Autoblog

You may recall a Carsumer Advocacy post we published a couple weeks ago about an 8thcivic.com forum member whose new Honda Civic Si suffered $12,199.64 worth of damage after Circuit City employees botched the install of a $3,000+ stereo in his car. At the time, Circuit City had decided to only refund the cost of the stereo. The owner, who goes by the handle VTECnical, took his cause to the internet and once again, the internet came through. VTECnical has posted on 8thcivic.com that Circuit City has stepped up and will take care of the car. He told Autoblog in an email that he wasn't at liberty to discuss the matter further, but we've been in contact with some people repping Circuit City who told us that the consumer electronics store's third-party insurance provider covered $10,158.45 of the repair cost and the store itself paid for the rest out of its own pocket. On top of that, Circuit City gave VTECnical a brand new Pioneer AVIC Z2 valued at over $2,000. Congrats to VTECnical and props to Circuit City for doing the right thing.

[Source: 8thcivic.com]

Click above for more pics of the damage allegedly caused Circuit City

For those interested in the soap opera that's ensued surrounding Ken Tanisaka and his efforts to take delivery of a BMW M3 sedan won fair and square and eBay Motors for $60k from BMW of Lincoln, Nebraska, here's what appears to be the final update. Ken's latest post says that all the details for payment are settled and the car is going to be delivered to his nearest Bimmer dealer, South Bay BMW, any day now. Props are paid to his lawyer, Scott, who really did the heavy lifting, as well as the hundreds of thousands of internet folk who made a stink on Ken's behalf. Ken is also auctioning off the right to pick his vanity license plates for the car, which should be interesting. Half the money will go to pay his legal bills, and the other half to charity.

But all is still not well in the land of Carsumer Advocacy (you like? we're starting a new category just for this stuff). VTECnical, a member of the 8thcivic.com forum, shocked us with a tale of $12,199.64 in damages done to his hardly driven 2007 Honda Civic Si with just 800 miles on the odo. The alleged perpetrator in this case is Circuit City store #3124 in Vernon Hills, IL, which reportedly did the damage while installing $3,190.62 worth of stereo equipment into VTECnical's car. While CC did refund the purchase price of the components, it has also cut off all communication, leaving this car owner with an estimate for over $12k in repairs. How could a stereo installation go so wrong? We're not sure and would like more pics of the damage from VTECnical to inspect for ourselves, but the images we do have of the "crime scene" and the estimates given for repair are irrefutable enough, at least for the internet. Circuit City, meanwhile, remains silent.


[Source: m3post.com, 8thcivic.com]