Customer says dashcam caught Washington mechanic taking his car for a 100 mph joyride
SILVERDALE, Wash. - A man in Washington state took his car to get repairs, but his dashcam caught a mechanic taking the vehicle on a joyride, costing him hundreds of dollars in additional repairs for the damage.
Mason Berger told FOX 13 that a mechanic at theWrench in Silverdale took his BMW for a test drive and got up to speeds higher than 100 mph.
"It’s kind of like a violation. I had trusted you to repair my car, and now you treat me like this," Berger said.
Berger said when he got his BMW back, the stereo wasn’t working. So he went back to theWrench to get answers.
"He said it’s nothing they would have done, and they can’t fix it," he said.
Berger said when he noticed another phone connected to his car radio's Bluetooth, he decided to check his dashcam footage.
"That’s when I saw about 11 videos of him driving erratically, playing his music full blast. There's three videos where he went over 100 miles an hour, topping out at 113. He runs a red light in a video, and in one of them he gets out, and you see his face clearly," Berger said.
The original repairs for the BMW were nearly $2,500. Berger said he had to shell out $850 extra out of pocket to fix the stereo.
Berger said he showed the owner of theWrench these videos. He said the owner told him he would compensate him for the damage.
"It’s been a battle ever since to hear back from him. It’s been about two weeks now since he would pay me back," he said.
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FOX 13 spoke to the management at theWrench. They do admit an employee took Berger’s car for a joyride, but they say they won’t be extorted.
In a statement to FOX 13, they said:
You have asked that our company respond to an allegation that an employee essentially took a customer’s car for a "joy ride". Unfortunately, the allegation is quite true. The employee was tasked with test driving the vehicle after an engine repair. Apparently, the employee reached some pretty significant speeds on the highway, somewhere over 100 MPH during the test drive.
To say that we are aggravated does not in any describe the "four letter" language used when confronting the employee about what happened. On this note, we join the customer in his outrage and have addressed this issue with the employee. But that is not the end of the story.
Opportunism frequently knocks after an event like this. The customer wants a refund for the work done on his vehicle although the work was completed and done well. He also claims that an amp was "blown" during the driving episode and that other stereo parts should be replaced. Today, he threatened to go to the media if we did not give him his money.
We are attempting to find out from Car Toys, a vendor the customer went to after picking up his car at our shop, whether an amp was "blown" during the "joy ride" episode. A Car Toys employee who did not do the work indicated the customer told them that his amp was not a significant enough size to power his subwoofer and that a larger amp was required to do so. The customer apparently said nothing to them about the "blaring" music causing a shutdown of his amp.
The customer has also demanded we pay for parts so that his amp can be connected to his radio. We do not understand at all the basis for this request either. Although we are in a compromising position here on this situation, we at theWRENCH have very thick skin. We won’t be extorted for anything. But we will continue to do our best to continue to provide good service for our customers.
Berger said his next step may be taking legal action.
"Look dude, I mean, you agreed to pay me. They didn’t do anything unnecessary. We both, I know what happened. Maybe he doesn’t believe me, but we agreed to this. Stop trying to dodge me," Berger said.