Camaro Owner Claims He Recorded Mechanics Joy Riding In His Car Then Blaming Him For Damage

Image courtesy of Are we being recorded?

Are we being recorded?

A Camaro owner in South Carolina say he had previously had questionable experiences with getting his car repaired at the local Chevy dealership, so when he took the car in to have its grinding gears checked out, he left an audio recorder in the door pocket. What he claims to have recorded has the Internet up in arms.

“These people drove this car harder in 20 minutes than by me in 3 years,” the owner writes in the text accompanying the YouTube video that has nearly half a million views in just a few days. “[T]he Service Manager and his crew took the car for a twenty minute, tire squealing; drive it like you stole it, all out thrashing. They Launched the car over and over again.”

Later in the recording, it sounds like there is discussion about pinning the now-fried clutch on the owner. “If it was me, I would write this f**ker up at him buying a clutch for it,” someone on the recording says. “Him buying a clutch disk, let them warranty the pressure plate, bill them in on two days later, so I’ll get paid to put a clutch in it and then get paid to put a pressure plate in it.”

A lawyer for the dealership asked Yahoo Autos to take down its story, claiming the audio recording was “misleadingly edited.” Meanwhile, the Camaro’s owner says he’s been threatened with legal action over the recording, all while he claims the dealership has been discussing the possibility of buying the car back from him.

General Motors tells Yahoo that it is “actively working closely with the dealer to resolve this situation to the customer’s satisfaction” and that, if the recording is valid, it does not represent behavior condoned by the company.

You can listen to the whole (slightly NSFW) thing here:

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