Mercedes Stolen At Dealership During Oil Change Service

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Whether you take your car to a dealership or a private garage to have it serviced, the last thing you expect is for it to be stolen. Even worse is when an employee of that business hands the keys over to someone without checking if they’re the vehicle owner or not. That’s what a family in Tennessee claim happened at their local Mercedes-Benz dealership.

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The luxury car was at Mercedes-Benz of Collierville for what was supposed to be a routine oil change as well as a new headlight bulb. But the cost of that simple service was the entire vehicle as a thief drove off with it after the work was complete.

According to WREG’s report, surveillance footage shows a dealership employee driving the Mercedes out of the service garage, parking, then being approached by someone. For reasons we don’t know, the employee appeared to just hand the keys over to that individual without verifying the car was his.

That’s a pretty big mistake to make, but the family said when they were told the vehicle was gone, the dealership was unapologetic. Instead of making the situation right, they claim the service department pointed out that on all invoices is a disclaimer about the dealer not being held liable for theft of personal property or cars.

With that in the open, the family said the service department then told them to contact their car insurance company to see about covering the loss.

We have to admit that seems like an odd way to handle when an employee just gives away the keys to someone’s car to a random stranger. Since we’re not attorneys we can’t weigh in on the legality of the liability statement on services invoices, but we do think it’s a weird thing to turn to in a case like this.

Thankfully, police located the stolen Mercedes not too long after and it was in one piece. Still, the family wants the dealership to admit it was at fault for the theft. It doesn’t sound like that will happen anytime soon. But if they want to buy some overpriced door edge guards, we bet the service department would be happy to help.

Image via WREG News Channel 3/YouTube

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