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Not Exactly A Stand-Up Audi Dealer

By John Mesirow

You take your car in to be repaired. Clearly you're not going to leave anything valuable inside of it. But what about leaving the tires and wheels on it? I am not joking. Apparently, you need to take them with you. As reported in The Charlotte Observer:

Mickey Coffino dropped off her Audi at the dealer on a Friday afternoon to get her trunk and window fixed. On Monday, the dealership called to say her tires and wheels had been stolen.

And the dealership won't pay for replacements!

The reason Audi of Charlotte on Independence Boulevard wouldn't help out boils down to one thing: insurance.

Each Audi dealership is an independent business and carries insurance to protect from liability. Though General Manager Bill Taylor said he wished he could do more, he said making an exception to his written policy for customers' property would open him to claims of unfairness from past customers.

?The dealership goes to great lengths to protect the customer's property,? Taylor said.

"Great lengths?" Hmmm. Check out his analogy:

He described the situation as one in which a person goes to a shopping mall and buys something at Target. The customer puts the item in the car and goes shopping at Old Navy. While in the second store, the customer's car is vandalized. Should Target or Old Navy be held responsible?

Um - NO! She left her car in your care. Do you not see the difference? The customer didn't take her car to Old Navy or Target to be repaired. And though it appears that, contractually, the dealer is on solid ground, I DON'T CARE. Do the right thing by the customer. Is this really the kind of PR a car dealership wants in these brutal times for the auto industry? We're talking about $1,000! Sheesh. Here's the story.

Full post as published by Legal Juice on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).