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SACRAMENTO — Three years ago, Rebecca Crane of Modesto bought a Volkswagen Jetta. One month later, the car started having electrical problems. Then the radio blew up. Then the odometer showed she had driven thousands of miles when she had merely driven to the auto mechanic. 

Then the mechanic said he couldn’t do anything with it. 

But thanks to the California Lemon Law, which provides relief to consumers who buy defective vehicles, Crane will receive a settlement check this week to replace her lemon, just in time to celebrate the law’s 20th anniversary Wednesday. 

“This is one of the most significant consumer protection laws available,” Kathleen Hamilton, director of the Department of Consumer Affairs, said during a lemon celebration at the state Capitol. 

Since 1982, the law has protected consumers who buy or lease new vehicles with serious warranty defects that the dealer or manufacturer can’t repair after a reasonable number of attempts. The law has become the model for similar laws enacted in all 50 states. 

Thousands of California consumers have taken advantage of state-certified arbitration, a free way of resolving warranty disputes. The consumer and manufacturer agree to allow a neutral third party, an arbitrator, to determine if the consumer deserves a replacement or a refund. 

In the past six years, the law has generated nearly $1 billion in relief to consumers who purchased defective vehicles. 

Karen Gichtin of Los Angeles, who has bought two lemons in the last seven years, including a 1998 Volvo S70, said she couldn’t believe how the auto dealers and mechanics told her nothing was wrong with her vehicle. 

“A car owner knows their car like a mother knows her child, and still they wouldn’t admit there was a problem,” said Gichtin, who attended a similar rally in Glendale Wednesday. 

In Sacramento, Hamilton heralded the law’s author, former Assemblywoman Sally Tanner, and Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety founder Rosemary Shahan for creating the law. Shahan, a former lemon owner, picketed outside a dealership in Lemon Grove in 1979, later turning her sign in to lobby for the bill. 

“Our lemon law is one reason our roads are as safe as they are,” Shahan said, “and why vehicle owners in California have the best hope for getting ’a peach.”’