Thought I'd share a story from today.......
Uh oh. Many of you may know I own a full service repair shop and towing company. We made an uh oh today. Lady brings in a very high mileage 2004 Honda Accord for an oil change. On the car is taped a for sale sign for $2500 cash. One of my oil change kids drains the oil, installs new filter and paying more attention to chatting up the counter girl (admittedly she's hot and is a distraction) than his job neglects to add new oil. Yes we have procedures and checklists. He broke all of my rules. He's fired btw. He did check the tire pressures and fill the wiper fluid tank. !!?!?!?!?!?!!.
Amazingly the car makes it from the back bays of my shop to alllllmoooossssst to the fromt of the parking lot before kaboom.
We are high volume. I have a lot of employees. Mistakes happen.
My service manager comes and gets me before telling the lady what happened. So I have the guys push the car back out of sight and into a parking spot. I go and chat up the customer. It goes like this.
Nice Honda....for sale huh....had many lookers....oh just put it up for sale today huh.....Oh I see that's why you wanted to change the oil....mmmhmmm....ya they sell fast usually....you want how much for it....$2500....kinda high for the mileage....but it will sell on my buy here pay here lot.....have a clean title....great...oh it's in the car....great...tell you what....I'll buy it for your asking price.
She's happy. All is well. Son coming to pick her up. I give her cash she gives me the title. Problem solved. I'm relieved the car was a beater and not something expensive.
As she's cleaning out the car another not so bright employee..who no longer works for me either....tells her what happened. Really??? Ugh. Now she's upset. Threatens to sue me ect. Yelling at me. Why?? She got her asking price and was super happy 5 mins ago. Got her car sold same day she started trying to sell it. Now she wants $5,000 and is threatening me with posting online what happened. I invite her to post all she wants I really am not going to stress over it. It's my car now. Not hers.
Funny huh. People. Had to firmly invite her to leave my office. I really don't see the problem in all honestly. Everyone wins. She got what she asked for in cash. SMH
Already have the engine out of the car and happen to have a total wreck in my impound yard with same engine that's my car already bc it wasn't picked up by owners after the wreck. Engine runs great. A little more than half the mileage of the one it's replacing. Will be on my buy here pay here lot with all fresh fluids ready to roll tomorrow after lunch.
The old engine wasn't completely locked up btw. It still could be turned by hand so we filled it with used motor oil from the days changes—but alas no compression. (I can hear the OCD guys freaking out now hahahaha hows that for an oil change brew???L but hey the jobber filter was brand new right!!!j Just wanted for kicks to see if it would start and how it would sound. Even it it started it wouldn't go anywhere but driving itself back into the shop. Experiment failed. Haha Surprised it didn't totally lock up. Really shocked actually.
Thought I'd share. I'm sure inevitably will get flamed. Almost 25 years in biz mistakes happen. I always do what I feel is fair and mutually beneficial. I have no regrets.
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No matter what you do you can never satisfy an opportunist. I'd say you were a very stand up businessman in taking care of it on the spot. I am assuming that if you had let your insurance handle this that she would have been days or potentially weeks (with it being the Holidays) in getting a resolution. She should consider herself very fortunate.
