Funny thing about it is I crashed it 15 minutes later...

I went to test drive a 350 at the dealership down here in Bloomington... anyway, the drive was going great and I was REALLY enjoying the vehicle... very torquey, great ride and a lot of cool features...

On our way back to the dealership the salesman tells me to "push that button by your right knee and floor it." Not expecting what happened, i essentially floored the car and the back tires immediatly lit up and sent the car into a 90 degree spin into the intersection. I tried to get control by turning into the slide and tapping the throttle (which used to work in my trans am...) but no such luck... as soon as i tapped the gas the rear end swung around in the complete opposite direction and the rear drivers side wheel struck the curb.

I smached my head on the b-pillar pretty hard, but I was ok... the car was pretty messed up... a good chunk of the rear rim broke off and the front one was scratched pretty bad... the rear control arm bent into a U shape and the tire obviously popped on impact... the side sill was a little scared but nothing into the paint itself...

All in all it was a very spectacular accident... I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, whether I sue the dealership for negligence or what... my insurance company is handling all that...

The best part was when I got into the dealership the "owner" tried to force me into BUYING the car. Who does that? He told me if I did't buy it now, he'd sue me and I'd pay for it that way...

I dunno... some of the guys there were cool about it, some weren't... all togheter it was certainly an interesting first Z experience...

Just a good story I thought you guys would like to read...

~Lance

 

let the flaming begin!

 

You are in big trouble my friend. Prepare to be the owner of a Z. And how can you sue. You messed their car up and you arent the owner. If it was my dealership. You would be working as the new janitor until the car was paid off.

 

Sounds like a bad dream!

Sue the dealership for wrecking there car...ahhhhhhhh ok.

 

You wreck their car and you want to sue them?

How would you feel if someone wrecked YOUR car and then sued you?

This is dumb. I hope you're just trolling.

Jason

 

the dealer has insurance to cover this sort of thing, its not like jsut driving your friends car and ****ing up. Maybe im wrong but im not sure hes absolutely ****ed

 

After talking to my insurance company I'm in no way at fault or have to pay a cent.

There's a part you guys are missing... this was the first time I'd driven one of these cars and was not familiar with them at all... then the guy told me to "push that button" i certainly didn't expect to defeat every control system on the car... also, what kind of sales person tells someone to defeat traction control and then floor the car? That's where the problem is... after everything they kept me at the dealership for 3 hours trying to threaten me into the buying the car...

It was a hell of a thing, I certainly didn't expect the car to loose control like that... now they're telling me there's $3700 of damage. There's no way we're going to pay any of this, and that sales person should be held responsible, we'r ejust lucky nothing worse happened and it's merely cosmetic stuff on the car.

~Lance

ps- thanks for making fun of me after my traumatic event! ;-)

 

No I think he is. Sure the dealer has insurance, but if I borrowed your car and wrecked it, would you take the hit on your policy and let me off scott free?

Don't you wonder why they do a credit check before letting you test drive cars?

I don't quite see how he is going to sue the dealer for negligence, its basically his word against the salesman's, and even if the salesman did tell him to do that, I don't think it would be his fault anyway.

 

Certainly wouldnt be the salesmans fault, if he told someone to rearend the guy in front of him would you do that too? If you're already at speed and you go and floor the car it's your own fault for driving over your limits.

BTW at what speed and what gear were you in that made you light the tires up and spin out? I dont have a Z but I'd like to hear from the owners that bang their cars around to know if this is even possible.

 

It's not so much fault, but it's vicarious liability... through his actions and his initiation, he caused the accident... but either way, you don't tell someone to drive recklessly without expecting something bad to happen...

Furthermore, in his statement to the cop, the salesman admitted what he said and that his actions probably caused the accident... but i honestly don't care, it was just a crazy event that never should of have happened but it did...

it is one hell of a car though... as long as you keep it under control.

~Lance

 

It was from a standing start with traction defeating... the tires lit up and I let off the throttle but the vehicle was already sideways, it whipped around and hit the curb... I've spun out a car before and it had a LOT more horsepower than that Z was putting down and I had NO problem getting control of it again... that was just CRAZY that it kept going...

~Lance

 

Lance, what button are you referring to? I have a performance and I don't have a single button on the right side of my knee. TCS/VDC is on the left side. Is that what you meant?

 

Yeah, sorry about that... I was just told to "push that button by your left knee." Fun stuff.

~Lance

 

well if it's his word against a car salesman's, he's probably ok...

it sounds like the salesman was definitely negligent if that was an honest and accurate account. but there is no way YOU sue THEM.

 

There's no way you can sue them. They'll probably be liable for damages. Why should you GET money? You weren't physically injured.

 

Well isn't this a prime example of a lack of personal accountability. "It's everyones fault but mine".

If the salesman told you to jump off a bridge would do it, then sue him? The truth is you weren't familiar with the way the car performs or handles yet you still decided it would be ok to push the vehicle to it's limits. Did you get a reckless driving ticket? If you didn't, you should have.

 

Don't sue them mate... that would be very gay...

Now don't take this the wrong way... but if you crashed a ~280hp car which doesnt make bucketloads of torque etc. (they're great cars, but just from what i've seen/heard), don't expect to jump into anything more powerfull any time soon...

Was the road wet? I've seen a few 350's been given ****, and none did what u said (they spun the wheels and stuff, but not snakying out of control)...

Now this is gonna seem pretty mean, but if you have to rely on all these gadgets to ensure you can control the car, I suggest you dont get anything more powerfull... although it was your first ever drive, and what he told you to do was pretty stoopid of him...

Good luck with the outcome...

 

you know what get couple of you freinds and go jump the mf beat the living **** out of him?


- dont you thing thats a good idea trust me we do that in atlanta all the time it's fun

 

Wow cut the guy some slack! I am sure he was nervous on his first drive of the Z and he was just listening to the car salesman.

Comparing "push that button next to your knee and floor it" is a little differen't than "go jump off a cliff". Lance was just listening to someone who OBVIOUSLY had more experience driving a Z than him.

I am not saying that it wasn't directly Lance's fault for wrecking the car. I am just pointing out the fact that indirectly, had he not followed the directions given by the salesman the car would NOT have been wrecked.

I think it was up to the salesman to judge the driving skills and comfortability of the driver in the car before asking them to "floor it"! As would be the case if I let someone drive my Z, I wouldn't tell them to drop it into second and power drift around a curve if I knew they weren't capable of doing it (I haven't done this by the way).

On a side note, how close were you to buying the Z Lance? I couldn't get a damn test drive until I was about to sign on the dotted line!!

good luck

---To the poster above, what the hell are you talking about, or are you really that illiterate?

 

so you lost control from a standing stop or were you going into a turn? its very hard to lose control like that from a stop in these cars but if you were in a turn it is believable. dont forget guys this was a new stock z so i find it hard to believe that he could get it sideways even by launching off the rev limiter. btw how old are you, you claim to have had a trans am which has a load more power and is a beast off the line but cannot handle the z