Bought a lemon from GM? You might not get your money back

We seen the car manufacturers in and out of the news for the past couple of months because bankruptcy and the bad economy. It got me thinking...those people who unknowingly bought lemons...are they going to get their money back if these companies can't pay their own bills? Sure enough, there was an article on this exact topic in USA today: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-05-19-lemon-law_N.htm

It's a pretty pessimistic article. It basically says no, you are probably not going to get your money back if you bought from one of these failing businesses, despite lemon laws. I wonder if the "bailout" will take this into account.

I imagine that the bailout will take this into account, as it is generally trying to help out the consumers by preventing bankruptcies. I don't think that you would get all of your money immediately, but be promised to be repaid in monthly payments or at some later date to give the car companies a chance to become profitable again (if ever...).

Off topic, but the example in the title reminds me of how subject the auto industry is to information cascades.

A lot of people love to ride on the domestics and love imports due to many factors, but that has created such a strong perception in the marketplace that is difficult to change. The new Chevy Malibu beat the Toyota Camry in both initial quality and fuel efficiency at its release in 2008, for example, and many other GM models match or beat Toyotas in fuel economy. Buick and Mercury tie with others to lead the JD Power dependability study. These companies are a lot more evenly matched than most people give them credit for. The current bankruptcy issues are due to the impact of past decisions that haunt the companies.

Some links:
http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2008-j-d-power-initial-quality-study/841805/
http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/dependability-ratings-by-brand
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm