Dealership employee takes customer's Caliber SRT4 for 96 MPH Test Drive
 

Based on news reports it appears the General Manager at Gurnee Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram has an employee issue and an unhappy customer to deal with.

News reports indicate a dealership employee, likely a technician, took a customer's Caliber SRT4 for a 96 MPH test drive after the customer had about $2,000 of repairs performed. For a link to the news report with the dash cab footage - click here

I watched the video and I can understand why the customer would be upset. That said, the employee didn't really thrash the car but there also wasn't a need to hit 96 MPH.

It appears the dash cam video was taken with a Garmin GPS unit - I didn't know Garmin had units that took dash cam videos and I'm guessing the dealership employee who took the Caliber SRT4 didn't know that either... :parnoid:

I drive them 80 mph regularly. Sometimes you have to.

But NOT on 2 lane road ...holy crap what an idiot!

I agree.

The latest I read is the customer took the video to the cops who forwarded it to the DA who is investigating whether charges can be pressed against the technician. The report indicated that the technician is not cooperating with authorities.

Here's the latest news report where the local police department is working with other agencies to determine who has jurisdiction to file charges. For a link to the full report - click here

Apparently the test drive was over eight minutes long and there's footage of the SRT driving by speed limit signs with the GPS indicating a much higher speed.

While I'm sure the General Manager of the store isn't happy to have to deal with this issue, the decision to ignore the media and not respond to questions from reporters seems to have made the situation worse.

In my opinion a simple statement that the dealership takes concerns like these seriously and will cooperate with authorities would have been a wise PR move.