Joyriding Mechanics

keefg

I'd say this happens quite often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZbQ_KOGBcQ

Mechanics' 125mph Joyride In Customer's Car
They were supposed to be fixing a leaky radiator. But when the owner of a £30,000 Vauxhall Monaro car collected it from his local garage, he discovered mechanics had taken it on a joyride at speeds of 125mph.
The owner of the car, who doesn’t want to be named, had installed a Roadhawk black-box recorder three months earlier.
When he left his car for repair at the garage in Redditch, there was a quarter of a tank of petrol left. When he collected it, he noticed the tank was empty.
"I looked at the video from the Roadhawk and was completely stunned. They had taken it out for a spin on the A435 at 120mph.
"When I confronted the garage they denied it. Then I told them I had the video and they admitted everything and apologised."
The Roadhawk device records video, GPS data and g-forces for every journey.
Video captured during the incident, which has been posted on YouTube, shows the driver overtaking cars and lorries on the A435 Alcester Road between Redditch to Portway.
The vehicle speeds past a garage at 100mph, before hitting a narrow slip-road at 90mph and continuing through country lanes.
The owner said: "The outside of that lane is marked off and lorries sometimes park up there. If you go wide on that corner at that speed you could easily slam into the back of one."
Fans of the film Ferris Bueller's Day off will enjoy the video.
In a scene from the film, Ferris persuades Cameron to let them borrow his father's 1961 Ferrari 250 GT. After leaving it at a garage they return to discover 100 miles have been added to the clock.
The 5.6 litre Vauxhall Monaro has a top-speed of 170mph and won Top Gear's best Muscle Car award.
West Mercia police confirmed they are investigating the incident. The owner of the garage said he had seen the video but refused to comment.

Berty

My BIL is an Aston Martin foreman in Australia and he says the lads are always needing to be given bollockings for driving like twats.

One customer came in with a picture of two mechanics with the Aston Martin V8 Vantage being driven past him by two mechanics with the roof down and their arms hanging out the window all nonchalant and sh*t.

The Garage also received complaints from locals about their speeding in the local tunnel. Its 3km long, who can blame them?

stealthyspeeder

I reset my trip computers before leaving my car in at at a very well known car dealer in North Dublin.

22 miles left of petrol was left in the tank. When I came back, 0 miles left on the tank, and an average of 9 mpg!!

I confronted the dealer but they spoke to the mechanics and just said that the car had to be driven ("slowly") at high rpm for various after service checks! So not much you can do unless you have a black box recording speed!!

EPM

That's a sickener. I once caught a mechanic trying to take flight over speed bumps in my old car. I dragged the little fcuker out of it...;)

I always make sure my cars running on fumes and reset the clock before taking it in anywhere since then

stealthyspeeder

betafrog wrote: »

Is there not an average journey speed in your MPS?

I know my coupe shows the distance, average speed and distance to empty, and the trip computer is crap so I would be surprised if the Mazda didn't do the same....

There is, but there is a lot of traffic round the garage, the average speed was around 33 mph, but there would be a good few minutes sitting in traffic before getting near any roads where she could be opened up!

E39MSport

Happened me years ago. Left my 4th Gen H22A prelude into a reputable garage in Terenure. Got it back with cigarette ash and hair all over the inside and 125 km on the clock. Garage initially denied everything then said that the head mechanic loved the car so much after working on it that he drove it to his mother's house in West Meath. What a crock. They fork you at the drive through...

alias no.9

All high performance cars should come with a 'valet' key which limits the performance to that of soomething more mundane. AFAIK the humble Golf GTI has one (certainly did in MkIV guise anyway), so why not othere?

no1beemerfan

One of the reasons I do everything to my car myself! I'd sue the garage for wear and tear.....I hope the mechanic/garage owner is prosecuted.

Wossack

<snip>

how much do you sell em for?

stealthyspeeder

PETER1000 wrote: »

I dont sell them but on the website they are £199 for non GPS and £299 with GPS.

Peter

Can we get a discount if we mention you recomended them to us?

cormie

£299 for GPS is very expensive, the video doesn't look like it has good software compared to the UB1 model either.

There is a comment on the youtube video saying it looks suspiciously set up as a marketing ploy by roadhawk or the seller which I kind of agree with with zooming in on the name and all that.

keefg

stealthyspeeder wrote: »

Can we get a discount freebee if we mention you recomended them to us?

FYP

Eoin

PETER1000 wrote: »

Hi

I used to have the RoadHawk but put that into the wife's car as I found it a bit big. I then purchased a SmartWitness Vehicle Journey Recorder from spammyspamspam.com as its much smaller and the software is much better and it sits neatly under the rear view mirror connected to a permanent power supply and people just dont know its there.

They are great for catching this type of event of car accident or poor driving.

Peter

What are the odds - a user called ROYW1000 is running a competition for that website on another forum. Would you not at least change the format of your usernames? On another site of course.

stealthyspeeder

eoin wrote: »

What are the odds - a user called ROYW1000 is running a competition for that website on another forum. Would you not at least change the format of your usernames? On another site of course.

No flys on you Eoin!

tossy

This is why i never leave my car with main dealers and only use a trusted Garage or do it myself.

I had a goof friend who was a mechanic in 2 big main dealers and the stories he used to tell me were shocking.

cruizer101

cormie wrote: »

There is a comment on the youtube video saying it looks suspiciously set up as a marketing ploy by roadhawk or the seller which I kind of agree with with zooming in on the name and all that.

My thoughts exactly, at 1.35 a popup comes up telling price and where to buy, me thinks this may all be a marketing ploy.
That said it still is good point that garages may well take your car out for spin.

Hal1

These in car recorders are going to become a mandatory requirement for insurance in the next few years. The sooner the better. It would be a great idea for a thread too, 'post your bad driving car video clips here'.

johnc24

And then they wonder why we have road deaths!!

Some of the footage showed reallt narrow roads.Someone could have been very esily killed!!

Jail term period!!

mle1324

I heard this story when i was over in Redditch last week,this thing does happen a lot,i've witnessed it myself before.
Also lets not forget the video on youtube of the two Garda Ford Focus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSJQND_IArc&feature=related

Mr Benevolent

Hal1 wrote: »

These in car recorders are going to become a mandatory requirement for insurance in the next few years. The sooner the better. It would be a great idea for a thread too, 'post your bad driving car video clips here'.

You'd need eight of them at a 45 degree offset offset to each other, or 4 with wide angle lenses. Seeing as most new high end cars have obstacle warning cameras I don't think this is too far away. All for the better imo.