Dealership took my c8 for a joy ride

Dik said:
Netsinah. I will respectfully disagree. :Seeya:

I believe all .... most .... many .... one (???) LEOs would investigate street racing complaints. Especially when there seems to be solid evidence like this case. Whether a charge is laid is at their (police) discretion and NOT the car owners.

Internet reviews .... waste of time IMHO.

OTOH. Asking advice from this community is something I would do.

Also I'd like to hear from a lawyer (maybe on this forum?) regarding potential success with a civil suit?
:Cheers2:
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Well I am a lawyer and still work as one (almost 40 years now). I don't do criminal law but have some familiarity with "the system" due to conversations with others who practice nothing but criminal law. Unfortunately, I have too much experience defending traffic tickets issued to myself and my spouse. Our Edmonton traffic court is usually ++ busy, so much so that tickets that may be hard to prove or a hassle, get dropped. Police usually issue a ticket for something they witnessed or personally dealt with, rather than something a "civilian" tells them about. Perhaps not always, but that's what happens in general. For any civil suit to succeed, you have to prove not only the wrongdoing (and for example disprove the manager's claim he was investigating a "misfiring problem"), but also damages. It may be a challenge to prove damages in this instance and at the very least, you'd need an expert in automotive mechanics to establish C8 engine damage or some other damage "on a balance of probabilities". Such an expert doesn't come cheap, making the cost of pursuing this in a civil court, questionable on damages alone.

The OP is from Ontario so he's better off getting advice from an Ontario lawyer, since different jurisdictions have different laws and different approaches to traffic law enforcement.

Having said all that, I'll do the prudent C.Y.A. disclaimer that the above is not to be construed as "legal advice" but rather a sincere attempt to provide some helpful suggestions to another member of these Forums. Any lawyer should sit down and talk to someone and get 100% of the facts and documentation, before giving legal advice, plus I'm not an Ontario lawyer.
 
Ironically I recieved an email from said dealership asking that I give them a 10/10 rating should gm canada ask about my resent service....lol. they offered me a free car wash and vacuum if I give a 10 rating. This email was sent by an employee that doesn't know the situation.
 
MKC8 said:
Do these vehicles have a "valet" or "teen driver" setting that can be controlled by password or other means to lock it, and lock out "joy rides"?
Care to share the dealership responsible? This sort of thing is completely unacceptable, IMO. Bad enough he tried to blame it on the body shop.
You'd be doing him (and others) a favour by warning others.
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With the PDR enabled you can set it to record video only when in Valet mode. This should be done every time the vehicle is out of your hands for whatever reason.
 
TSB or no TSB this doesn't give ANY dealership the right to break the law on the roads or drive recklessly. (115km in a 50km zone ..really?) What he said about the car needing this according to a TSB is Bull$#it!
And the brash attitude of "doing you a Favour" shows they have no respect for you as a customer. For you or your car.
If it was me, I would totally escalate this to his supervisor.

that's my 2 cents.
 
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netsinah said:
No theft charge would ever be done, as the dealer was lawfully in possession of the vehicle at the time, even if it didn't have permission to abuse the vehicle while in its possession. I doubt the police will be interested in a speeding charge; they'll see it as a civil matter (dispute between the OP and dealership). I think the best option is to talk to the GM area manager, to make sure (for example) any engine warranty claim caused by excessive RPM's will be honoured or at a minimum, the dealer will be held accountable should there be an engine problem attributed to that.

But I'd first ask the dealer for a copy of bulletin TSB #21-NA-123. I'd do that in person at the dealership. Once handed the bulletin, I'd then ask for a copy of whatever work order or estimate was done up by the dealership, for this so-called misfire problem (while there, waiting, to see if it's produced immediately or after some time...perhaps after being newly written up...I'd time how long this takes) AND then I'd ask for proof GM was charged for the "work" done (get a copy of that charge-back). You may be told this "work" was all done n/c so they have no paperwork, however it's not likely a dealership would miss the opportunity to charge GM for any warranty work, which is why the dealership should have both. Having done all that, I'd then line up a meeting with the area manager.

OR consider doing nothing, other than going to another dealership for all future servicing. It's a hassle and time commitment, to follow-up on this. It's easy for us "armchair quarterbacks" to make suggestions, but it's your time/hassle so you decide. Remember that GM and the area manager will likely give the dealership the benefit of the doubt which is why you need to take the steps outlined above; GM makes far more money from a dealership than you. Sorry to hear all this.
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FYI
https://www.carcomplaints.com/Chevrolet/Corvette/2021/tsbs/tsb-21-na-123.shtml
 
T Mac said:
Ironically I recieved an email from said dealership asking that I give them a 10/10 rating should gm canada ask about my resent service....lol. they offered me a free car wash and vacuum if I give a 10 rating. This email was sent by an employee that doesn't know the situation.
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This is when you reply BIOYA . :celebrate:
 
T Mac said:
Curious what you guys would do? Back story... Car went in for paint repair covered by warranty around front clip/headlight area. Dealer dropped it off at a body repair shop nearby. When I got my car back, I checked out the pdr to see how my car was treated. The video of the return trip to the dealership showed me that 37 seconds from a cold start the tach was ran up over 5700 rpm (the suggested rpm of the car that early would have still been 4500 rpm) the speed limit on this street is 50km/h but he was going 119 km/h (if he had been pulled over, my car would have been impounded) When I contacted them, they guarantied me that they didn't do it and blamed the paint shop. During this same email the service manager told me that he personally drove the car to and from the paint shop. I then sent him a clip of the video to show that it was him as the end of the trip was back at the dealership. Days later I get a response that the car needed this as there is a TSB for a misfire and that he was doing me a favor lol, TSB #21-NA-123 Sorry for the long post, but what do you think?
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Post the vid...
 
1st Vette said:
With the PDR enabled you can set it to record video only when in Valet mode. This should be done every time the vehicle is out of your hands for whatever reason.
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I was just browsing the 2024 OM a few hours ago, for "valet mode" and "teen driver" setup.
Good to know both systems exist.
You can program one of the keys/fobs as a "teen driver" key, and PIN secure it, and set hard limits and thresholds.
However, it does state that the dealer may be able to disable it, which pretty much defeats the purpose, if anyone from GM/Chevrolet Corporate is following this thread? Service people should not be exempt after this type of event.
It's happening more often than you'd think, or not, if you search for "corvette joy ride", you'll get a number of hits on the other Corvette forums. Similar issues, same results.
 
KTJF said:
A civil suit would be to compensate “loss”.

At this point , proving and valuing the loss would be difficult.

Only ones making money would be lawyer.

I may be in left field , not a lawyer by any stretch
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Assuming the dealer is small enough that they had to farm out the body work to an external shop, I'd say it could go 2 ways.
Either the dealer would settle out of court and request a gag order, or it could go to trial and the publicity would take care of the dealer for future incidents of this nature.
Just my lay person's POV.
 
I totally agree that this was unacceptable behaviour, but the responses that I am reading make me so happy to be out of the retail car business. At the worst, the employee will get a disciplinary note in their file. Thats it. No one is getting fired. If you are lucky you might get a service credit but thats it.

Law suits over this? Free extended warranty? How would you prove 1 blip at 5700 rpms caused a failure down the road on a car with a 5 yr powertrain warranty.

Did the car get damaged?

If not let it go and enjoy your car.
 
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I'm of the opinion that you should have Adulted and handled the situation until you were satisfied instead of asking Randoms on the Internet...
 
Hi T Mac.
Can you determine the exact location of the street race from the PDR?

Also, thank you for the excellent post, Netsinah.
:Cheers2:
 
Murray20c8 said:
LOL, I find it interesting that you are giving your opinion that he shouldn't ask for opinions. ;)
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It was a nice way of saying "I'm embarrassed for you that you can't handle your own sh^t". Thanks for dragging that outta me, that was actually my first response lol..
 
Jack Raccoon! said:
It was a nice way of saying "I'm embarrassed for you that you can't handle your own sh^t". Thanks for dragging that outta me, that was actually my first response lol..
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Now that's the Jack I like! ;)
 

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