How is a lemon law buyback amount calculated?

Start with the purchase price, add whichever of sales tax, title and registration fees, finance charges and defect-caused costs your state actually names, then subtract an allowance for your use of the vehicle. Your remaining loan is paid off out of that total and you receive the rest. The allowance is set by state law and is the part that varies most — both the formula and which odometer reading it applies to.

Does the mileage deduction use my current odometer reading?

It depends on the state, and this is the single most copied error in lemon law content. California and Pennsylvania measure the allowance from the odometer at your first repair visit, so later miles do not count against you. Florida counts miles up to the settlement agreement or arbitration hearing, which means its deduction keeps growing while your claim is pending. New York uses total miles of operation and charges you for none of the first 12,000. Illinois fixes no reading at all.

Why do lemon law calculators give different answers for the same car?

Because most of them run one formula for the whole country. On a $45,000 vehicle at 6,000 miles: California deducts $2,250; Pennsylvania deducts $600; Florida deducts $2,250; New York deducts $0; Illinois deducts nothing its statute defines, because it states no formula. A tool that applies a single formula and relabels the heading with your state's name is not modelling your state.

Is sales tax refunded in a lemon law buyback?

Not everywhere, and getting this wrong moves the answer by thousands. California, Pennsylvania and Florida put the sales tax back as part of the refund. New York and Illinois do not — New York because the manufacturer's duty is to hand you the claim form while the tax itself comes back from the Commissioner of Taxation and Finance on Form AU-11, prorated and within three years; Illinois because its statute carves taxes out of "collateral charges" by name and routes the credit through the retailer instead.

What happens to my loan if the manufacturer buys the car back?

The manufacturer pays the outstanding balance directly to your lender and you receive whatever is left. If you owe more than the refund comes to, the loan is cleared and no cash reaches you.

Do I need a lawyer, and will it cost me part of the buyback?

Most lemon law statutes make the manufacturer responsible for a prevailing consumer's reasonable attorney fees, paid separately from and on top of the repurchase amount, which is why representation usually costs nothing up front. Illinois is the exception here: its Act provides no attorney fees, no civil penalty and no multiple damages at all, so do not assume the usual arrangement there. Either way this calculator excludes legal fees from the figure. Whether to hire anyone is your decision — this tool does not refer you to anybody and does not collect your details.

Is this legal advice?

No. It is an estimate of the statutory refund formula in the states listed, cited to the statute so you can check it. Whether a specific defect substantially impairs a vehicle’s use, value or safety is a legal judgment about your particular facts.

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Lemon law buyback calculator

What a manufacturer owes you when it repurchases a car it could not fix — the price you paid, plus whichever fees your state puts back, less an allowance for your use of the vehicle. The allowance is the part that differs by state, and it differs more than almost anyone writing about it admits: different formulas, different odometer readings, and in one state no formula at all. We model California, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York and Illinois against the statute, and show the arithmetic.

In plain English

If a serious fault keeps coming back and the dealer cannot fix it, your state can force the manufacturer to buy the car back. Roughly: three or four attempts at the same problem, or about a month of the car sitting at the shop.

What you get back is not what the car is worth today — it is what you PAID, minus an allowance for the driving you already got out of it. That allowance is the part every state calculates differently, and it is where the published figures go wrong.

Whatever you still owe on the loan comes out of that money first, and the rest reaches you. Owe more than the refund? The loan clears and no cash arrives, which is worth knowing before you start.

That is the whole shape of it. Everything below is the arithmetic, the statute it comes from, and the parts nobody can promise you.

Your vehicle

Purchase price

Odometer at first repair visit

The allowance is calculated on the miles you had driven when you first delivered the car for repair. Miles added afterwards — including while the dealer has the car — do not increase it.

What you paid

Sales tax paid

Title, license & registration

Down payment

Monthly payment

Payments made so far

Loan balance remaining

Towing, rental & out-of-pocket repairs

Repair history

Repair visits for the same problem

Total days out of service

Months from delivery to first repair

Is it a safety defect?

What California law says you are owed

Vehicle purchase price	$45,000
Sales and use tax paid	$3,938
Title, license and registration fees	$650
Incidental costs (towing, rental, out-of-pocket repairs)	$450
Less: allowance for your use before the first repair	−$2,250
Manufacturer’s total obligation	$47,788
Less: paid directly to your lender	−$20,000
Cash that reaches you	$27,788

How the deduction was worked out: $45,000 × (6,000 miles ÷ 120,000) = $2,250. California sets no ceiling on this deduction — every mile driven before the first repair visit increases it.

Does this meet California’s repair-attempt presumption?

2 repair attempts (defect likely to cause death or serious injury) — Not claimed as a safety defect.
4 repair attempts at the same problem — 4 of 4 attempts.
30 cumulative days out of service — 22 of 30 days.

Meeting a statutory path is not the same as having a case. The defect must also substantially impair the vehicle’s use, value or safety — a judgment no calculator can make for you. This tool is information, not legal advice.

Showing California’s rules. See the California calculator for what this figure assumes, what it leaves out, and the statute behind every line — or pick your own state below.

Showing California’s rules. Verified against primary law on 2026-08-09. This is information, not legal advice, and it is not an offer from any manufacturer.

California rules →Pennsylvania rules →Florida rules →New York rules →Illinois rules →

The short answer

A buyback refunds what you paid — the purchase price, plus whichever fees and costs your state names — minus one deduction for your use of the vehicle. That deduction is set by state law and the formulas are not close to each other. On the same $45,000 car at 6,000 miles, California deducts $2,250, Pennsylvania deducts $600, Florida deducts $2,250, New York deducts $0 and Illinois deducts nothing the statute defines.

Which odometer reading counts is not the same question in every state. California and Pennsylvania use the reading at your first repair visit; Florida counts miles up to the settlement or arbitration hearing, so its deduction grows while your claim is pending; New York uses total miles and charges you for none of the first 12,000.
Sales tax is not universally refunded by the manufacturer. California, Pennsylvania and Florida put it back; New York sends you to the tax department for it on a separate form and clock, and Illinois carves it out of the refund by name.
Your remaining loan is paid off out of the same money. The cash that reaches you is the refund minus the payoff, and on an upside-down loan that can be nothing.
Attorney fees usually come from the manufacturer, separately and on top — but not in Illinois, whose Act provides no fees, no civil penalty and no multiple damages. Either way the figure here excludes them.

How a buyback is actually calculated

Four things go in and one thing comes out. A buyback is not an appraisal and it has nothing to do with what your car is worth today — it is a statutory refund of what you put in, less the value of the driving you got before the trouble started.

The parts of a buyback
Step	What happens	Where it goes wrong elsewhere
1. Start with what you paid	The purchase price of the vehicle, including manufacturer-installed options and delivery.	Some tools start from today’s market value. That is an appraisal, not a refund.
2. Add the money that went with it	Whichever of sales tax, title, license and registration, finance charges and defect-caused costs your state actually names. Three of the five here refund the tax; two do not.	Most calculators silently leave every one of these at zero — and the ones that do add them add them everywhere, including in the states that exclude them.
3. Subtract the allowance for your use	A deduction from your state’s own formula, applied to whichever odometer reading that state actually charges you for.	Running one formula nationwide, and asking for “miles at first repair” everywhere. Both the formula and the reading are genuinely different by state.
4. Settle the loan	The manufacturer pays your lender directly; you receive the remainder.	Treating the payoff as a reduction in what the manufacturer owes rather than a transfer.

Why the state you bought in changes the number

The allowance for use is the single biggest variable in a buyback, and states do not calculate it the same way. Some take a fraction of the purchase price with no ceiling. Others cap it. On the same car the gap runs into thousands.

Deduction on a $45,000 vehicle at 6,000 miles
State	Statutory formula	Which odometer	Deduction	Capped?
California	Price × (miles ÷ 120,000)	Odometer at first repair visit	$2,250	No ceiling
Pennsylvania	Lesser of 10¢/mile and 10% of price	Odometer when you first reported the problem	$600	Yes
Florida	Base price × (miles ÷ 120,000)	Odometer at settlement or your arbitration hearing	$2,250	No ceiling
New York	Price × ((miles − 12,000) ÷ 100,000)	Total miles on the odometer	$0	No ceiling
Illinois	None — the statute states no formula	Miles before you first reported the problem	Not defined	Not stated

This is the reason we publish one calculator per state instead of one dropdown. Across the states here that do state a formula, the same car at the same mileage draws deductions $2,250 apart. And Illinois supplies no formula at all — no denominator, no per-mile rate, no cap anywhere in the statute — so a tool that shows you a state-specific deduction there is quoting a law that does not exist. A tool that runs a single formula and relabels the heading with your state’s name is not modelling your state; it is guessing.

What the state comparison tables get wrong

Nearly every “lemon law deduction by state” table you will find is a list of divisors with no statute section attached to any of them. That is how two of the five states below end up with published formulas their legislatures never wrote. Each correction here names the claim, the statute that settles it, and what the difference is worth.

Published claims, and the statutory text that refutes them
State	What ranks on page one	What the statute says
California (Cal. Civ. Code § 1793.2(d)(2)(B)–(C))	That your California refund is simply purchase price − mileage offset − loan payoff, which is what most calculators on this SERP compute.	Section 1793.2(d)(2)(B) requires restitution of the price paid PLUS sales and use tax, license and registration fees, and incidental costs such as towing and rental cars. Leaving those at zero drops roughly $4,000 off a typical $45,000 California claim.
Pennsylvania (73 P.S. §§ 1951–1963)	That Pennsylvania deducts (miles driven before your first repair ÷ 100,000) × the purchase price — a formula that currently appears on page one of Google.	The statute caps the deduction at 10¢ per mile or 10% of the purchase price, whichever is LESS. On a $45,000 car the ÷100,000 formula charges 45¢ a mile — four and a half times what the law allows — and understates your refund by thousands.
Florida (Ch. 681, Fla. Stat. (2025))	That Florida deducts your purchase price × (miles at your FIRST REPAIR ÷ 120,000) — the formula on page one today, repeated inside Google’s own AI summary, and paired there with a fabricated "24 months or 24,000 miles" eligibility cap.	Section 681.102(19) counts the miles "up to the date of a settlement agreement or arbitration hearing, whichever occurs first" — near the END of a claim, not the start — and multiplies them by the base selling price EXCLUDING taxes, government fees and dealer fees, not by the purchase price. Florida’s deduction therefore keeps growing while your case is pending. And the rights period is 24 months from delivery with no mileage element at all: "24,000" appears nowhere in Chapter 681. The Attorney General’s own remedy calculation guideline states the same formula, and the Attorney General is the agency that administers this chapter.
New York (N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 198-a)	That New York deducts (miles at your first repair ÷ 120,000) × the purchase price — the formula in Google’s synthesized answer on this query, worked through there as "(6,000 ÷ 120,000) × $50,000 = $2,500".	The correct answer to that example is $0. § 198-a(a)(4) uses a denominator of 100,000, not California’s 120,000, and charges only "the mileage which is IN EXCESS OF twelve thousand miles" — a car at 6,000 miles is below the threshold entirely. The Attorney General puts it flatly: "No deductions may be made for the first 12,000 miles of use." Page one invents a $2,500 deduction that New York law does not permit.
Illinois (815 ILCS 380/1–380/8)	That Illinois deducts (miles driven to your first service visit × the purchase price) ÷ 120,000 — or ÷ 100,000, "depending on the court’s approach", as one page-1 result hedges it. The generic national calculators simply apply ÷120,000 to Illinois without saying so.	Illinois has no offset formula at all. A whole-text search over all eight sections of 815 ILCS 380 returns no denominator, no cents-per-mile rate, no percentage and no cap — § 380/3(c) defines the allowance qualitatively as the "wear and tear" from use before you first reported the problem, and stops there. The ÷120,000 figure is California’s statutory denominator. Applying it to Illinois is not an approximation, it is inventing a statute — and the hedge between two denominators is the tell that neither is in the law.

Two of these are not approximations, they are inventions. Pennsylvania’s act sets no denominator — the allowance is the lesser of a per-mile rate and a percentage ceiling — and Illinois sets no arithmetic whatsoever. A table that assigns either of them a divide-by-100,000 or divide-by-120,000 figure is reporting a statute that does not exist, and the reader has no way to tell, because no section number is given to check.

States we model (5)

Each state publishes only once its full model is cited to primary law — the deduction formula, the repair-attempt presumption and its window, what the refund covers, and the filing deadline. We would rather cover 5 states correctly than claim fifty and run one formula.

California lemon law buyback calculator — Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1793.2(d)(2)(B)–(C). 4 repair attempts or 30 cumulative days out of service.
Pennsylvania lemon law buyback calculator — Automobile Lemon Law, 73 P.S. §§ 1951–1963. 3 repair attempts or 30 cumulative days out of service.
Florida lemon law buyback calculator — Motor Vehicle Warranty Enforcement Act, Ch. 681, Fla. Stat. (2025). 3 repair attempts or 30 cumulative days out of service.
New York lemon law buyback calculator — New Car Lemon Law, N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 198-a. 4 repair attempts or 30 cumulative days out of service.
Illinois lemon law buyback calculator — New Vehicle Buyer Protection Act, 815 ILCS 380/1–380/8. 4 repair attempts or 30 cumulative business days out of service.

What this calculator will not tell you

The honest limits, stated up front, because a number without its boundaries is worse than no number.

Civil penalties, which some states allow where a manufacturer refuses in bad faith, and which can exceed the refund itself.
Attorney fees and court costs. Most of these statutes make the manufacturer pay them for a prevailing consumer, separately and on top — but not all of them do, and the state pages say which.
Whatever a manufacturer, arbitrator or court will actually agree to, which turns on facts and advocacy no calculator can see.
The value of taking a replacement vehicle instead of a refund — and in at least one state modelled here, that choice is the manufacturer’s to make rather than yours.
Lease claims. Several of these statutes price a lease with entirely separate machinery, and running one through the purchase formula produces a wrong number.
Whether your particular defect “substantially impairs the use, value or safety” of the vehicle. That is the legal test in every state and it is a judgment about facts, not arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions

How is a lemon law buyback amount calculated?: Start with the purchase price, add whichever of sales tax, title and registration fees, finance charges and defect-caused costs your state actually names, then subtract an allowance for your use of the vehicle. Your remaining loan is paid off out of that total and you receive the rest. The allowance is set by state law and is the part that varies most — both the formula and which odometer reading it applies to.
Does the mileage deduction use my current odometer reading?: It depends on the state, and this is the single most copied error in lemon law content. California and Pennsylvania measure the allowance from the odometer at your first repair visit, so later miles do not count against you. Florida counts miles up to the settlement agreement or arbitration hearing, which means its deduction keeps growing while your claim is pending. New York uses total miles of operation and charges you for none of the first 12,000. Illinois fixes no reading at all.
Why do lemon law calculators give different answers for the same car?: Because most of them run one formula for the whole country. On a $45,000 vehicle at 6,000 miles: California deducts $2,250; Pennsylvania deducts $600; Florida deducts $2,250; New York deducts $0; Illinois deducts nothing its statute defines, because it states no formula. A tool that applies a single formula and relabels the heading with your state's name is not modelling your state.
Is sales tax refunded in a lemon law buyback?: Not everywhere, and getting this wrong moves the answer by thousands. California, Pennsylvania and Florida put the sales tax back as part of the refund. New York and Illinois do not — New York because the manufacturer's duty is to hand you the claim form while the tax itself comes back from the Commissioner of Taxation and Finance on Form AU-11, prorated and within three years; Illinois because its statute carves taxes out of "collateral charges" by name and routes the credit through the retailer instead.
What happens to my loan if the manufacturer buys the car back?: The manufacturer pays the outstanding balance directly to your lender and you receive whatever is left. If you owe more than the refund comes to, the loan is cleared and no cash reaches you.
Do I need a lawyer, and will it cost me part of the buyback?: Most lemon law statutes make the manufacturer responsible for a prevailing consumer's reasonable attorney fees, paid separately from and on top of the repurchase amount, which is why representation usually costs nothing up front. Illinois is the exception here: its Act provides no attorney fees, no civil penalty and no multiple damages at all, so do not assume the usual arrangement there. Either way this calculator excludes legal fees from the figure. Whether to hire anyone is your decision — this tool does not refer you to anybody and does not collect your details.
Is this legal advice?: No. It is an estimate of the statutory refund formula in the states listed, cited to the statute so you can check it. Whether a specific defect substantially impairs a vehicle’s use, value or safety is a legal judgment about your particular facts.

The statutes behind these numbers

Every figure is read from the statute itself, not from a summary, and re-checked annually. The full citation list for each state — with the date we last read the text, and any recent amendment named — lives on that state’s own page rather than being reprinted here.

California — Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1793.2(d)(2)(B)–(C) (+3 more). Read 2026-08-09.
Pennsylvania — Automobile Lemon Law, 73 P.S. §§ 1951–1963. Read 2026-08-09.
Florida — Motor Vehicle Warranty Enforcement Act, Ch. 681, Fla. Stat. (2025) (+1 more). Read 2026-08-10.
New York — New Car Lemon Law, N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 198-a (+2 more). Read 2026-08-10.
Illinois — New Vehicle Buyer Protection Act, 815 ILCS 380/1–380/8 (+2 more). Read 2026-08-10.