Has anyone else been following this? It is on several sites. Cliff's Notes: Dealer wrecks M5 on test drive after a brake job. Lies to owner, then stonewalls. BMWNA is no help at all. http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e6...dealership-rags-my-car-wrecks-test-drive.html 340,000 views !
Read the story. Tragic. I believe the law is clearly on the car owner's side. It's generally considered illegal to tamper with an accident scene until police have properly documented. Tampering with evidence or a crime scene is known as obstruction of justice, and it's a FELONY in nearly every civilized place on earth. To further compound the mess, the dealership's staff apparently LIED to this guy. If that's true, some people need to seriously be relieved of their jobs quickly. I hope that M5 owner is made whole, made happy, and made suddenly wealthy very soon. Be it by way of settlement, or taking some very stupid people to court.
Why should BMW NA have any responsibility for a dealership employee? To deflect your emotional surface analysis, bear in mind that I am an attorney and I am always on the lookout for a novel way to predicate liability.. Therefore, I'm looking for a well-reasoned legal theory out of this. If you don't have one, quit spouting off about BMW NA's lack of help.
Yes sir! I dint realize you are the boss of this site. You obviously did not read the thread. Regardless, anyone with even a tiny quantity of common sense knows BMWNA has as much clout over any of their dealerships as they care to wield.
I only identified myself so you could frame your answer accordingly. Maybe you'd rather hear it from one of NA's lawyers who might also note that you are improperly using "BMWNA" instead of "BMW NA". Only about 15 or 20 pages of it. By that time, it was pretty repetitive and boring. One or two bright spots and a big bunch of clueless whiners with nothing better to do. How much did you read? Have you ever read a dealership's franchise agreement? BMW NA did not hire the employee; they did not supervise the employee; they are not in any position to discipline or fire the employee. Tell me how they bear any responsibility or obligation to do anything.
Hate to break it to you, but CR Krieger is absolutely right The only "obligation" a manufacturer has with a dealership is to honor their dealership franchise agreement. Dealership staff are NOT employees of BMW. BMW supplies the dealership with licenses for the logos, supplies them with vehicles and provides sales and technical support. That is ALL. BMW isn't liable for this incident anymore than BMW owes you a new car if you wrap yours around a lamp post.
Nothing quite like the "Shoot the messenger" response, simply because someone doesn't like the facts. There will always be those who don't want reality to get in the way of a good story. Unfortunately, we only can see one side of this story. It may be exacly as described, or maybe not. IMO, there's probably a few other "relevant" pieces of the story we haven't been let "in" on...
It's gettin' really scary how often we agree on stuff these days ... Can't wait 'til we get to swap BS over beers some day.
I don't consume alcohol by choice, but otherwise... ...happy to accept the beverage invite. Thanks! I'm not a lawyer by trade, but I'm smart enough to recognize the basics of liability, and clearly BMW NA has nothing to do with this. I can say this -- someone in charge at that dealership owes that guy a replacement vehicle. More importantly, he's owed an apology.
I'm an IT wonk, so legal stuff like this is out of my league. But my thought on the matter is this: BMW NA may have no liability in the issue, but where they should step in is by telling the dealership, who IS responsible, to step up and make the customer happy or get your franchise pulled. Because in the end, the common customer will view an incident like this as a "BMW Issue", not necessarily a "wholly independent dealership issue." In other words, it might benefit BMW NA to throw their weight around to help protect the brand image.
Exactly, I am glad someone can see the forest and not just the trees. (I would have said, 'or RISK having you franchise pulled for any future transgression'. Others seem to have forgotten that BMWNA hands out dealer awards, bonuses, etc. and has a lot of 'clout' (legal term) over its dealers. AFAIK, no one has suggested the victim should sue 'BMW NA', although, now that a suit has been filed, I would not be surprised if they are listed as co-defendants, especially if they renegged on their promise of help.) Now back to our regularly scheduled trolls.. .. .. ..
BMW may keep an eye on this, but... ...chances are, they're going to keep their noses out of it. It's ONE incident, ONE car, in a single locality, and it's not even the manufacturer's problem. Quite likely, BMW is as reluctant to embarrass the dealer as the dealer is to put BMW in a bad PR spot. If it does come down to a lawsuit, quite likely the dealership and the dealership employee will be the only defendants. Clearly, either the dealership's standard policies, traffic laws, or basic common sense on the road wasn't followed here. When you damage or destroy property that's not yours, or if you injure yourself as a result of being on someone else's property, that's a liability issue. This is probably not something BMW could score any significant political points off of (especially since doing so could embarrass the dealership), so again, BMW is probably going to stay out of this mess.
Forgive me for butting in gentlemen... ... but I did read each and every single post and page of that saga... But I believe that the owner of the car had stated / posted that he *was* contacted by BMW NA. (Please don't ask for the Bible chapter and verse on this- because I don't remember which 'page' it was on. I just remember someone made a response post to the effect of : "Glad to hear that BMW has at least made contact with you...") Granted, he never stated what was said or what transpired in the contact, but I think they should get some credit that at least they are certainly AWARE of what's going on.... (Whaaaaht? It was a slow day at work, ok? LOL...)
Frankly, from my perspective, it would appear that you were looking for far more for agreement from others and far less from a reasonable discussion of the issue. While, in a perfect world, it would be nice if all the related parties responded as we wished, that usually doesn't happen. And, if this dealership sells tons of BMW's, I can assure you that sales and profits trump one-time incidents such as this each and every time. This type of behavior is why I (and I'm sure a heck of a lot others as well) simply don't bother to respond or get involved in community forums such as these here. There always seems to be some poster out there with some sort of "chip" on his shoulder. So be it....
Exactamundo! BMW NA makes how much from said dealer? And BMW NA makes how much from M5 owner? If you think that BMW NA will take the franchise rights from the dealer over one incident then I've got some land to sell you here in the Everglades. This whole crappy incident is between the dealer and the M5 owner, that's it.
Ain't never had a day that slow at work ... and I work for me. After about 15 pages, I decided I'd rather be mowing grass - or watching it grow.
Hahaha! I'm glad you have that option... Reading stuff online is actually a good chunk of my day. (legitimately!).
