Earlier this month, a Corvette owner named Michael brought his C8 ‘Vette to the dealership due to a persistent tic-engine noise (it was just a loose spark plug). After retrieving the car from the dealership, the owner was looking at the video files the car is integrated Performance Data Logger (PDR), and found a surprise: one of the techs drove his car into a car that culminated in a stupid street race against a loader, where he struck 148 mph. The good news is that the dealer did the right thing, and now Michael has a new Corvette.
The owner first published his alarming tale on Reddit, And this was soon picked up by other media, including ours friends of the ball at GM Authority and The Drive, who were able to talk to the owner.
The PDR video shows a nearly 20-minute journey that includes a series of hard acceleration incidents that cause the car to redline and at about 100 mph., and, around 10:50 in the video we have the race with the Dodge Charger where the maximum speed was reached (which was 147.6, according to PDR data).
Here is a slightly edited version of the video that was posted to YouTube:
Usually in these kinds of stories, which we certainly have seen before, the consequences tend to be quite messy, as the dealer usually takes a totally negative / irresponsible defensive stance and makes everything difficult.
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Surprisingly, that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The dealer, Fremont Chevrolet, took full and unbreakable responsibility and agreed that the customer’s Corvette 2021 be replaced with a beautiful, new Vette 2022 ’, which was not achieved.
Michael spoke with The Drive about the dealer’s response:
“The owner of the dealer family contacted me … and I’m lying in bed and he texts me at nine in the evening or something, he just apologizes profusely and tells me that he wants to do it right.And then [he offers] I a 2022 [Corvette], and it was pretty shocking. I continued with [the dealership’s general manager] the next morning and he said to me ‘Hey, when can we meet?’ ”
…
We set up my 2022 together, [and] he let me press the send button so my order is with GM “.
Having seen many of these dealer-employee-hoons-a-customer-car videos, this may be the best and most painless result I’ve ever seen. With used car prices and the demand is still intense, I am sure the dealer will have no problem moving that Corvette of 2021, so it doesn’t look like they really have to take a full bath here.
Also, this should be goodwill won by the dealer, who learned a valuable lesson, but at least did the right thing.