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This came up when an in-law went to a dealer for service and they would not allow her to drive the car away as they felt the car was simply too dangerous to allow back out on the road. I don’t know the details on what it was. But I think this would be an interesting discussion for a video topic. What do you do when a customer brings you a car that you feel it dangerous to him/her and other on the road? What is the legality of this? And what is the threshold to hold a car?
Personally I’m glad they did this for her/others safety.
I imagine sparks fly when this happens. So I’m curious how this is handled.
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Oh my, that’s a can of worms. Personally if that happened to me I’d ask, so what are you replacing it with? I have to get to work and you just took my wheels.
But more to the issue… when is a car unsafe? Say I have bad brakes, and I want to fix it myself just waiting on payday, but I took it in due to a recall on the airbag and they want to do the brakes for a fee much higher than what I can do them for myself. It can be a truly arbitrary thing… If car dealerships can take a person’s car, what are the stipulations in its legality? Will a person have to be a certified mechanic to get their car back?
in Massachusetts, I talked to my in-law and she told me she brought the car to the dealer complaining about a burning smell and grind sound up front. Turns out one of the front bearings was seized and for that reason they refused to let her drive it away like that (its a 2002 CRV).
Admittedly she was trying to find the cheapest shop to do this work and I suspect she was trying to get a diagnoses from the dealer that she could take elsewhere for cheap labor.
Hmmm… Don’t know what kind of laws they have up there in Massachusetts, so I’ll leave the legality of holding her car alone…
For a seized bearing it seems a bit much… Sure it is not good to drive, but as bad as a brake system down to metal on metal, or having tires that look like Sticky Mickies that have bulges? Not quite.
If a repair is refused, then it should be annotated on the Service form that the owner refused repair and advised of the situation for legal protection and gotten off the lot as soon as possible (preferably towed). Masachusetts may have some laws though… Interested to hear from someone from that State.
-Karl
back in the day, we had vehicle inspections out here. They should still have them. Aside from obvious things we all know about, people drive things with red plastic tarps for tailights, ropes holding down trunklids, all sorts of crap that shouldn’t on the road. Inspections would take the burden off the repair shops and onto the inspection places as is should be.
Thanks for the suggestion. Legally, I don’t think a shop is capable of that. Vehicles are private property and a shop does not have the authority to retain them from their owners. You can have the customer sign a waver and also make them aware of the situation, but I don’t believe they can keep the owner from driving away in it. I’ll look into this and see what I can come up with. Know that there are already videos in the cue and it may be some time before a video on this topic airs if I’m able to put something together.
Thanks again for the suggestion.
I think you’re right, maybe they were bluffing and if she put up enough of a fight they would have done as you said- make her sign a disclaimer first.
I imagine that the technicians on this forum have seen a few cars that they really didn’t want to see back out on the road not wanting anyone to get hurt and I don’t blame anyone for taking some kind if effort to prevent a customer from driving into what they see as a deathtrap.
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