Service Department Joy Ride

Originally Posted by 37ZERO

I had a similar situation when I had my Renault Sport.

The car was quite heavily modified and screamed thrash me. This led me to install a ROADHAWK blackbox camera system, it records audio, forward camera footage, gps speed and position and g forces. Everything is saved to a SD card and can be read on a laptop

I dropped my car in for its 30k service clearing only the fuel economy (I recorderd km but didnt clear them). Picking the car up it had done almost 30km and had an average fuel economy of 42.8 litres per 100km!

I calmly asked the service manager who had driven my car and where my it had been, he wanted to shut down any questioning quickly and told me the dealership uses a preplanned 3km route and he goes on every drive with the technician to ensure the cars are driven properly. I asked him about the excessive fuel economy and km where he then told me I mustn't have cleared the vehicle data properly (funny that I was into my 3rd year of ownership!).

I pulled my laptop out and the SD card from the recorder and asked for him to give me a moment. The footage shown a single mechanic get in my car, thrash it from cold and exceed our maximum speed limit by 20%, he took the car on a journey almost 30km long through a mountain pass.

At this point I went back into the dealership and asked to see the service manager, rolling his eyes at me he led me into his office, immediately I asked for the DP to be present.

Cutting a long story short both the service manager and the technician were fired, the tech for misusing my car, the service manager for lying. I had my service fully refunded and was bartered with to keep quiet and delete the footage

Handle the situation calmly, ask for the dealer principle especially if the SM told his staff to buy food in your car. I now work in the car industry and this kind of disrespect for your vehicle would justify the loss of jobs.