mobile-menu-icon
GM Authority

Lawsuit Alleges Dealership Totaled Customer’s Chevy Camaro ZL1

Perhaps one of the most worrisome things any high-performance vehicle owner can do is leave it in the care of another individual. With that in mind, imagine the surprise of one 2018 Chevy Camaro ZL1 owner who learned their car was destroyed after dropping it off at the dealership for service.

According to a report from Automotive News, the aforementioned owner has filed a lawsuit alleging negligence and recklessness against H&L Chevrolet after their Camaro ZL1 was totaled. Per the complainant, the owner gave the service advisor explicit instructions to not drive their high-performance Camaro off the dealership lot while it was being serviced. For whatever reason, said service advisor elected to pay no heed to these instructions, and wound up totaling the car.

Stock 2018 Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE

The AN report states that the car in question is was a Hendrick Edition 2018 Camaro ZL1 1LE with 989 miles on odometer, which was recently appraised at $97,000. The owner’s specific instructions were “under no circumstances was any employee to take the vehicle off the lot.” Instead, the Camaro’s Performance Data Recorder (PDR) caught the entire accident unfold. Allegedly, the service advisor “gunned the engine (at 70 mph) and lost control of the high-performance vehicle he should not have been driving,” and crashed into a guardrail while on I-95 in Connecticut.

The PDR also showed that the joyriding service advisor wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. However, police only ticketed them for failing to stay in their lane.

The plaintiff calls the service advisor’s behavior “deliberate and reckless,” and that they should’ve known that only a “highly experienced driver who is capable and knowledgeable about the car’s capabilities and dangers” should operate a Camaro ZL1. As such, the lawsuit alleges that H&L Chevrolet failed to take reasonable care of the car, including failing to instruct employees not to drive it on the road and failing to properly supervise “the simple task of diagnosing and repairing a broken clutch switch.”

It’s worth noting that neither party has made any additional comments on this case.

Be sure to subscribe to GM Authority for Chevy Camaro news, Chevy news, GM-related legal news, and more obsessive-compulsive GM news coverage.

[nggallery id=721]

As a typical Florida Man, Trey is a certified GM nutjob who's obsessed with anything and everything Corvette-related.

Subscribe to GM Authority

For around-the-clock GM news coverage

We'll send you one email per day with the latest GM news. It's totally free.

Comments

  1. This vehicle was likely only used on the Track and rarely on the open road.

    Reply
  2. Why was he even taking it to the Chevy dealer in the first place? He needed to take it to a professional mechanic or back to Hendrick’s to do the work.

    Reply
  3. Hope he takes the dealer to the cleaners. Seriously, this is just plain theft. He directly told them under NO circumstances to take the car off the lot. Short of him sitting in the car the entire service time, not sure what else he could do. Dealer would not want me on that civil trial jury. Punitive would be the max. I’d go so far as to hand the keys of the DEALERSHIP over to the guy.

    Reply
    1. It’s actually ‘Conversion’ and not theft. That’s a good thing for the owner of the car. In many states, the dealership is labile for 3x the value of the car, so if they gave him back the car with no damage, they would still be in the hold for 200k. In this case, the dealership is pretty much on the hook for 300k right off the bat.

      Reply
  4. Will be about impossible to find another as this was a special edition of the ZL1. Winning the case money wise won’t replace the loss

    Reply
  5. The dealer owes him a new Camaro or at least a Z06.

    Reply
  6. it was at that moment, he knew he fuked up.

    Reply
  7. im sure this happens all the time, The Employees, who can never afford high dollar cars, take them out for joy rides. Dealer needs to close the doors over this stupid move.

    Reply
    1. I’ve seen salesmen abuse and literally beat the crap out of brand new vehicles on so called “test drives” when they get bored, leaving the potential customer seated in the passenger seat terrified. Happened to me once at a Subaru dealership and I vowed right then and there to never, ever buy a vehicle from that dealership because this aggressive piece-of-crap probably did the same to every new vehicle he could get his mad grubby hands on.

      Reply
  8. does this car not have a “teen driver” mode, whereas the throttle is restricted and you need the pin code to bypass it?

    Reply
  9. Fire, then hang the guilty Service Advisor on a scaffold built on the dealership’s lot and require that every single employee of the dealership from janitor to owner be required to watch a well-deserved public execution. That’s what happened to horse thieves in America during the 1800s: it worked as a deterrent back then and it would work just as well today.

    Reply
    1. I say, we kill em, then we hang em, then we stomp him, then we tattoo him…. Pee Wee Herman.

      Reply
  10. The problem is these one of a kind cars cannot simply be replaced, money dont matter.

    Reply
  11. I have a comment, But not about this ZL1, But the future Camaro if we get It back . While going over my January back issue of Motor Trend I saw a picture of the 2025 Lotus Emeya 4 door coup, If GM Chevy brought back the next Generation Camaro with that look and Hybrid power, It would sale to all group of buyers ,Women , seniors and Young men !!

    Reply
    1. I want to apologize to the Gentlemen Who lost his Camaro ZL1 , By Jumping in on his article , By me bringing up the Future of Chevy Camaro ! I hope you win your Lawsuit !

      Reply
  12. It unfortunately happens too often. No supervision, lack of accountability. Thank goodness for PDR , I am grateful mine is one all the time.

    Reply
  13. My 3 month old Corvette C8 went to a dealer for included free service, came out with two large scratches and gouged paint protection film (PPF), cost them an additional couple thousand, me with no car for additional weeks. Just not worth it.
    And now I have a repaired car, not a new car.

    Reply
  14. Are Connecticut cops that stupid ?

    Reply
  15. This situation screams of someone who probably bought the car as an investment. That is why it was such low mileage. And if it wasn’t for the jerk at the dealership, could have sold it for huge bucks in another few years.
    Some people just want to use (and use up) a limited edition special interest car.

    Reply
  16. I sure am enjoying your ratio A-hat

    Reply
  17. Clown statement, it’s his Camaro and he left instructions that it not to be driven off the lot. I own a 2012 ZL1 with 815 miles on it and yes I drive occasionally but I want to keep it like new. Maybe when you get older you’ll understand instead of beating the crap out of every car you own.

    Reply
    1. Cars I own. 53 Cadillac. 65 Ford Country Sedan. 68 Eldorado. 70 Deville Convertible. 72 Corvette 4 speed. 79 Corvette L82 4-speed. 91 Mustang GT Convertible. 91 Trans Am Convertible. 95 Impala SS. They are all well maintained and I
      Drive the wheels of all of them.
      I sure hope you and the rest of the down voting fossils enjoy looking at your parked, hermetically sealed “investment”

      Reply
  18.  Message to Montravious. MYOB. What business of yours is it how someone uses their car.

    Reply
  19. In as few words as possible, yes they are. Everywhere. Otherwise the cops would put the idiots in jail and eventually the driving experience would be better. Unfortunately that part of the bell curve is expanding exponentially.

    Reply
    1. Cops have to work with the law they have, not what suits you. It’s different in every state. If commenters made the law I’m sure it would be a perfect world.

      Reply
  20. his linkin says Laid off due to the firm’s new working model. LMAO

    Reply
  21. Is this the same Conn. dealership mentioned in another article about a problem with a sale and trade-in?

    Reply
  22. The owner is Kenny Habul who is a professional race car driver and has won the Bathurst 12 hour race.

    Reply
  23. Some people just don’t understand the power a performance car has. Even with my 2 Camaro RS’ V6 engines, there’s a lot of power there and I’ve told my wife, if she ever drives them, she must be very careful. She’s not a wild driver anyway, but we’d have to do some test drives before she could go solo.

    Reply
  24. BUSTED! You will owe this guy money for the car as well as PUNITIVE damage. And I do mean that with capital letters.

    Reply
  25. if it was a 1969 SS L78 4 speed or a 69 ZL1 and or copo i would be very upset about this news …
    instead it was a newer female looking girl car camaro nothing of big loss

    Reply

Leave a comment

Cancel