GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Imagine taking your car to a dealership to get it fixed and then later finding your car at someone’s house.
That’s exactly what one woman says happened to her, and now she wants answers.
It all began with a problem with Eileen Owens’ truck.
“All of a sudden it will rev real high,” Owens said.
But then Owens said she faced an even bigger problem after taking the truck to Mall of Georgia Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Fuford to get fixed.
“It was like the service person couldn’t give me direct answers,” she said.
She said that after nearly a week of no updates on the status of the repairs at the dealership, she decided to check her truck’s GPS tracker online.
“I saw that it was in Loganville. And I’m like, ‘Why is my car in Loganville instead of the dealership in Buford?’” she said.
So she went to the address, some 20 miles from the dealership, and recorded it all on video.
“There’s my truck parked in front of somebody’s house,” Owens said.
The homeowner told her that he’s a mechanic at the dealership.
“It looked like they had went on a family trip in my vehicle. It was grease everywhere, crumbs,” she said.
Channel 2 anchor Justin Wilfon called the owner of the dealership, Craig Cappy.
“Is it normal to take customers’ cars home?” Wilfon asked.
“Oh yes, of course it happens,” Cappy said. “This is a normal practice in the entire metro Atlanta area.”
He said Owens signed a form approving it for test drives to help identify the problem, but the form doesn’t mention taking the car home.
“No, it doesn’t say we drive it home, but we do drive it home,” Cappy said.
The owner later claimed an employee verbally told Owens they would take her car home -- something Owens said simply isn’t true.
“I was so angry I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
The dealership said it drove the car about 300 miles during those test drives, and Owens said the truck still isn’t fixed.
She said there were also a couple of electronics items, including a DVD player, missing from the truck.
The owner said he doesn’t believe his employees stole anything.
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