Kansas Lemon Law (K.S.A. § 50-645)

The Kansas Lemon Law is codified at K.S.A. § 50-645 — a single section within the broader Kansas Consumer Protection Act (Chapter 50, Article 6). It establishes the Rights Period, the three-track repair-attempt presumption, the refund/replacement remedy with the distinctive AAA Your Driving Costs mileage offset, and the mandatory § 703 IDS exhaustion prerequisite.

Structure of the statute

§ 50-645 is unusually compact — most peer states use 6-12 separate Lemon Law sections:

Subsection	Subject
§ 50-645(a)	Definitions (“consumer,” “motor vehicle,” “nonconformity”)
§ 50-645(b)	Coverage scope and 12,000-lb GVWR exclusion
§ 50-645(c)	Refund/replacement remedy + manufacturer choice + mandatory § 703 IDS prerequisite + AAA mileage formula
§ 50-645(d)	Three-track presumption (4-attempt / 30-calendar-day OOS / 10-cumulative-attempt) + Rights Period + force-majeure tolling
§ 50-645(e)	Resale disclosure of reacquired vehicles
§ 50-645(f)	Affirmative defenses and savings clauses

Notably absent: no attorney-fee subsection. Kansas joins very few peer states without any state-law Lemon Law fee provision. The federal Magnuson-Moss § 2310(d)(2) is the load-bearing mandatory-fee basis.

§ 50-645(d) — 1-year Rights Period “whichever earlier”

The eligibility window:

If a new motor vehicle does not conform to all applicable express warranties, and the consumer reports the nonconformity within the term of any warranty or one year following the date of original delivery to the consumer, whichever is the earlier date…

The 1-year statutory cap controls almost universally since manufacturer express warranties (typically 36 months / 36,000 miles bumper-to-bumper) extend longer. Kansas joins the short-Rights-Period tier with Tennessee, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Utah.

§ 50-645(d) — three-track presumption

§ 50-645(d) establishes a three-track rebuttable presumption when, within the Rights Period:

Track 1 — Same nonconformity, 4 attempts

The same nonconformity which substantially impairs the use and value of the motor vehicle has been subject to repair four or more times by the manufacturer or its agents or authorized dealers within the term of any warranty or during the period of one year following original delivery, whichever is earlier, but such nonconformity continues to exist.

Joins California / Kentucky / Washington / North Carolina / Arizona / Colorado / Wisconsin / Minnesota / Indiana / Maryland / Missouri / Nevada / Louisiana / Connecticut / Utah at the standard 4-attempt tier. Less consumer-favorable than 3-attempt states (TN/MA/GA/VA/OR/SC/AR/MS).

Track 2 — 30 cumulative calendar days OOS

The motor vehicle is out of service due to repair for a cumulative total of 30 or more calendar days, during the term of any warranty or within one year following original delivery, whichever comes first.

Standard 30-calendar-day tier. Less consumer-favorable than the Utah § 13-20-5 / Colorado § 42-10-103 / Massachusetts § 7N½ / Indiana § 24-5-13-15 / Missouri § 407.560 / Oregon § 646A.402 / North Carolina § 20-351.5 / Oklahoma § 901 business-day-counting tier, and substantially less than Mississippi § 63-17-159’s 15-working-day floor.

Track 3 — DISTINCTIVE 10-attempt different-defects aggregation

There have been 10 or more attempts to repair any nonconformities which substantially impair the use and value of the motor vehicle to the consumer and such attempts to repair have been attempts by the manufacturer or its agents or authorized dealers.

STRUCTURALLY DISTINCTIVE — most peer states only count same-defect attempts. Kansas provides an aggregate-multi-defect pathway for vehicles with many smaller recurring problems that, individually, would not trigger the 4-attempt single-defect threshold but collectively demonstrate vehicle-level lemon character.

Parallel in spirit to Arkansas § 4-90-406’s 5-cumulative-attempt prong, but pitched higher at 10 vs. AR’s 5. No precise parallel among other current cluster states — Kansas’s 10-attempt aggregation is one of the more distinctive Lemon Law features in the country.

Force-majeure tolling

§ 50-645(d) extends all three tracks plus the Rights Period itself by:

any period of time during which repair services are not available to the consumer because of war, invasion, strike, fire, flood or other natural disaster.

Distinctive express-tolling language — particularly relevant given Kansas’s Tornado Alley climate exposure. Unusual among Lemon Laws to expressly list flood and natural disaster.

§ 50-645(c) — manufacturer-option refund or replacement

§ 50-645(c) provides:

The manufacturer shall replace the motor vehicle with a comparable motor vehicle under warranty or accept return of the vehicle from the consumer and refund to the consumer the full purchase or lease price…

The manufacturer chooses (not the consumer) — joins Oklahoma § 901(C), South Carolina § 56-28-40, Arkansas § 4-90-407, and Utah § 13-20-5 at the manufacturer-option tier. Distinct from CA/TX/FL/NY — and from Mississippi § 63-17-159, which “gives the consumer the option” — consumer-choice frameworks.

§ 50-645(c) — AAA Your Driving Costs mileage offset

§ 50-645(c) provides:

A reasonable allowance for use shall be that amount directly attributable to use by the consumer and any previous consumer prior to the first report of the nonconformity to the manufacturer or its agents or authorized dealers, calculated from the most recent edition of Your Driving Costs, published by the American Automobile Association.

Two distinctive consumer features:

Pre-first-report-only mileage counted — mileage accrued AFTER the first nonconformity report is excluded (similar in spirit to Iowa § 322G.4’s presumption-date cap). Consumer-favorable for cases where the defect first manifested early.
AAA Your Driving Costs methodology — STRUCTURALLY DISTINCTIVE among US Lemon Laws. Most peer states use simple price × miles ÷ denominator formulas. AAA’s methodology blends depreciation, scheduled maintenance, fuel, and insurance into a per-mile cost figure that varies by vehicle category (sedan / SUV / crossover / large truck / EV).

For mainstream sedans and crossovers, AAA’s per-mile cost tracks broadly with peer-state per-mile flat formulas. For luxury / premium-truck / EV vehicles, AAA tends to produce higher per-mile figures and thus larger offsets — less consumer-favorable than Mississippi’s flat $0.20/mile for these vehicle categories. For high-mileage commuter cases where the defect emerged late in the Rights Period, the AAA methodology can result in substantial offsets reducing the refund.

§ 50-645(c) — MANDATORY § 703 IDS prerequisite

§ 50-645(c) imposes a strict procedural prerequisite:

If a manufacturer has established an informal dispute settlement procedure which complies in all respects with the provisions of title 16, code of federal regulations, part 703, the provisions of subsection (c) concerning refunds or replacement shall not apply to any consumer who has not first resorted to such procedure.

Consequence:

If the manufacturer maintains a certified 16 C.F.R. Part 703 IDS (most major OEMs do — see our BBB Auto Line article), the consumer MUST exhaust IDS before the § 50-645(c) refund/replacement remedy attaches.
Failure to exhaust IDS can result in dismissal of the Lemon Law claim, though parallel Magnuson-Moss and KCPA claims may survive.

Kansas joins Mississippi § 63-17-163 at the mandatory-IDS-prerequisite tier. Procedurally rigid.

§ 50-645(b) — 12,000-lb GVWR limit

§ 50-645(b) excludes:

Vehicles with gross vehicle weight rating over 12,000 lbs (excludes most Class 3+ commercial trucks but includes more Class 2b heavy-duty pickups than peer states with 10,000-lb cutoffs — F-250 / Ram 2500 / Silverado 2500 typically covered under KS).
Customized parts added by second-stage manufacturers or converters under K.S.A. § 8-2401 (RV conversions, work-truck upfits, ambulance / fire-truck conversions).

§ 50-645(e) — resale disclosure

§ 50-645(e) requires reacquired vehicles to be:

Labeled as Lemon Law buybacks on the title.
Disclosed to subsequent purchasers in writing.

Violation creates additional KCPA § 50-626 deceptive-act exposure (up-to-$2,000-per-violation civil penalty).

§ 50-645 — NO attorney-fee provision

Critically, § 50-645 contains no fee-shifting language. This is a structural weakness distinctive among US Lemon Laws. Kansas plaintiffs rely on:

Magnuson-Moss § 2310(d)(2) — MANDATORY federal fees. The load-bearing fee basis in most Kansas vehicle-defect cases.
KCPA § 50-634(e) — discretionary state fees (“may award”).

Most cases file in federal D. Kan. for the Magnuson-Moss mandatory fee provision.

Bottom line

Kansas’s § 50-645 provides a standard refund/replacement framework with two structurally distinctive features: the 10-cumulative-attempt different-defects aggregation track and the AAA Your Driving Costs mileage methodology. The mandatory § 703 IDS prerequisite is procedurally rigid. The total absence of any state-law fee provision shifts the load to federal Magnuson-Moss — federal D. Kan. venue is the standard fee strategy.

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