Oh Happy Day: Dealer decides to replaced wrecked Vette
It looks like you may soon be able to find a good deal on a "lightly used" Corvette out at San Rafael Chevrolet. Corvetteforum.com member Mr. Williams, owner of the 'Vette crashed by a dealership employee, and Greg James of San Rafael Chevrolet have come to terms, with the dealership promising to find a comparable replacement car. We're glad that things worked out, Corvettes are not your average car, and owners feel a very special bond with their rides. It will take a little while for the replacement car to arrive, but it sounds like a stand-up move by the dealership. They're going to take a financial hit, but we're betting that Mr. Williams will tell the story as a satisfied customer if all goes well. We do wonder what happened to the knucklehead who decided it'd be fun to try hairy maneuvers in someone else's car. [Source: Corvetteforums.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Billy 2:46PM (12/29/2006)
Ya might want to read the previous post before you think this dealer is anything like a stand-up guy, hope he goes outta business.
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mark 12:35PM (12/29/2006)
Just remember GM stepped in to tell the dealer to give this customer another car. The dealer wanted to just FIX it, not replace it with a new one. So this dealerships isn't such a "stand up" kind of dealership.
I congratulate GM Corporate on stepping in. It's about time a company stood behind their products!
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Richard S. 12:37PM (12/29/2006)
Most likely, intense public pressure made the dealer more agreable in getting a new Corvette for Mr. Williams.
I do wonder what happened to the employee who crashed in first place.
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Peter 12:44PM (12/29/2006)
Probably nothing. My friend sells cars and his younger brother is a porter at the lot. The brother wrecked a brand new Denali that a customer had traveled from Texas to Oklahoma City to pick up, about an hour before the car was to be delivered. It was already paid for, but had just arrived in town and was being taken to the lot so the owner could pick it up. The Denail got hit by a F250 and was totaled. The company insurance picked it up. My buddy's brother kept his job, but they didn't let him move up to sales for about a year.
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Michael Karesh 12:57PM (12/29/2006)
The dealership isn't taking any more of a financial hit than they tried to foist on the owner, i.e. the loss in value owing to the collision. Their insurance will cover the cost of the repair.
When a dealership damages a customer's car enough that it loses value (even after being repaired), then the dealer should compensate accordingly. I'm not seeing the gray area here.
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ssgtakeo 1:16PM (12/29/2006)
Yeah I applaud GM too that is the right way to handle things. The dealership owner is a moron.
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SOhp101 1:20PM (12/29/2006)
Nice move, GM. It's good to know that you're willing to step in when an employee from a dealership does something really stupid. I just hope the guy who crashed it is long gone from that shop.
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Jeremy Clarkson is an Idiot 6:29PM (12/29/2006)
And the punk who wrecked it?
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beken 2:32PM (12/29/2006)
Why is it that GM car owners need to go to such lengths before their cars are fixed properly? I've had to contact GM head office on so many occasions because the dealership screwed up a repair. Then shortly after calling the headoffice, the dealership would call me back and apologize and then have everything fixed up. I'm tired of being apologized to. Why can't GM dealerships just do the right thing the first time?
In this case, if the dealership had done the right thing up front, they would not have gotten all this bad publicity, the GM bashers would not have come out and maybe I would have thought GM has changed for the better. If the big 2.5 need another case study in figuring out why people are running from American cars in droves, this is another example.
I hope Mr Williams gets a comparable or better Vette. Why does the search have to take so long?
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td500 5:50PM (12/29/2006)
Seems like everyone involved in this needs a new light bulb. The car owner (who hasn't gotten this agreement in writing or hired a lawyer because he thinks the dealer is "sincere"), the sleezy service manager (who quickly changed his tune after an internet exposé), the jerk who crashed it (speeding and possibly drug-impaired). If GM ordered the replacement, someone at corporate was the only one who acted sensibly.
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Bill 5:47PM (12/29/2006)
My brother had the same sort of incident happen to his 6 month old '72 Vette. The dealership's car jockey decided to light the tires when making a hard right from the left (of 3) street lanes as he was bringing it to the pick-up area. The left rear swung into the rear of Checker cab and crunched the tail and left rear quater panels. The dealership's service mangers tried to cover it up when we came to pick up the car about 1/2 hour later. After stalling many times as to why it wasn't ready (after being told it was) along with the manager who was getting the car not returning, we walked into the owner's brother's office and told him the story.
He immediately paged the service manager who did not show. He then paged the assistant service manager who told him where the manager was (body shop). He then not so gently paged both managers to his office where the whole story came out. Seems also that the managers failed to call the police to report said accident. The owner's brother went ballistic realizing the various legal ramifications to his brother's dealership by the employees (too numerous to list) including how his brother would react. Police were called; my older brother, a lawyer, was called and heads rolled.
Bottom line was that the Chevrolet dealership had the car repaired at the shop chosen by us along with giving my brother a car to use while it was being repaired. And since the acrylic lacquer paint on the new anels wouldn't match, the whole car was repainted. Why not replace the car? Because the '73s were slower, uglier (plastic bumper) and not as desirable along with the fact that no one had a leftover '72 that matched. Total cost ($3300) was over 1/2 the MSRP of that beautiful 454 Coupe. All because someone was careless.
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td500 6:03PM (12/29/2006)
...and who's going to get sued by the driver of the other vehicle in the accident? If the car owner thought about that, he'd surely contact his insurance company and/or lawyer ASAP instead of feeling all warm and fuzzy towards the dealership.
(Dan--It's funny to hear you cover your tuches with this apologetic and sappy update! Did their lawyers threaten you?)
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Paul 6:14AM (12/30/2006)
why would he want this cheap piece of plastic american crap replaced. he should get his money back and buy a proper asian made car.
the corvette rides too rough and is easily put in a spin. this was probably not the driver fault so much as the car is deffective.
what a joke american products are. designed and made by morons. only racist red necks buy them. be smart buy asian and keep asia working.
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Jennifer 12:53AM (12/31/2006)
Nothing probably happened to the porter. I work at a dodge dealer and a porter totaled a 40,000$ chrysler 300. He didnt even have to pay for any damage.
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Waltzon 2:07AM (12/31/2006)
It doesn't always turn out this way. When I was in the install biz we had a customer bring in a pristine white NSX for a custom audio setup (it was a fabulous install, BTW, $20,000 and almost 5 weeks to make everything flawless and invisible). Two months after we finished, the owner showed up with a red NSX and a check from his insurance to redo the work. Turns out that he took the NSX, which he had ordered new from Japan and babied for years, to the local dealer. Some dipstick had decided that it would be fun to spin dougnuts in the white car and had slammed it sideways into another car. The dealership had to be sued to replace the car (with a carefully researched, also pristine NSX) and the dealership's insurance refused to pay because the employee was acting way outside the scope of his employment. The employee ended up getting sued by the dealership for whatever the cost to the dealership was for both cars and eventually filed for bankruptcy. I don't remember Honda stepping up to help out this guy.
P.S. The moral of the story is don't be a dickhead in someone else's car.
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