Can you return a car you just bought in CA?

Answer 1

Maybe. It might be a good idea to talk to the person you bought the car from and/or contact a lawyer.

California has no general law that says you can cancel a car purchase just because you changed your mind.

However, for used cars costing less than $40,000, the seller is required to offer the buyer a contract cancellation option allowing them to return the car, and cancel the contract, within two days of purchase. The seller is allowed to charge an additional fee for this option, and is allowed to charge a small restocking fee (the amount that can be charged for the option and for restocking depends on the sale price of the vehicle) if the buyer chooses to exercise the option. They're also allowed to restrict the mileage you put on the car before exercising the option.

Sellers of new cars, and used cars costing $40,000 or more, do not have to offer this option, but I suppose they could if they wanted to. Check your contract to see what it says.

California has a lemon law allowing you to return a defective vehicle that cannot be repaired in a "reasonable number" of attempts (usually either two or four, depending on whether it's a safety issue or not). This is a bit different, because you probably wouldn't be able to discover/prove your car qualifies if you "just" bought it, but I'm mentioning it for the sake of completeness. The lemon law is not a complete do-over, because you can be charged for your use of the car (the amount you can be charged is the number of miles you drove it before first bringing it in for repair, divided by 120,000, multiplied by the purchase price of the car).

There's also a home-solicitation buyer's remorse law that gives you three days to cancel a contract if you enter into it somewhere other than the seller's "normal place of business." I'm not a lawyer and don't know exactly how this interacts with the lack of an automatic right to return a vehicle, but it's at least possible that if you bought one at a tent sale in a parking lot this could apply. Which is why the very first line of this answer suggests contacting a lawyer.

Also, there's no law that says the dealer has to allow you to return the car just because you changed your mind ... but there's no law that says they can't allow you to return the car, either. This is why it might be a good idea to contact them and see if they'll permit this. You should expect at the very minimum that you'll have to pay a restocking fee, which may be substantial.

Finally, there's always "voluntary repossession". This is where you contact the lender and make arrangements for them to repossess the car, but you offer to make it easy for them ("I'll drop it off at your office on Monday.") You'll have to pay the difference between the fair market value of the car and what you still owe on it (again, this may be substantial). In effect, you're "selling" the car to the lienholder.