Hyundai Ioniq No Collision-Avoidance Systems Florida Class Action

When you buy a car or other vehicle, you expect it to be as stated on the Monroney (window) label. But this class action alleges that some vehicles from Hyundai Motor America Corporation do not contain the safety features promised by their Monroney stickers—namely, certain crash-avoidance systems.

The class for this action is all persons in Florida who bought or leased vehicles from Hyundai that had false or deceptive information on the Monroney label about the safety technology missing from the vehicles.

Monroney stickers are designed to help with comparison shopping and they are required to have truthful information about the vehicle they’re affixed to.

The cars in question, the complaint claims, had Monroney stickers saying they had advanced safety technology: “Specifically, the vehicles were supposed to come equipped with active collision avoidance systems that apply the vehicles’ brakes under certain circumstances to help avoid a collision. However, instead, the vehicles were only equipped with passive warning systems to warn that a collision may be imminent but does not actively deploy the brakes or other systems to help avoid a collision.”

Plaintiff George Toran, Jr. bought a 2020 Hyundai Ioniq on or around March 12, 2020 in Wesley Chapel, Florida. The Monroney sticker on the car window had a section for “Standard Features” with a subsection entitled “Advanced Safety Technology.” The subsection listed two features: Blind-Spot Collision-Avoidance Assist and Rear Cross-Traffice Collision-Avoidance Assist. This represents the vehicle as including those two features, the complaint claims.

Recently, Toran received a letter from Hyundai stating that the “2020 Ioniq’s original window sticker had incorrect information on the availability of certain features available on your vehicle”: Your vehicle is NOT equipped with Blind Spot and Rear Cross Traffic Collision Avoidance Assist systems; however, these vehicles ARE equipped with Blind Spot and Rear Cross Traffic Collision Warning systems.”

In other words, the systems simply warn the driver of an impending collision but they cannot do anything to avoid the collision.

Also, the complaint claims that the letter is confusing because it speaks of “available” and “availability” when the Monroney sticker presented them as a standard feature.

The complaint alleges that the false information on the stickers is not the fault of the dealers or dealerships where the cars were sold but of Hyudai.

The main count in this case is violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade practice Act (FDUTPA), for the allegedly deceptive and unfair practice of selling vehicles with false information on the Monroney sticker. The one other count is unjust enrichment.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Automobile
Tags: Defective Automobile, False or Misleading Information, Systems