Dealer totals customer's ZL1

In reply to Datsun1500:

I was under the impression the service writer wasn't seriously injured, and thus quite capable, at least physically, of operating a telephone.

Reading that thread on the camaro forum reinforced my understanding that whilst there are exceptions to the rule, a great number of camaro owners are real douchebags.

I think the dealership had/has am obligation to help make him 'more than whole', but once that is done and if this is just a matter of doing what is right,they should be sueing a bunch of folks for liable.

As a guy who hires people you are responsible for plenty of stupid. But I get the feeling half the morons running this dealership down are exactly the kind of moron who would have taken advantage of their employer and took the car for a joyride themselves.

The dealer owes him the value of a 2012 Camaro, nothing more. The value of that is @$45k. They don't owe him a new $60k car. No other Chevy store will give him a car, no ford store will give him a new mustang, etc. it will be forgotten in a few days, he will get his $45k, and it's over.

While it sucks for the owner, ^^^this.

I'm guessing a judge would agree. Dealer's employee did x-amount of damage. Dealer owes the owner a check for that amount.

Take the check. Use it as a down-payment on a new car...or find the low-mile cream-puff of your choice. Done. I wouldn't accept a used car that the dealer hand-picked either, but I would take the money.

Seems to me that if the guy wants his ZL1 to be considered a special collector car, he should have had collector car insurance on it, with agreed value.

Someplace like Hagerty deals with these situations everyday; AAA, State Farm, etc not so much.

poopshovel wrote:

The dealer owes him the value of a 2012 Camaro, nothing more. The value of that is @$45k. They don't owe him a new $60k car. No other Chevy store will give him a car, no ford store will give him a new mustang, etc. it will be forgotten in a few days, he will get his $45k, and it's over.

While it sucks for the owner, ^^^this. I'm guessing a judge would agree. Dealer's employee did x-amount of damage. Dealer owes the owner a check for that amount. Take the check. Use it as a down-payment on a new car...or find the low-mile cream-puff of your choice. Done. I wouldn't accept a used car that the dealer hand-picked either, but I would take the money.

Yep. As far as anyone (Including his regular old State Farm agent) is concerned, it's a Camaro. That's what I've been stuck on the whole time. If it's a collector car, you insure it special and you don't take it to the dealer. Tough nuts for this dude.

I would demand the dealer buy me my weight in beef jerky to make me happy. If I really wanted to stick it to the dealer I would demand my mother in laws weight.

logdog wrote: I would demand the dealer buy me my weight in beef jerky to make me happy. If I really wanted to stick it to the dealer I would demand my mother in laws weight.

For me, that's about 4k in Jerky.... at 15 bucks a lb....

The dealership went wrong when they only offered him a couple of previously-banged-up 2012 ZL1s. That's not even "making him whole" never mind "making this right." They know he's an enthusiast and collector banking on future value (good luck with that autotragic though), not a soccer mom who just wants to go from A to B. If they'd at least offered him a 2012 ZL1 in truly comparable condition that would have been "making him whole." A brand new ZL1 would have been a nice way to "make things right" and could have got them some positive media attention instead of a negative E36 M3storm...just sayin'...

The owner went wrong when he posted lies to trash the dealer's reputation. Asking for a brand new ZL1 to replace your minty, pampered, almost new model wrecked in an act of sheer irresponsible recklessness on the part of a dealer employee isn't wrong, but considering anything less than getting that right away to be "refusing to replace" is. He's probably the bigger douche at this point.

Datsun1500 wrote: The dealer owes him the value of a 2012 Camaro, nothing more. The value of that is @$45k. They don't owe him a new $60k car. No other Chevy store will give him a car, no ford store will give him a new mustang, etc. it will be forgotten in a few days, he will get his $45k, and it's over.

^One more vote for this.

It can be hard for us, as car guys, to take cars out of the picture. He didn't deserve to get berkeleyed, but he got berkeleyed. He owned something that was worth $45,000, and it was destroyed. Somebody owes him $45,000. There's no "making him whole" or 2014 ZL1. It's a business transaction. That's all.

Wouldn't this be a case where gap insurance would have been a good thing? I know that Mazda made me have it on my RX-8 lease years ago.

I once saw (actually heard) a brand new GMC extended cab 4x4 get T boned by a Hyundai with a coat hanger for an antenna. This truck had been in the guy's possession literally 10 minutes, it happened right in front of our dealership. Guess what? Once sold it depreciated. that's right; he lost money on it. It sucks but that's the way vehicle values work.

Maybe I lost it in the 37 page thread, but I never saw the ZL1 owner demand a new 2014. I saw where he declined the damaged 2012, which is reasonable.

Mazdax605 wrote: Wouldn't this be a case where gap insurance would have been a good thing? I know that Mazda made me have it on my RX-8 lease years ago.

Yeah, hell, I have gap insurance on a 2006 Miata.

It boils down to the VAST majority of people don't understand the purpose of insurance.

mndsm wrote:

logdog wrote: I would demand the dealer buy me my weight in beef jerky to make me happy. If I really wanted to stick it to the dealer I would demand my mother in laws weight.

For me, that's about 4k in Jerky.... at 15 bucks a lb....

See? Its a win for everybody!

Im writing a book on beef jerky economics and its relationship to problem solving.

logdog made me lol.

logdog wrote:

mndsm wrote:

logdog wrote: I would demand the dealer buy me my weight in beef jerky to make me happy. If I really wanted to stick it to the dealer I would demand my mother in laws weight.

For me, that's about 4k in Jerky.... at 15 bucks a lb....

See? Its a win for everybody! Im writing a book on beef jerky economics and its relationship to problem solving.

Can I demand my jerky be multiple flavors? I'll take 50 lbs original, 100lbs peppered... maybe do a few other sample sizes? I refuse to accept teriyaki, that is unacceptable.

Pat wrote: I see both sides to a degree, but the owner of the car purchased a new ZL1 for a reason....he wanted to a specific, specialty car and wanted to be the original owner. A used replacement to does not make him whole.

This is a facet I hadn't considered. Being the original owner is very important in the specialty car market.

Datsun1500 wrote: If he wanted it to be considered a specialty car, he should have had specialty car insurance.

This is truth, and all the hindsight in the world can't fix things. It doesn't make it any more pleasant either, of course. The only consolation is that they are still available new, so the only barrier to getting one is money.

There are 28 2012 ZL1 camaros on Autotrader right now. All but 2 are below $50k. The 2 above $50k are new, leftover ones.

And to a certain kind of enthusiast, only the new leftovers would be the only kind to even start to consider. They're zero-owner cars. Cars can only have one original owner, just like it can only have original paint once.

It's things like this that make me understand why so many limited-production cars (Cobra R, GNX, Syclone) tend to go straight from the dealership to storage and never get driven.

I got halfway through page 13 before the stupid became too much for me. Christ I hate the internet sometimes. Harassing the dealership, hunting down the FB of the idiot employee and harassing them, and armchair lawyers make my brain hurt.

Skipped to the end, no specialty/replacement insurance, so the dude is more than likely going to have to eat it. If you think a car is a collector vehicle, you should probably get collector insurance.

Yeah, the stupid hurts. The OP was pretty clearly trying to stir up Internet hatred for the dealership in an attempt to apply pressure to get that new 2014.

But that's why I have collector car insurance with agreed value on the Jensen Healey. If it were insured through my regular carrier (State Farm) then if it were totaled I'd get some random number they spit out and it would be nowhere near the true replacement cost. As it is, I can get the car paid for then buy it back from the insurance company for what is basically a token amount and fix it. That's right in the policy.

I think someone mentioned gap insurance, it's my understanding this ONLY pays the difference between the depreciated value of the vehicle and the (probably higher) amount of the lien. It doesn't provide for an amount up to the cost of a new vehicle. All it really does is keep you from getting stuck with the difference between the depreciated value of the vehicle (which is what your regular carrier will pay), the deductible (you are still responsible for that) and the balance of the loan. Like this: lien = $30k, deductible = $1k, depreciated value = $18k. $30k - $1k - $18k = $11k paid to your lienholder.

Knurled wrote:

Datsun1500 wrote: If he wanted it to be considered a specialty car, he should have had specialty car insurance.

This is truth, and all the hindsight in the world can't fix things. It doesn't make it any more pleasant either, of course. The only consolation is that they are still available new, so the only barrier to getting one is money.

There are 28 2012 ZL1 camaros on Autotrader right now. All but 2 are below $50k. The 2 above $50k are new, leftover ones.

And to a certain kind of enthusiast, only the new leftovers would be the only kind to even start to consider. They're zero-owner cars. Cars can only have one original owner, just like it can only have original paint once. It's things like this that make me understand why so many limited-production cars (Cobra R, GNX, Syclone) tend to go straight from the dealership to storage and never get driven.

Yep, and he was already screwing the pooch by taking it to the dealer for paint correction. Car lost value in the long run the minute it went back there.

The legal question that would be settled in a court is the one of negligence and punitive damages.

Was this dealer negligent in the treatment and storage of the car while it was in his care? I do not have the answer myself.

What I am missing (or just missed) is how the service manager does not end up with a criminal charge of grand theft? If the ball is in the dealer's court to press the charges, and they don't, then the dealer itself is assuming responsibility for the event. Back to the question of whether or not they were negligent in the prevention of this event.

I think a lawyer could make a good case for negligence on the part of the dealer and his security. I also think that the cost to defend the case would exceed whatever the difference to a new car would be. So not seeing how the dealer is ever going to come out ahead.

As to the pissing match?...In my jury, the "Bad thing" actually happened to the Dealer; his employee screwed him by breaching trust. Using whatever legal footing he could find (dealer DID call his lawyer and probably GM) the dealer tried to pass the "bad thing" on to the customer in an attempt to minimize his financial loss. It coulda worked with the right customer. Unfortunate for the dealer, the client is his mirror image and wants to leverage his position as the aggrieved party. Fair enough, I've seen more asked for, and received, for lesser drama. I think the dealer will have to settle for the fact that no publicity is bad publicity and that the collective internet attention span is quite short.

The fact that the owner has not retained a lawyer makes me think that there is more to the story than what we all know.

Brett_Murphy wrote: Aussie, apparently the police are not calling it theft, they are calling it unauthorized use or something because the guy had the keys.

Without authority to use the vehicle, and with knowledge such use of the vehicle was not authorized, the keys make no difference. If he found a lost key on the roadside, located the car for that key and then took it, would it be theft?

Yeah, the employee who swiped the car after hours is the one who put everybody in a bad spot, the car's owner is also running on raw emotion which doesn't help.

I don't know the legal nuances but as I mentioned earlier the signed RO gives the dealership's employees authorization to operate the vehicle for certain parameters and no joy riding is NOT one of them, in fact if an employee runs a personal errand in a customer vehicle while on a test drive (such as picking up lunch) around our place that's grounds for a written warning. Grand theft auto? If there was a signature on the RO I dunno if that could be made to stick regardless of the time of day etc, i.e. he WAS an employee at that time and as such had 'permission' to operate the vehicle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but that's how the waiver thing is structured, it does NOT mention specific times etc and that's probably why the police didn't press theft charges even though it's pretty clear from his actions (going in at 5pm on a Sunday when no one else was around) that he KNEW what he was doing was wrong.

I think what will wind up happening is the owner's insurance company will pay off the contracted (i.e. depreciated) amount, the dealership will wind up covering the deductible and rental (at least for a while) out of pocket, then the car's owner and his insurance company will go after the (now ex) employee to recover at least part of their costs. From part of that thread it appears the guy lives in a mobile home park somewhere so the chances of recovery aren't exactly huge.

aussiesmg wrote:

Brett_Murphy wrote: Aussie, apparently the police are not calling it theft, they are calling it unauthorized use or something because the guy had the keys.

Without authority to use the vehicle, and with knowledge such use of the vehicle was not authorized, the keys make no difference. If he found a lost key on the roadside, located the car for that key and then took it, would it be theft?

Sorry, that's not the same situation. Also I assume the existence of a signed RO while the joyrider was still an employee of the company means technically yes as an employee he could operate the vehicle but NOT as a joyride. Believe me, I've seen similar more than once.

In many areas it is the LAW that the keys MUST be left in vehicles stored inside a repair shop after business hours, where I live now is an example. That's so in the case of a fire the FD personnel can get these vehicles full of flammable liquids out. I do not know if that was what happened in this case or if the municipality required it, if they did then leaving keys in the vehicle would not be considered a breach of security since the building itself was locked, made clear in the OP.