Dealer wrecks car - what would you do?

If the dealer is willing to fix the car to my satisfaction and give me a loaner car, I would be happy...

mad_machine wrote:

Datsun1500 wrote:

novaderrik wrote: is it common practice for people that work at dealerships to use the remote start on customer cars? that just seems... lazy... stupid..

Many remote starts are programmed to the unlock button on the factory remote. He might not have known it was even there. There's a good chance he was walking to the car, hit the factory unlock button (which is perfectly normal to me) and the car started.

Not to take this off on a tangent. I looked into having remote locking on my Classic Saab 900. The guys at the car audio place were insistant I get remote start. When I told them that the car locks in reverse with the key out.. they told me that could bypass that. I walked

Yeah, SAABs are a no go at our shop because of this.

In reply to iadr:

Your logical chain description only further convinces me the unit was not installed properly.

Let's assume it worked perfectly, and needed an activation process similar to what you described.

Why would anyone familiar with the system activate it when dropping it off at a dealership KNOWING the next person to drive the car was NOT familiar with the system. "Gee, I think I'll activate my remote start, just in case the tech is hot and wants to turn on the AC before he moves it across the parking lot". That would be stupid. It's too easy to not activate it.

If it was in perfect working order and the owner DID decide to activate it (for whatever unknown reason), it would have deactivated itself when the vehicle was moved the first time.

Therefore, the only conclusion is that the remote start unit was NOT functioning properly, either because of improper installation, or unit malfunction. However, there were enough redundancies to protect against starting if the unit had malfunctioned.

That leaves only the installation. It was installed without the proper redundancies, or safety mechanisms were bypassed.