Bay Area Chevy dealer replaces customer's Corvette after employee's 148-mph street race

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The California Chevrolet dealer whose technician was caught street racing a Dodge Charger in a customer's C8 Corvette has made good by allowing the owner to trade in his car on a replacement at the dealer's expense – taxes and all.

Earlier this summer, the customer brought his 2021 Corvette in to Fremont Chevrolet to diagnose an engine tick, which turned out to be nothing more than a loose spark plug. When the customer got the car back, he discovered that the car's Performance Data Recorder (PDR) valet mode had recorded one of the dealer's techs taking the car for a spin after completing the work.

The Drive (which also reported the initial incident) caught up with the owner and dealer this week, both of whom expressed satisfaction at the outcome. The customer went home with a 2022 Corvette at no cost, leaving his 2021 model in trade.

A shakedown drive to validate a fix is not unusual, and we'd even expect techs to explore an engine's rev range (after warming it up, of course) if the powertrain is at the center of the issue. But an impromptu, 148-mph street race is not what we – or the C8 owner, for that matter – had in mind.

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Michael contacted the dealership's owner. His email was promptly answered, and from there, things started to happen.

"The owner of the family of dealerships reached out to me...and I'm laying in bed and he texts me at nine at night or something, just apologizing profusely and saying he wants to make this right," Michael told The Drive. "And then [he offers] me a 2022 [Corvette], and that was pretty shocking. I followed up with [the dealership's general manager] the next morning and said 'hey, when can we meet?'"

Michael showed up at the dealership the next morning, the general manager, Boni, met him outside, and he was taken to his office where the paperwork was completed and the new car was ordered. "We configured my 2022 together, [and] he let me push the submit button so my order is in with GM."

It gets better, though. When Michael's first Corvette originally arrived it was actually missing a few options, primarily the front nose lift and the seats that he wanted. Seeing as Corvette production has been a bit fraught lately, he decided to just live with it, but now he's getting those accessories in the 2022. Best of all, he'll be able to keep driving his current car until the new one arrives, at which point he'll trade it back in to the dealership.

The dealer's owner simply said it just made sense to do so. "After I saw the video, I felt this is the right thing to do," Inder Dosanjh told The Drive. "I heard it, and then it was worse when I saw it. Until you see things, sometimes, you don't really understand them."

Dosanjh owns several dealerships in the Fremont area and says that when the option to give Michael a new car came up, he thought it was a good one. "After my conversation with him, at some point, we said OK, why don't we just trade your car in, [we'll] take it back, give you one, and we'll pay the sales tax," he said.

"It's not about the money, it's not about anything else, we do good [financially], we've got enough stores," Dosanjh said at the end of our call.

"This is about fixing the problem right."

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