Owners outraged after Audi mechanic takes car home for weekend
A Calgary couple is outraged after a mechanic at a local Audi dealership took their luxury sedan home for the weekend.
Chris Jackson said he wasn’t told his Audi S4 was going to be driven by someone else for several days while it was getting fixed.
He said he only found out when he returned to the dealership on the Saturday to get something he forgot inside his $70,000 car. Unable to find his car in the lot, he asked where it was parked.
“And the dealer’s response was, ‘It’s OK, just go home, your car’s fine, it’s probably just somewhere on the lot. We can’t find it.’”
Jackson said he walked around the lot three times looking for his car.
“So I went back in and the dealer said again, ‘You just need to go home.’ And I said, 'No, no, I need to find my car. I need to know where my car is.'”
Jackson said after about two-and-a-half hours of arguing with staff at the dealership — plus a call to the police to report the car stolen — it was revealed where the car was.
“They started calling their mechanics, and finally one of the mechanics answered and said that, ‘Yeah I have the car at home.’ And he’d taken the car home for the weekend,” he said.
“The only way that they had actually even decided that they were going to call these guys was that I’d called the police and said, ‘My car’s missing, the dealer doesn’t know where it is. I don’t know where it is, that’s a stolen car.'
“So once they heard the police were involved they started calling these guys.”
The owner of Glenmore Audi said the technician needed the vehicle for an extended period to test a faulty navigation system and is apologizing for poor communication with the Jacksons.
"The police officer we spoke with said I've never heard of anything like this before, it's clearly ethically wrong,” Jackson said.
Audi Canada told CBC News the company is in contact with Jackson and officials are continuing to gather information from the dealer to ensure the matter is addressed properly.
“The customer is not accepting or returning calls from the dealership. Obviously this makes any dialogue difficult,” Audi Canada said in an email.
Jackson said his four-year lease agreement stipulates that he get the car serviced at Glenmore Audi, which now leaves him feeling uneasy.
“So I’m in a bit of a pickle.”
