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What happens when a vehicle is damaged at a dealership?
A customer picks up her car from the service department and discovers that one of her hubcaps is missing. Naturally, the customer is upset and wants to be compensated. When the dealership staff does not immediately fulfill her request for a new hubcap because the situation needs to be investigated, she replies with, ?What is there to investigate? It must have gone missing here.?
Who?s to blame?
New-car dealerships are often faced with scenarios like this, where customers seek compensation for damage to their vehicles, during routine service visits. The four most likely scenarios to occur are:
- The vehicle arrived undamaged and the dealership staff damaged it.
- The vehicle arrived undamaged and another customer hit the vehicle in the parking lot.
- The vehicle arrived damaged, but the customer did not legitimately know about the pre-existing damage.
- The vehicle arrived damaged, and the customer knew it but tried to blame the dealer.
The dealer is responsible for damage in only one of the four, above scenarios.
If the dealership is at fault, then it should take appropriate action to fix the damaged vehicle or to financially compensate the customer. Dealerships gain nothing by shirking their legitimate responsibilities and sending customers away unhappy.
Dealership staff does not intentionally damage vehicles. Customers usually understand that mistakes will happen; we?re all human. Most dealerships have a policy of not financially penalizing staff members for damaging a customer?s vehicle.
If a vehicle is damaged by another customer, that?s a different story. In this case, customers tend to blame the dealership, but that?s unfair. It is akin to expecting Yorkdale Shopping Centre to fix your car if it was scratched while in the parking lot of the mall.
Let?s say someone hits your vehicle while it is at the dealership. If the person who hit your vehicle reports the accident to the police, then it is a clearly a matter between you and the guilty party to resolve. The dealership will assist with any collision repairs and serve as a liaison between you and the insurance companies. But, in this instance, the dealership would not be held responsible for any damage.
Many dealerships today have installed video cameras for security reasons. These cameras help to deter theft, but they are also useful in tracking damage to vehicles. In the hubcap example above, the customer was shown a video of her arriving at the dealership with the hubcap missing. The customer was embarrassed, she apologized, and the relationship was saved.
That same dealership, as a goodwill gesture, provided the customer with a used hub cap at no charge because she was a regular customer. Dealers will often try to turn incidents like this one into positive experiences for the customer.
Some dealerships wash their customers? vehicles after servicing them. While this is a value-added benefit to the customer, it can sometimes backfire. Particularly in winter, dents and scratches are more likely to be noticed on a freshly cleaned car than on a dirt-covered one. Some dealerships have stopped washing cars altogether because of the high number of complaints about scratches.
One of my good, longtime dealer friends, who does not wash customers? vehicles after servicing, has a funny line: ?I don?t wash my customers? cars after performing a service check-up, just as my doctor does not give me a bath after he/she gives me a check-up!?
The bottom line is this: If you are going to check your car for damage after visiting a dealership, please inspect the vehicle before arriving at the dealership, as well.
Ken Shaw Jr. is President of the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association and is a new-car dealer in Toronto. E-mail comments to president@tada.ca
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