they bought the car. In San Antonio the mileage clock is usually the one that closes first, and it closes quietly.

    One person alone at the end of a long empty hearing room table
    On your own4 / 4

    Facing the hearing and the two-tier arithmetic alone

    The hearings examiner decides on the evidence put in front of them, under oath, with documents. The buyback is then reduced by full-rate miles up to the day you first reported the fault and half-rate miles after it, against a presumed 120,000-mile useful life. Getting the first-report odometer reading wrong moves real money.

    Hands working through an organized stack of repair orders with a highlighter and index tabs
    With RockPoint Law1 / 4

    A clear read on the four-times, safety or 30-day route

    We read the repair orders first and tell you which route your record supports before anything is sent. Where it supports more than one, we take the strongest.

    A certified mail envelope and return receipt card being prepared on a desk
    With RockPoint Law2 / 4

    Notice drafted to the right party, by certified mail, receipt kept

    To the manufacturer, or to the converter or distributor where Sec. 2301.002 makes that the right defendant, with proof of what was sent and when. After that the manufacturer deals with us rather than with you.

    An open case planner with color-coded deadline tabs being marked
    With RockPoint Law3 / 4

    Every qualifying day counted, and every deadline tracked

    We add the days Sec. 2301.605(a)(3) lets you add across different faults, subtract only the loaner periods Sec. 2301.605(c) actually excludes, and date the rights period from the delivery record rather than from memory.

    A bound exhibit folder open on a conference table
    With RockPoint Law4 / 4

    The two-tier arithmetic checked against TxDMV's own worksheet

    We pull the first-report odometer reading off the repair order, split your mileage at that point, put the $35 back in under Sec. 2301.712(b), and test the manufacturer's figure against the rule rather than against its own spreadsheet.

    Serving Bexar County and the Counties Around It

    On the Ground in San Antonio

    San Antonio had 1,548,422 residents on the Census Bureau's 1 July 2025 estimates, which makes it the seventh largest city in the United States and the second largest in Texas, ahead of Dallas. Bexar County holds 2,160,088 on the same estimates. The San Antonio–New Braunfels metro is eight counties: Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Atascosa, Bandera, Kendall, Medina and Wilson.

    Those numbers have a warranty consequence you can put a figure on. TxDMV's own registration report for the year to 31 August 2024 counted 1,675,717 vehicles registered in Bexar County, out of 25,965,558 statewide. Roughly one Texas vehicle in fifteen is registered here.

    It is a city organized around two rings and one national artery. Loop 410 draws the inner ring and Loop 1604 the outer one, and almost every commute in Bexar County uses at least one of them. I-35 runs through the middle of the city, and it is the road north out of Laredo, where more than three million trucks crossed the border in 2024 on the Texas Comptroller's figures. I-10 crosses the city west to east from Boerne through downtown out towards Seguin, I-37 drops south towards Corpus Christi, US 281 carries the Stone Oak and Bulverde traffic in from the north, and TX-151 and the Wurzbach Parkway fill in the west and the north.

    Those roads are why the odometer, not the calendar, usually closes a San Antonio driver's rights period under § 2301.605(a)(1)(B). And the weather does something similar to the kind of defect that gets reported here. The National Weather Service's 1991–2020 normals for San Antonio put the city at 122.4 days a year at 90°F or above. An air conditioning system that keeps failing is rarely a serious safety hazard as § 2301.601(4) defines it, because that definition needs a life-threatening malfunction affecting control of the vehicle or a risk of fire. It is far more often a substantial impairment of use under § 2301.604(a), which is a provable argument here in a way it would not be in a cooler city. The consequence is the repair count: the safety route needs two attempts, the ordinary route needs four.

    What San Antonio builds, who it employs, and why none of that changes who owes you a buyback

    San Antonio assembles vehicles as well as driving them. Toyota has built on the South Side since 2006, where the Tundra, the Tundra hybrid and the Sequoia hybrid are made; Toyota's own plant figures put more than 3,700 people inside it and more than twenty on-site suppliers around it employing another 5,600, with 197,506 vehicles built there in 2025. International Motors opened its own San Antonio plant in March 2022, nearly a million square feet building Class 6 to 8 trucks including electric models, and the first vehicle down that line was an electric eMV.

    The city's other big employers are USAA and H-E-B, both headquartered here, alongside CPS Energy, Frost Bank, Valero, Methodist Healthcare, University Health and the City of San Antonio itself.

    None of that changes who owes you a remedy. Section 2301.603(a) puts the duty on the manufacturer, converter or distributor, and the notice under § 2301.606(c) goes to the address in your owner's manual. A truck assembled ten miles from your house is still a claim against the company whose badge is on it.

    The one place local industry does change the analysis is upfitting. Section 2301.002 defines a converter as a business that, before the retail sale, assembles, installs or affixes a body, cab or special equipment to a chassis, and § 2301.603(a) names it as a defendant in its own right. On a service body, a flatbed, a utility van or a motorhome, working out which of the three parties owes the remedy is a real question rather than an academic one.

    Joint Base San Antonio, and the paragraph of the statute written for people posted here

    San Antonio has been called Military City USA for a long time, and one paragraph of the Texas Lemon Law reads as though somebody had it in mind.

    Section 2301.601(2) defines who counts as an “owner” and therefore who can bring a claim at all. Paragraph (C) covers a resident of Texas who has registered the vehicle in Texas. Paragraph (D) goes further: it reaches a person who “purchased or leased the vehicle at retail and is an active duty member of the United States armed forces stationed in this state at the time a proceeding is commenced under this subchapter.”

    Joint Base San Antonio describes itself as the largest joint base in the Department of Defense, comprising Fort Sam Houston, Lackland and Randolph plus eight other operating locations and more than 200 mission partners, and supporting more than 250,000 personnel. For someone posted here who bought the car at their last duty station, paragraph (D) is the difference between having a claim and not having one. It turns on your status and your posting when the complaint is filed, not on where the dealership was. Paragraph (E) then extends the same standing to a transferee or assignee who is a Texas resident and registered the vehicle here.

    Bring your orders, the purchase or lease paperwork and the Texas registration, and the definition gets read against your facts before anything is filed.

    Where a San Antonio claim is actually heard

    TxDMV's Office of Administrative Hearings names seven main hearing locations across the state, and San Antonio is one of them, alongside Austin, Carrollton, Corpus Christi, Fort Worth, Houston and Pharr. The department's own wording is that hearings “are conducted in or near the complainant's city of residence,” that examiners are based in Austin and travel to hold them, and that they are scheduled for four hours. Bring the vehicle: the rules generally require the complainant to produce it so that it can be inspected and test driven.

    If the case ever leaves that room, it leaves the city. Section 2301.609(a) sends judicial review to a district court of Travis County. And 28 U.S.C. § 124(d)(4) draws a different map again for a federal warranty claim, composing the San Antonio Division of the Western District of Texas from fourteen counties, Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Dimmit, Frio, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Karnes, Kendall, Kerr, Medina, Real and Wilson, with court held at San Antonio.

    We take San Antonio lemon law claims from across the metro. Eight counties, drawn here as the area we cover rather than as an office we keep.

    MedinaBexarAtascosaWilsonBanderaGuadalupeKendallComal

    The San Antonio metro

    Eight counties, one filing process. Your complaint is filed online with TxDMV and decided by a department hearings examiner, and the hearing itself is set in or near your own city, with San Antonio one of the seven locations TxDMV lists. Pick a county for the detail.

    Hover a county, tap it, or tab to it, and the panel tells you what that county means for a claim.

    We take San Antonio lemon law claims from across the area, including all eight counties of the San Antonio–New Braunfels metro: Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Atascosa, Bandera, Kendall, Medina and Wilson.

    The towns we hear from most:

    • San Antonio
    • New Braunfels
    • Schertz
    • Converse
    • Universal City
    • Cibolo
    • Boerne
    • Seguin
    • Helotes
    • Live Oak
    • Leon Valley
    • Floresville

    Those twelve span six counties, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina and Wilson, and all six sit inside both the eight-county metro and the fourteen counties 28 U.S.C. § 124(d)(4) gives the San Antonio Division.

    How to reach us: RockPoint Law does not keep an office in San Antonio, and a Texas lemon law claim does not need one. The complaint is filed online with TxDMV, one agency covers all 254 Texas counties, and the hearing is set in or near your own city. Our Texas office is in Dallas. The quickest way to start is the online intake form, which we read the same day. If you would rather follow the paperwork yourself first, our Texas lemon law guide sets out the statute in full, our Dallas lemon law page covers the Metroplex, and TxDMV publishes the eligibility tests, a sample notice letter and the repurchase worksheets its own examiners use.

    • Medina County San Antonio's city limits reach across the Bexar line into Medina County, which catches people out. It changes nothing about the claim itself: one agency in Austin hears all 254 counties, you file online with TxDMV, and the examiner comes to you.
    • Bexar County 2,160,088 people on the Census Bureau's 1 July 2025 estimates, and 1,675,717 vehicles registered here in the year to 31 August 2024 on TxDMV's own count. That is roughly one Texas vehicle in fifteen. San Antonio is also one of the seven places TxDMV holds hearings, so a Bexar County claim is usually heard in Bexar County, even though it is filed in Austin.
    • Atascosa County The south end of the metro, on the run down towards Corpus Christi that I-37 makes. There is no separate Atascosa procedure: the complaint goes to TxDMV in Austin, and the hearing is set in or near your own city.
    • Wilson County Floresville, the county seat. Wilson is one of the fourteen counties 28 U.S.C. § 124(d)(4) gives the San Antonio Division of the Western District of Texas, so a federal warranty claim from here is heard at San Antonio rather than sent elsewhere.
    • Bandera County The quietest corner of the metro, and a claim works the same way here as it does downtown. What decides it is the repair history, not the address. Keep every repair order with its date and its odometer reading, because no state record runs alongside them.
    • Guadalupe County Seguin, the county seat, sits at the eastern end of the I-10 run out of the city. It is the mileage those roads add, rather than the two-year mark, that usually ends a rights period out here.
    • Kendall County Boerne, the county seat, at the western end of the I-10 run into the city. A Kendall County claim is filed online with TxDMV like every other one, and the examiner travels to hold the hearing in or near your own city.
    • Comal County New Braunfels, the town the metro is named after. The drive from up here into the city is what usually closes a rights period: 24 months or 24,000 miles, whichever arrives first, and on this commute the odometer gets there before the calendar does.

    County boundaries from us-atlas (ISC, Michael Bostock), built from U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files.

    Case Results

    Recent RockPoint Law Recoveries

    These figures come from our firm's published lemon law settlement record across brands. They are firmwide results, not San Antonio outcomes, and they show what a well-documented defect claim can be worth when it is handled properly.

    $160,264: BMW X6

    Recovery on a vehicle plagued by engine, electrical, and suspension defects.

    $144,550: Porsche Macan

    Refund for a Macan with recurring suspension, drivetrain, electrical, and HVAC problems.

    $110,289: Rivian R1T

    Recovery after repeated electrical, drive-unit, and suspension failures on an electric pickup.

    Figures are drawn from our firm's published settlement record and are not specific to San Antonio matters. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. See more RockPoint Law settlements →

    FAQ

    San Antonio Lemon Law Questions

    The questions San Antonio drivers ask us most, and what you should know before you send anything.

    Is there a San Antonio lemon law, or is it the Texas one?
    It is the Texas one. There is no separate San Antonio ordinance and no Bexar County version, so be careful with anything that offers you one. The statute is Subchapter M of Chapter 2301 of the Texas Occupations Code, sections 2301.601 to 2301.613, administered by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. What is genuinely local is the geography of the claim rather than the rules: your repair record is built in Bexar County, your complaint is filed online to Austin, your hearing is run by a TxDMV hearings examiner, and if a court ever reviews the order, section 2301.609(a) sends it to a district court of Travis County rather than to the courthouse downtown. Same law statewide, a different journey depending on where you start.
    Do I have to travel to Austin for a lemon law hearing?
    Almost certainly not. TxDMV's Office of Administrative Hearings holds hearings around the state and names seven main locations, and San Antonio is one of them, alongside Austin, Carrollton, Corpus Christi, Fort Worth, Houston and Pharr. The department says hearings are conducted in or near the complainant's city of residence, and that it attempts to set them near the complainant's home. The examiners are based in Austin and travel here to hold them. Most drivers never reach a hearing anyway: a TxDMV case advisor is assigned first, mediation is mandatory and nonbinding, and section 2301.160 tolls the chapter's time limits while it is pending. If a hearing is set, bring the vehicle, because the rules generally require it so that it can be inspected and test driven.
    If I lose, which court hears the appeal, the one in San Antonio?
    No, and this catches people out. Section 2301.609(a) gives a party affected by a final order judicial review under the substantial evidence rule in a district court of Travis County, and Government Code section 2001.176(b)(1) says the same for contested cases generally. From Bexar County that is roughly eighty miles up I-35. The petition is due by the 30th day after the order is final and appealable under section 2001.176(a). Bexar County does sit inside the Fourth Court of Appeals District, which Government Code section 22.201(e) composes of thirty-two counties, but a lemon law order will not reach it: section 22.220(d)(1) gives the Fifteenth Court of Appeals exclusive intermediate appellate jurisdiction over civil matters brought by or against a state agency.
    I am active duty at Joint Base San Antonio and I bought the car in another state. Am I covered?
    Possibly, and the answer turns on one paragraph. Section 2301.601(2) defines who counts as an owner, and paragraph (D) reaches a person who purchased or leased the vehicle at retail and is an active duty member of the United States armed forces stationed in this state at the time a proceeding is commenced under this subchapter. Paragraph (C) separately reaches a resident of Texas who has registered the vehicle here. So the question is not only where you bought it. It is your status and your posting when the complaint is filed. Bring your orders, your purchase paperwork and your Texas registration, and we will read the definition against your facts before you file anything, because the paragraph turns on things you can document.
    My air conditioning keeps failing. Is that a lemon law defect in San Antonio?
    It can be, and the route matters. The Texas standard in section 2301.604(a) covers a defect that creates a serious safety hazard or substantially impairs the use or market value of the vehicle. An air conditioning system that quits in a San Antonio August is rarely a serious safety hazard as section 2301.601(4) defines it, because that definition needs a life-threatening malfunction affecting control of the vehicle or a risk of fire. It is far more often a substantial impairment of use, and the National Weather Service puts San Antonio's normal at 122.4 days a year at 90 degrees or above, which makes that a provable argument here in a way it would not be elsewhere. The practical consequence is the repair count: the safety route needs two attempts, the ordinary route needs four.
    How many miles can I put on the car before I lose the claim?
    The number is 24,000, and in San Antonio it usually arrives before the calendar does. Section 2301.605(a)(1)(B) sets the rights period at 24 months or 24,000 miles from original delivery, whichever comes first, and your repair attempts have to fall inside it. A commute from Stone Oak, Alamo Ranch, Converse or out past Loop 1604 to a job inside Loop 410 covers that distance comfortably inside two years, and so does a daily run in from Boerne, New Braunfels or Seguin. Then a separate clock: section 2301.606(d) gives six months after the earliest of your warranty expiring, 24 months passing, or 24,000 miles passing. Passing 24,000 does not end your claim. It starts your six months.
    Can I just sue the dealership that sold me the car?
    Not under the lemon law, and the statute is specific about it. Section 2301.607(b) says the subchapter's remedy is not available against a seller under Business and Commerce Code chapter 2 or 17, but it is available against a manufacturer, converter or distributor in a Chapter 17 DTPA action, after you have exhausted at TxDMV. Section 2301.608(b) narrows the dealer's exposure further: a final order can require a franchised dealer to reimburse only for an item or option the dealer itself added, and only so far as it contributed to the defect. A separate claim against a dealership for something it said or did is a different case on different law, and a Bexar County court would hear that one.
    What does a San Antonio lemon law attorney cost, and what should I bring?
    We handle qualifying lemon law cases on contingency, so there is no upfront fee and no fee unless we recover for you. Filing itself costs $35 under section 2301.712(a), and section 2301.712(b) makes the non-prevailing party reimburse it, which in practice puts the thirty-five dollars back into a successful repurchase total. Bring every repair order with the drop-off and pick-up dates, the purchase or lease agreement, and above all the odometer reading on the day you first reported the fault, because that reading splits your mileage into full-rate and half-rate under the TxDMV worksheet and moves the buyback figure more than anything else in the file. You do not need it organized. We can work from what you have.
    My truck was built at the Toyota plant here in San Antonio. Does that change anything?
    No, and it is a fair question to ask. Where a vehicle was assembled has nothing to do with who owes you the remedy. Section 2301.603(a) puts the duty on the manufacturer, converter or distributor, and section 2301.606(c) requires written notice to that party and an opportunity to cure before any order can require a refund or a replacement. The address you send that notice to is the one printed in your owner's manual, not the plant on the South Side. The one place the assembly question does matter is upfitting: if a body, a cab or special equipment was fitted to the chassis before the retail sale, section 2301.002 makes that business a converter and a separate possible defendant.
    How long does a San Antonio lemon law claim take?
    The statute gives a ceiling rather than a promise. Section 2301.607(c) is the one to watch: if TxDMV has not issued a final order before the 151st day after your complaint was filed, it must send you and the manufacturer written notice by certified mail saying the 150-day period has expired and that you may file a civil action instead. Section 2301.607(d) then lets you sue any person named in the complaint despite the exhaustion requirement, and section 2301.607(e) says a failure to send the notice does not affect that right. The department must extend the 150 days where the delay was your doing. Before all that sits mediation, which resolves plenty of claims in a fraction of the time.
    Do I have to keep taking the car back to the same San Antonio dealer?
    Not to the same one, no. Section 2301.605(a) counts repairs made by the manufacturer, converter or distributor or an authorized agent or franchised dealer of one of them, so attempts at different franchised dealers around Bexar County still count toward the four-times or two-attempt threshold, provided it is the same nonconformity each time. Two practical warnings. Repairs at an independent shop are not attempts by a franchised dealer and generally will not count. And every time you switch dealers you risk the paperwork trail fragmenting, which is exactly what the manufacturer will argue about later. Whoever does the work, get a printed repair order with the complaint described, the date and the odometer reading on it.
    I live in San Antonio but bought the car in Austin. Where does that leave me?
    In the same place, in almost every case. Section 2301.601(2) defines owner by how you acquired the vehicle and your connection to Texas, not by which city's dealership sold it: paragraph (A) covers a retail purchase from a license holder, paragraph (B) a lessor or lessee, and paragraph (C) a Texas resident who has registered the vehicle here. Nothing in Subchapter M ties the claim to the county of sale. Nor does it change where the claim goes, because one agency in Austin handles all 254 Texas counties and section 2301.609(a) sends every judicial review to Travis County regardless. What can matter practically is which dealer network you have been using for the repairs, and whether those orders were written up consistently.

    Written and reviewed by Aaron Waldo, Lemon Law Attorney, RockPoint Law, Texas Bar No. 24107954 (State Bar record). Prepared September 2026 to reflect the Texas Lemon Law, Subchapter M of Chapter 2301 of the Texas Occupations Code, Sections 2301.601 through 2301.613, administered by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. See our editorial policy.

    Anyone can check a Texas attorney's license status and public discipline record in the State Bar of Texas member directory, which is the regulator's own record rather than a bio page. We think you should, for any firm you are considering, including this one.

    Track record

    RockPoint Law, by the numbers

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    25+
    Years of combined experience
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    Tell us what the car is doing in San Antonio

    The same free case review the rest of the site uses. Three details about the vehicle, and how to reach you.

    • The year and make of your vehicle
    • What the dealer has already tried, and whether you paid for it
    • Your name, phone and email, and we read it the same day

    No cost, no obligation. Contacting RockPoint Law does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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    The same attorneys who handle claims nationwide handle them here. Two minutes on who we are and how we work.

    Client Stories

    What Our Clients Say

    Real results from real clients who trusted
    RockPoint Law with their lemon law claims.

    I contacted RockPoint Law in July 2025 and by mid Jan 2026, I had received my settlement proceeds. A mid 5-figure loan was paid off and the manufacturer took possession of the vehicle. Not having that car payment and the mandatory full coverage freed up about $900/month. If you're on the fence about calling RockPoint Law, let it go. The relief you will feel when it all works out will be soooo worth it.

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    Henry Jose
    Google Review

    Was having nothing but issues with the DEF system in my Ram 3500. I didn't have high hopes because 3500 trucks are generally excluded from lemon law. The entire process from the time I contacted RockPoint Law to the time I received my settlement was under 6 months! Their response times were well above expectations.

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    JR
    Joe Russo
    Google Review

    My Telluride's transmission would jerk so hard between gears that my coffee would spill. Dealer had it four times. When I called RockPoint Law, they asked the exact technical question I'd been researching for weeks. We got a buyback with reimbursement for my deductible and rental costs. They speak fluent mechanic before they speak lawyer.

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    K
    Kirill
    Google Review

    Turbo failure on my EcoBoost F-150. Dealer replaced it once, then denied the second. Steven Nassi compared my case to known manufacturing defects for that engine. Other lawyers just saw 'engine trouble.' Steven built the argument around the known defect pattern. Secured a full refund.

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    JR
    Joshua Ragsdale
    Google Review

    Our minivan's sliding door would just stop working. Not a great feature with little kids. Tried to get it fixed under warranty three times. Final straw was when it almost closed on my son's arm. Leo was our attorney and got us a great outcome. They handled everything from start to finish.

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    Jorge Garcia
    Google Review

    My family's cross-country road trip turned into a nightmare when our brand-new SUV broke down in three different states. Each dealership kept giving us the run-around. RockPoint Law tracked every failed repair, hotel receipt, and even our unused theme park tickets. They got us a full buyback plus $8,200 for the vacation that fell apart.

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    AG
    Adam Gore
    Google Review

    The active suspension in my Ram 1500 started making a loud 'clunk' on every bump. Dealer replaced one part but the noise just moved to another corner. After the third repair, I was done. Natalie Nassi said, 'A repeated failure of a major chassis component is a clear impairment to value and use.' She didn't see a noise; she saw a failed system.

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    PM
    Piyawan Maprakhon
    Google Review

    My car is basically my mobile office. When the electrical system fried two laptops and killed my productivity, I reached out to RockPoint Law. Unlike the dealer who treated me as a nuisance, RockPoint Law saw how it impacted my ability to work. They secured a full refund on the vehicle plus $6,500 for lost income and equipment.

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    SK
    Sadie Kim
    Google Review

    The manufacturer told me I was out of luck. RockPoint Law told me otherwise — and proved it! Their lemon law experience turned my nightmare into a fair resolution. What impressed me most was their transparency — no false claims, just hard facts and harder work. Worth every penny and then some!

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    KE
    Kevin Eimuth
    Google Review

    From the moment I walked into their office shaking with frustration, the team at RockPoint Law put me at ease. They listened patiently to my whole story, then laid out a clear game plan. Six weeks later, I was holding a check that made all those repair shop trips worth it. True professionals who deliver!

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    JB
    Jatt James Bond
    Google Review

    We had two vans with the same transmission failure. RockPoint Law consolidated both claims, lined up build dates, and pushed for an extended coverage fix. Both vans were repaired, and we got downtime reimbursed.

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    KS
    Kishan Singh
    Google Review

    The hands-free liftgate on my SUV would randomly open in my garage, denting the door. I felt crazy complaining about a 'convenience feature.' Our attorney reframed it: 'An uncontrolled operation of a motorized component is a safety and property damage risk.' The team used my security camera footage as evidence. We got a solid settlement.

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    PS
    Peyman Soleimani
    Google Review
    Our Team

    Meet the Team
    Behind RockPoint Law

    A dedicated team that stands with you through every step of your Lemon Law claim.

    Steven Nassi
    Steven Nassi
    Managing Partner
    Founder · 25+ years of litigation experience
    ★ Founding Partner
    Natalie Nassi
    Natalie Nassi
    Partner
    Columbia University · 20+ years in consumer advocacy
    Ron Kaniuk
    Ron Kaniuk
    Florida Managing Partner
    St. John's University School of Law · Consumer protection & lemon law
    Aaron Waldo
    Aaron Waldo
    Attorney
    U.S. Marine Corps veteran · Automotive background
    Liam Jones
    Liam Jones
    Attorney
    Licensed in New York & New Jersey
    Christian Garcia
    Christian Garcia
    Senior Case Manager
    Case management from intake through resolution
    Rudy Gutierrez
    Rudy Gutierrez
    Intake Manager
    First point of contact for new clients & case evaluations
    Manufacturers We've Taken to Court

    We Take On the
    Biggest Names

    Don't take on the manufacturer alone.

    Send us the repair orders. We will tell you which of the three routes your record supports, what your six months runs from, and what the vehicle is likely worth back.

    Check my case →
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