”Don't worry, your car is in good hands”
Posted on 09/17/2013 8:30:51 AM PDT by rickmichaels
EDMONTON – An Edmonton woman received a photo radar ticket for speeding, but she says her vehicle was at a shop for repairs when the infraction occurred.
Sheila Taschuk took her Honda Element to Boyd Autobody & Glass in West Edmonton for some warranty work. Her vehicle was there for about two-and-a-half weeks.
While it was in for repairs, Taschuk received a surprising delivery in the mail.
“I got a speeding ticket in the mail, and noticed that the ticket wasn’t nearby Boyd’s shop,” she explains, “so I phoned Boyd and questioned them on the ticket, and they denied that the vehicle had left the shop at all.”
Taschuk says that explanation didn’t make sense to her.
“It’s a little bit hard to argue when I have a photo of my vehicle in the opposite end of the city.”
Boyd requested she fax them a copy of the ticket, and she later received a call from Boyd’s Accounts Payable department.
“She said, ‘well, we don’t know what happened to your vehicle at that time, but we’re glad to write you a cheque for the speeding ticket.’”
However, Taschuk says her biggest concern isn’t covering the cost of the ticket; it’s that it appears her vehicle was being driven around the city in an unsafe manner.
“I have a commitment with my family – as well as my work – to be safe at all times, and evidently my vehicle was driven without my knowledge unsafely through the city streets.”
“If my vehicle had been involved in an accident or hit a pedestrian or anything like that without my knowledge, I would have been extremely upset,” Taschuk adds.
She was later told that her vehicle was mistakenly picked up by a subcontractor.
“My understanding is that the customer did have her vehicle at our location and what happened was we had other vehicles in the shop for repair and there was the same type of vehicle as her’s that was in for some hail repair,” explains Kevin Comrie, chief marketing officer for Boyd Autobody & Glass. “We sublet that work out to a company called Hail Specialist. They came to pick up the vehicle that had the hail damage, but unfortunately took the wrong vehicle… our understanding is that they took it to their location, realized it was the wrong location and then brought it back to our location.”
“Unfortunately, they had picked up the keys to my Honda instead of the Honda that they were supposed to, so my Honda went for a little joy ride and speeding ticket came in the mail to me,” says Taschuk.
“We’ve since found out that while they had it, they got a speeding ticket,” adds Comrie. “She received that ticket and brought it to our attention. We contacted that company, and discussed it with them, and they agreed to reimburse her for that speeding ticket.”
Comrie explains it took a little while for the subcontractor to provide the cheque to Boyd, and that Boyd also was delayed a few days in sending the cheque to Taschuk, but that was mailed to her last week.
“It was our mistake that that cheque sat on a desk for a few days before our person put it in the mail, so we’re very sorry that that cheque was delayed.”
However, Taschuk is still waiting to receive the cheque.
She also believes there were additional kilometers put on her vehicle when it was in Boyd’s care.
“I haven’t clearly been given a correct explanation as to what really did happen. When I went to pick up my vehicle from Boyd I noticed that there was additional 1,200 to 1,400 kilometres put on my vehicle.”
Comrie says Boyd is working with Taschuk to compensate her for the mileage, and wants to see her satisfied. The company will also conduct an internal investigation and speak with the subcontractor to determine what happened with her vehicle.
“We do have systems in place to try to insure this doesn’t happen,” he says. “Now that this has happened, we document it; we investigate it to try to determine what happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening again.”
John Bachinksi, executive director of the Alberta Motor Vehicle Industry Council, says this situation is very rare.
“It’s unusual that a vehicle would be taken away from the location that the work is being done.”
However, he says automotive businesses should tell customers what is going to happen to their vehicles.
“The biggest responsibility is – what we call – a code of conduct. I think they need to inform the customer what they’re planning to do. There is a requirement that if a vehicle is to, say, be taken to another location for sub contracting work, the consumer needs to be advised of that and given their consent, so they know the whereabouts of their vehicle.”
John encourages others to get a written estimate, ask if subcontracting work will be done, ask what parts are being used for the work, and if they’re new or used.
He also says it’s a good idea to record the odometer reading when you drop off your vehicle and again when you pick it up.
“It’s certainly a business practice that they… should always do that. Is it a legal requirement? I’m not aware of that.”
Comrie says it is part of Boyd’s policy to document vehicles’ mileage upon arrival and departure.
“Yes, that absolutely is part of the procedure… We should always be taking a picture of the odometer… that was again, a process that was not adhered to in this case.”
“We clearly dropped the ball here.”
Taschuk encourages other drivers to take initiative themselves.
“When you hand over your keys, don’t just hand them over. Walk around the vehicle with the specialist at the body shop… get the in mileage, what you’re dropping it off with, write down the gas… Take a picture if necessary.”
Actually the guy sort of laughed about it. Said “those guys....” I went on to work, and took the car back the next morning and picked mine up. All European in Jupiter. The guy (Aldi) is now dead, but I think his family still runs the business.
“One of the swankiest restaurants in town used to hire derelicts from my high-school to work in the kitchen and as valet parking attendants.
If you pulled up there with any kind of an interesting car, it WAS gonna go for a joyride! Sadly a couple of them were killed when they wiped out in some sort of high-end sportscar that they were joyriding instead of parking.”
Mutiny Bay Club in Coconut Grove, FL. Late 70’s, same thing.
No modern, fuel-injected, computer-controlled vehicle needs an "Italian tuneup."
Don't get me wrong, though. I often stomp the gas pedal in my modern, fuel-inject, computer-controlled vehicles and explain to the wife that "I'm blowing out the carbon." She just looks at me and says, "It's your gas money".
That's my choice, on my car. The shop does it, well, that's quite a bit different.
That happened to us while our jeep was in the shop. We received a ticket for running a red light from one of those cameras at the intersections everywhere here in Florida. We had to prove it was one of the jeep staff who drove it home to eat lunch. Finally jeep accepted responsibility and paid the ticket.
Mrs. RQSR had a 91 SAAB 9000 SPG once upon a time many moons ago. Had it in a shop for a tune up over in Highland. Young fellow working at the shop took the car for a joy ride to San Bernardino College, was apparently showing off to the ladies walking down the sidewalk to classes, and ran that sucker into the back of a Mercedes Benz. The car was a Total loss. Was a real heartbreaker. It was not a car one replaced easily, and we never did. Insurance never seems to cover the entire loss.
My dad had his Mercedes in the shop, and when he picked it up, there was an extra engine in the trunk.
We theorized that a mechanic was bootlegging an overhaul when a supervisor suddenly showed up and he hid the evidence in the trunk of the nearest car.
700 to 800 miles. More than needed for a repair shop to see if the car is working properly after service. Much more.
So, it’s impossible for a modern car to foul its plugs or have carbon buildup? Not impossible.
Even a car with the fuel air mixture and even the spark timing and pulse width controlled in a feedback loop and with unleaded gas can have a problem, not as bad as earlier cars but still, you drive a high performance car like grandma and it’s going to load up, not as sensitive as it was since the manufacturers try to lean out the mixture past stoichiometric but it’s still possible. Even though plugs are supposed to last 100K miles (which is pretty awesome) they still should be replaced well before the 100k limit as the gap gets larger as the electrode wears away.
Modern cars also do a self-cleaning oven kind of thing to keep the cats clear but it’s not impossible for the fine openings in the converter matrix to get clogged as well.
Newer cars fail smog tests, why do you think that happens? And I’m not talking a physical problem like a blown coil or stuck injector.
Any self-respecting mechanic would have raised the front end off the floor, put it in reverse and backed the mileage off the odometer.
Not impossible. Just far less likely.
Compared to a ‘69 Chevy, definitely.
Friend of mine once dropped off his sports car at the service shop. He was given a lowly courtesy car and drove away. Few minutes later he was overtaken by his own sports car. He stopped and phoned the shop, “Where are you taking my car?” “Hold on a minute,” they said. “Ooooooooooooooh it’s not here!” Turned out someone must have driven it out of their shop and nobody noticed! Never seen again. Shop paid up!
Only 100 copies of the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California were built. So, it's a rare car, and they couldn't afford one for the driving sequences. At the time of filming, one was worth $350,000 -- and one has recently sold at auction for over $10M.
They used a real one for close-up scenes. But, for the rest of the movie, they built three replicas. The one used for driving scenes was... difficult. They had to film the scene at the garage multiple times because the engine died when the attendant tried to drive it off.
However, one of the replicas was restored, and recently sold at auction for $235,000.
My insurance might not cover the entire loss, but I would have been sure that the repair shop's insurance did.
Or, they would have be explaining to the local police about unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
I had a '66 Nova SS with a 327 running a Holly 750 dual inlet vacuum secondary. That sucker would load up at open throttle (ha). Really, it was too much carb for a 327, it hated to idle, and it hated normal driving, but man, was it fun when you stomped on it (on straight roads anyway). It cornered, how shall we say? Poorly.
I'll concede to your knowledge of more modern vehicles. I've never had problems with them, unless something did actually break/go bad. But, then again, I don't baby my cars, either. I let them see red line on occasion.
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