Hello All! [I wonder where the Smith name came from in this article]

Camaro owner records mechanics abusing car, scheming to get damages paid for
By Justin Hyde | Motoramic - Mon, Oct 8, 2012 11:27 AM EDT

When you own a sports car, you inevitably get a little paranoid about how
it's treated when in the care of strangers. One South Carolina man was
worried enough that when he took his 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS in for
service at a Chevy dealer, he hid a voice recorder in the car. He was right
to be worried: The recorder caught mechanics doing burnouts and discussing
how to make the owner pay for a ruined clutch the car didn't have before
coming in. Now the Internet Justice League has taken the wheel. William
Clark says he took his Camaro to Best Chevrolet-Kia in Easley, S.C. for a
clunking noise in the car's six-speed manual transmission. After a previous
visit to a different dealer, his Camaro had died shortly after Clark
retrieved it; while he suspected the staff at that dealership of joyriding,
he had no proof at the time.

This time, the voice recorder hidden in the door pocket catches employees
doing several burnouts and hard launches in the Camaro; Smith later says
the techs drove it harder in 20 minutes than he had in three years. Once
back in the shop, the mechanics realize the Camaro's clutch has been fried,
and come up with a plan to blame the damage on Smith, saying to "write
it up as him buying a (expletive) clutch," while saying another part
failed under warranty so that General Motors would pay for its replacement.

Smith says he's taken his evidence to the dealer and Chevrolet customer
service; the dealer offered to reassess the damage or take the Camaro as a
trade-in on another car, but refused Smith's demand to buy the car back.
Smith says Chevrolet customer service washed it hands of the problem,
saying it was an issue between him and the dealer. As of the last update,
the car's smoked clutch remains untouched.

Unfortunately for Smith, there's few other steps he can take that don't end
in court. Dealers are regulated by states; Clark can file a complaint with
South Carolina officials, but even with an audio recording the assessment
of damage isn't so clear-cut as if the mechanics had wrecked it on a test
drive. Instead, other Camaro owners have taken up the cause, posting
Smith's video to the dealership's Facebook page and otherwise making noise
about the problem.

You can hear the entire exchange, including the profanity, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE4Dh_82kMM&feature=plcp

A lawyer for Best Chevrolet, in a request to Yahoo Autos to take down this
story, told us in an email that the audio was "misleadingly
edited." Clark has said the dealership has threatened to sue him over
the audio, but has also spoken with him about buying the Camaro back. The
dealership may soon learn that in the Internet era, one burnt clutch can
create quite the stink.


Regards,

Roger 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+