Commiefornia is not known for being particularly friendly to cars or car enthusiasts. State and local governments have ridiculous laws that infringe on the rights of car enthusiasts by requiring biennial vehicle smog checks and making it illegal for cars to spew reckless amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, for example. I mean, there are only hundreds of accredited scientific studies that directly link tailpipe emissions to asthma-causing smog, what’s the big deal?
Now, in a direct assault on the livelihood of your local sheisty used car dealer, Commiefornia’s governor Gavin Newscum signed the California Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) Act into law. When the CARS Act goes into effect in October 2026, it will ban dealers from adding charges for “products and services that do not provide coverage for the vehicle, the consumer, or the transaction,” and even give buyers the chance to cancel any used car purchase under $50,000 with a three-day cooling off period. What is this world coming to?
In case you didn’t catch it, I’m being sarcastic with the whole Commiefornia and Newscum bits. California’s population density, unique geography, and car-centric lifestyle all pose an array of challenges for car enthusiasts, but it’s ultimately more important to have clean(ish) air to breathe than it is to have cars with cat deletes. And as a SoCal native who lives on a writer’s salary, I’m a proponent of consumer protections. Anywho, back to the CARS Act.
Clever name, cleverer consumer protections
The law goes into effect on Oct 1, 2026, and prevents sheisty car dealers from charging unsuspecting used car buyers useless charges in the final price of their purchase, and allows buyers a three-day cooling-off period. According to Car and Driver, “The law uses general and specific language here, noting obvious swindles like oil-change packages for EVs or catalytic-converter etchings for cars that don’t have them, and also ‘products and services that do not provide coverage for the vehicle, the consumer, or the transaction.’ Dealers can, however, still charge for an add-on product or service, even if the buyer doesn’t end up using that service. “
The cooling-off period has stipulations, too. It only applies to used cars costing $50,000 or less, and the cancellation has to occur without any damage, and before more than 400 miles are added to the odometer. Dealers are allowed to charge a restocking fee that’s 1.5% of the sale price with a maximum charge of $600, and dealers are allowed to charge $1 for every mile traveled over 250 miles.
This new law may have all the no-name used car dealerships that line Pacific Coast Highway shaking in their boots, but any upstanding dealer needn’t worry about the CARS Act. The only change that may impact dealers is the three-day cooling-off period, but this protection may serve to make consumers feel more confident in making a used car purchase. I’m a fan of consumer protections, but what do you think? Is this yet another example of Commiefornia trying to ruin all the fun?
