Mechanic's 230 mile joy ride..
 

So I took my P-car for ignition coil replacements. Picked it up and noticed long blond hair on the passenger floor, 1/4 tank less gas and finally after checking the milege the owner of the indy shop admitted that one of his mechanics took the car home and drove it all weekend- 230 miles!!

I had the car inspected at a local Porsche dealership- sure thing over-rev stage 1 and 2. So far no signs of damage.

What would you do at this point?

Threaten with suing them unless they pay you for depreciation.

Boy I would be livid. Can't believe people still do that **** these days. So much liability on their part if that jackass had an accident!! Big $$ compensation is in order.

I got the refund for the repair.. But still feel very violated!!
I don't even valet my car. Ever! Grrrrr

I agree...very violated. Punks.

230 miles!!!? Wtfff i would have went nuts!!!! Zero mercey on savages!! Speak to lawyer or somthing thats insane. I almost bit my phone god only knows what he did not to add fuel to the fire but i would not let that go. :mad:

You have no idea how hard it was for me not to flip out and go nuts on these
lowlifes! I could just see it... being arrested and getting charged with who knows what.. But those days are over for me.

Meeting my attorney tomorrow, filing a police report.

Ugh I know the feeling. On a previous car I was rear-ended.. Car came back from the bodyshop with 500 more miles, bald rear tires, and a check engine light.

That really sucks, sorry to hear it.

As a starting point: A Hertz 911 rental in my town is $578/day with 75 free miles. Additional miles are $0.49, plus $69/day for insurance. So if the mechanic had it for 2 days my math says: $1330.20 for the weekend rental.

But since you're not in the car rental business, and did not want to rent your car for the weekend I'd say the damages are much worse.

I would be interested in what you learn, how it goes.

I had this problem with my 06 GTO. I took it to Chevy dealer in town and just a few blocks away from where I lived to have the 6-speed tranny fluid changed. The tech took the car out on his lunch break and thrashed the H*ll out of the car. He only drove it a couple of miles, but I had a data logger in the car and upon examining the data I found he hit speeds of 90+mph in town where the max. speed was 35mph.

The SA tried to tell me the car was dyno'd and just about every other lie under the sun.

The SA refunded the cost of the service back -- the wrong fluid was listed on the invoice and I used this to ask for the money back -- then took the car to another dealer, Pontiac where I bought the car and had the fluid changed so I lost money.

Then something similar happened again when I took the car back to the Pontiac dealer for another service. I talked to the general manager (GM) about this -- I never managed to get ahold of the GM at the Chevy dealer -- and he was very interested in listening to what I had to say but the dealer went out of business before I could arrange to meet with him and present my data logger data.

Had I to do it over again I think I would have just taken my data logger data and my complaint to the local police and filed some kind of a report of vandalism.

Trouble is a car dealer pulls some weight in a town and there's no guarantee the police would do anything.

Anyhow, I got tired of having to worry about the car so I traded it in on a new Cayman S.

I hear ya man good luck to you

I would do exactly what you say you're going to do in post # 7. Another thing I would do is share the name of the indy shop so others can steer clear. Scum. Wonder what else they do behind customer's backs.

Call the local TV station and see if they have an activist who wants to do a story - nothing like publicity to get the word out.

I guess asking for the amount of the rental cost is a good idea, but don't really know what actual "damages" you suffered, besides the fact of what they did. There is the issue of what could have happened, but you can't get $$ for that. You got refunded for the work, besides the over rev, that seems to be about it for actual damages.

Getting their name out there for the gross negligence of handling your car is the best thing against them. Even if you got to an attorney, get some settlement, they could file BK and you get nothing in the end. Not worth the aggravation and effort. Instead of trying to get money from them don't allow them to make money....that will hurt them more. A bad rep is worse. Yelp and other media is the best way to go.

Don't know what the police could do except bring joy riding charges to the mechanic who took the car. The mechanic took the car without your permission which is theft and used the car for joy riding. You have to get something done to the mechanic...but these days getting cops to do the right thing with petty crimes is tough. Almost leaves you defenseless. Which sucks because you didn't ask or want this....sad.

Just my .02. Good luck and keep us posted in very curious as to the disposition on this.

really, didn t think this happened now a days ... must be a real poorly run shop unless it was the owners who took it home. I don t think theres much else you can do than already mentioned. I d be concerned about wheel alignment and things that don t show up for a while.
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