Quote:
A Rhode Island man is fuming after a dashcam video in his car caught a service technician at a local dealership apparently drive his 2013 Mazadaspeed3 after drinking alcohol, driving erratically and speeding at dangerous speeds in residential neighborhoods as a child begs him to “please stop.”
The startling video, at six-and-a-half minutes, is an excruciating journey that begins with the technician, an employee of Tasca Automotive Group’s dealership on Pontiac Avenue in Cranston, flooring the accelerator while the car is in neutral.
“The guy says this thing smokes, do you believe him?” he asks over the sound of the motor straining against redline. “I don’t see anything.”
Note: the video was removed from YouTube shortly after this story was posted. It reappeared on LiveLeak.com later on Wednesday and can be seen below.
Not a good start to what should be an investigation into an oil consumption problem, right? What follows is a scene-by-scene cringefest as the technician bellows in slurred-song, describes polishing off some wine with a co-worker at around 3 o’clock earlier that day, veers into the shoulder of the road, appears to aim towards bumps and potholes in the road and clearly drives at more than twice the speed limit.
Alex Leach has babied his car ever since he bought it last year it as a certified pre-owned vehicle. Now, he’s asking Tasca to give him warranty coverage in the event that the thrashing his car received leads to future problems.
And so far, he said he’s ”extremely disappointed” in how the dealership is responding to his concerns, which essentially is an offer for him to pay for extended warranty coverage out of his own pocket. And the technician still works there, as far as he knows, he said.
“They’re actually defending the technician,” Leach said in an interview. “They said he specializes in high performance.”
A call to the dealership for a comment for this story was not immediately returned. This story will be updated if they do.
And this comes after Leach showed the video to the service manager who Leach said at first was apologetic and seemed as shocked as he was after viewing the footage.
Leach said he told the dealership he wouldn’t share the video on the Internet if they could work out a deal to make the situation right.
“Now they’re downplaying it,” Leach said. “I’m just worried that if my shocks go out, how am I going to know it’s not from [the technician] driving it like that? Plus the other possible damage to the motor, transmission.”
The car ended up in the dealership’s hands on Aug. 6 due to an ongoing oil consumption issue that Leach wanted fixed once and for all. He had come in for the problem before, and now, he noticed that he had to add 2 quarts of oil after just 2,000 miles following the last oil change. For a 2013, that’s beyond even what the manufacturer considers an acceptable oil consumption rate.
They called after a couple of days and told Leach that they don’t see an oil leak and needed to have the shop foreman drive the car over the weekend to diagnose.
“I agreed to it because I just wanted the problem fixed,” Leach, 26, said.
He got a call the following Monday with a report that the turbo was bad and a new one would be installed.
The car was returned a week later and Leach never imagined what he’d see on the dash cam footage when he got his car back twelve days later, replete with a new turbo to replace the old one under the CPO warranty that apparently was causing the oil consumption issue.
The video shows just six minutes of several hours worth of driving on the Friday night the shop foreman took the car home. It ends when he finds the camera, says “He’s probably watching us,” and disconnects it. Leach said he’s dismayed because the employee had the car for the rest of the weekend and can’t imagine what else might have happened with him behind the wheel.
In addition to the apparent admission of drinking and driving, the video shows the employee pick up a young child, say “how we gonna do 2 fast 2 furious without shoes?” and proceed to rocket through intersections, chirp the tires in second gear and clearly commit numerous traffic violations.
“You’re scaring me,” the child whimpers. “Please stop.”
“This car is crazy fast,” he says..
“I feel like it’s going to go out of control,” the child says. “Who owns it?”
“A customer,” he says as the tires chirp.
Leach said he thought he was trying to handle the situation professionally, setting up a meeting with the service manager to show him the footage and try to keep the situation in his office.
“I told him that I felt an extended bumper to bumper warranty and powertrain warranty, on top of my CPO warranty was appropriate. From a customer service stand point and due to damages done to the car, I think that I should also be given a new set of tires. He says he will run this all by the owner, and they will put together a package for me,” Leach said.
After a week, there’s no word on the package and after leaving unreturned voicemails, he calls Mazda, who calls the dealership and he finally gets a call back.
“He begins by defending the employee. Saying that it’s okay because my car is a ‘high performance car, and all these guys are racecar drivers’” Leach said.
That might have been a reference to Bob Tasca III, the well-known drag racer.
Leach said he responded by saying he doesn’t even drive his own car that hard, it’s his daily driver and something he paid money for.
Despite his experience, Leach said he’s still willing to work with the dealership to resolve the matter.
“I wanted to share this video with my friends and family to warn them about what goes on at Tasca Cranston.”
A Rhode Island man is fuming after a dashcam video in his car caught a service technician at a local dealership apparently drive his 2013 Mazadaspeed3 after drinking alcohol, driving erratically and speeding at dangerous speeds in residential neighborhoods as a child begs him to “please stop.”
The startling video, at six-and-a-half minutes, is an excruciating journey that begins with the technician, an employee of Tasca Automotive Group’s dealership on Pontiac Avenue in Cranston, flooring the accelerator while the car is in neutral.
“The guy says this thing smokes, do you believe him?” he asks over the sound of the motor straining against redline. “I don’t see anything.”
Note: the video was removed from YouTube shortly after this story was posted. It reappeared on LiveLeak.com later on Wednesday and can be seen below.
Not a good start to what should be an investigation into an oil consumption problem, right? What follows is a scene-by-scene cringefest as the technician bellows in slurred-song, describes polishing off some wine with a co-worker at around 3 o’clock earlier that day, veers into the shoulder of the road, appears to aim towards bumps and potholes in the road and clearly drives at more than twice the speed limit.
Alex Leach has babied his car ever since he bought it last year it as a certified pre-owned vehicle. Now, he’s asking Tasca to give him warranty coverage in the event that the thrashing his car received leads to future problems.
And so far, he said he’s ”extremely disappointed” in how the dealership is responding to his concerns, which essentially is an offer for him to pay for extended warranty coverage out of his own pocket. And the technician still works there, as far as he knows, he said.
“They’re actually defending the technician,” Leach said in an interview. “They said he specializes in high performance.”
A call to the dealership for a comment for this story was not immediately returned. This story will be updated if they do.
And this comes after Leach showed the video to the service manager who Leach said at first was apologetic and seemed as shocked as he was after viewing the footage.
Leach said he told the dealership he wouldn’t share the video on the Internet if they could work out a deal to make the situation right.
“Now they’re downplaying it,” Leach said. “I’m just worried that if my shocks go out, how am I going to know it’s not from [the technician] driving it like that? Plus the other possible damage to the motor, transmission.”
The car ended up in the dealership’s hands on Aug. 6 due to an ongoing oil consumption issue that Leach wanted fixed once and for all. He had come in for the problem before, and now, he noticed that he had to add 2 quarts of oil after just 2,000 miles following the last oil change. For a 2013, that’s beyond even what the manufacturer considers an acceptable oil consumption rate.
They called after a couple of days and told Leach that they don’t see an oil leak and needed to have the shop foreman drive the car over the weekend to diagnose.
“I agreed to it because I just wanted the problem fixed,” Leach, 26, said.
He got a call the following Monday with a report that the turbo was bad and a new one would be installed.
The car was returned a week later and Leach never imagined what he’d see on the dash cam footage when he got his car back twelve days later, replete with a new turbo to replace the old one under the CPO warranty that apparently was causing the oil consumption issue.
The video shows just six minutes of several hours worth of driving on the Friday night the shop foreman took the car home. It ends when he finds the camera, says “He’s probably watching us,” and disconnects it. Leach said he’s dismayed because the employee had the car for the rest of the weekend and can’t imagine what else might have happened with him behind the wheel.
In addition to the apparent admission of drinking and driving, the video shows the employee pick up a young child, say “how we gonna do 2 fast 2 furious without shoes?” and proceed to rocket through intersections, chirp the tires in second gear and clearly commit numerous traffic violations.
“You’re scaring me,” the child whimpers. “Please stop.”
“This car is crazy fast,” he says..
“I feel like it’s going to go out of control,” the child says. “Who owns it?”
“A customer,” he says as the tires chirp.
Leach said he thought he was trying to handle the situation professionally, setting up a meeting with the service manager to show him the footage and try to keep the situation in his office.
“I told him that I felt an extended bumper to bumper warranty and powertrain warranty, on top of my CPO warranty was appropriate. From a customer service stand point and due to damages done to the car, I think that I should also be given a new set of tires. He says he will run this all by the owner, and they will put together a package for me,” Leach said.
After a week, there’s no word on the package and after leaving unreturned voicemails, he calls Mazda, who calls the dealership and he finally gets a call back.
“He begins by defending the employee. Saying that it’s okay because my car is a ‘high performance car, and all these guys are racecar drivers’” Leach said.
That might have been a reference to Bob Tasca III, the well-known drag racer.
Leach said he responded by saying he doesn’t even drive his own car that hard, it’s his daily driver and something he paid money for.
Despite his experience, Leach said he’s still willing to work with the dealership to resolve the matter.
“I wanted to share this video with my friends and family to warn them about what goes on at Tasca Cranston.”
