Car Dealerships Editing and Proofreading Services

Information on the window form outranks the contract the buyer signs. Under 16 CFR 455.3(b), the information on the final version of that form "is incorporated into the contract of sale," and it "overrides any contrary provisions in the contract of sale."¹ The rule then supplies two sentences the contract must carry to say so, required conspicuously in each consumer contract of sale.¹ One of the dealership's documents is ranked above another in advance, and the rule writes the passage in which the second announces it.

The form's wording is not the dealer's to set

Paragraph 455.2(a)(2) is unusually specific about text. The capitalization, punctuation and wording of all items, headings, and text on the form "must be exactly as required by this Rule."² The physical specification sits in the same paragraph. The entire form is printed "in 100% black ink on a white stock no smaller than 11 inches high by 7 1/4 inches wide," in the type styles, sizes and format indicated.²

Display is prescribed as well. The Buyers Guide is shown "prominently and conspicuously in any location on a vehicle and in such a fashion that both sides are readily readable."² It may come off during a test drive, and it goes back "as soon as the test drive is over."² Both faces of the form therefore have to be readable where the form hangs.

One word imports four statutory obligations

Inside the warranty box the dealer marks Full or Limited.² A full warranty is defined by the federal minimum standards at 15 U.S.C. 2304, and that section sets four of them.³ The warrantor must remedy the product within a reasonable time and without charge, and may not limit the duration of any implied warranty.³ It may not exclude or limit consequential damages unless that exclusion or limitation "conspicuously appears on the face of the warranty."³ After a reasonable number of failed attempts it must let the consumer elect a refund or a replacement.³

Subsection 2304(e) then makes the designation do the work. Where a supplier designates a warranty as a "full (statement of duration)" warranty, that warranty is "deemed to incorporate at least the minimum requirements of this section and rules prescribed under this section."³ The deeming runs to any action under section 2310(d) of the title, and to any action under state law.³ A box marked on a window form is a choice between two words with different statutory weights.

A vocabulary rule inside the same box

The description of coverage has its own constraints. It must name which specific systems are covered, and paragraph 455.2(b)(2)(ii) gives an example: "engine, transmission, differential."² The same paragraph closes a common shortcut, providing that a dealer cannot use shorthand "such as 'drive train' or 'power train' for covered systems."²

Three further subparagraphs follow. Paragraph (iii) gives the duration, with "30 days or 1,000 miles, whichever occurs first" as the rule's example, and (iv) gives the percentage of the repair cost the dealer pays.² Paragraph (v) provides that a dealer "may, but are not required to, disclose that a warranty from a source other than the dealer applies to the vehicle."² Where negotiation changes the coverage, the changes are marked on the form itself.²

Nothing else the dealership writes may contradict it

Section 455.4 is written around an effect rather than around a document. A dealer may not make any statements, "oral or written, or take other actions which alter or contradict the disclosures required by" the window form and contract sections.⁴ Warranty coverage may still be negotiated, so long as the final terms are identified in the contract of sale and summarized on the copy of the window form given to the buyer.⁴

Whatever else the dealership writes is caught to the extent it alters or contradicts those disclosures. A sentence written elsewhere is therefore measured against a form the rule has already fixed. The form is not the last document drafted, but it is the one nothing else may contradict.

When the sale is conducted in Spanish

Language follows the conversation rather than the paperwork. Under 16 CFR 455.5(a), where a dealer conducts a sale in Spanish, the window form required by 455.2 and the contract disclosures required by 455.3 "must be in that language."⁵ Both an English form and a Spanish translation may be displayed on the vehicle, and the rule supplies the translation and layout to use.⁵

The rule prints the Spanish text of the implied warranties disclosure, the service contract disclosure and the optional signature acknowledgment.⁵ Those are given as text to be used, not as a guide for a translator. A dealership that commissions its own translation of them has produced a second version of something already fixed.

The dealer's promises stay the dealer's

A dealership decides what it will warrant, for how long, and on which systems. Its counsel decides what the contract says. Neither decision is put to an editor, and no view of ours on either would be worth having.

What we do read is whether the words on one document are the words another document requires. Every manuscript that reaches us is treated as confidential. We count the sentences a contract carries against the two 455.3(b) prescribes, and we note whether each appears conspicuously. We hold a systems list against the shorthand the rule names. We put an advertisement next to the form it may not contradict, and a Spanish disclosure next to the text the rule prints.