Ford Dealership Totals Owner’s Shelby Mustang
Imagine taking your 2008 Shelby GT500 to a Ford dealership to have the vehicle routinely checked and then learning that a serviceman totaled your car and you won’t be fully compensated.
Well, that’ s exactly what happened to Marc Mastroianni, who saved up for a year to buy the Shelby, according to a Hartford Courant report. The car was totaled after one of the servicemen at the dealership, Litchfield Ford, crashed the Mustang during a test drive while trying to diagnose a transmission issue.
Mastroianni says he paid $37,000 for the Shelby Mustang in February 2013 and more than $8,000 for other modifications, on top of another $2,500 paid to the dealership for previous services before the accident. But the dealership’s insurance only gave Mastroianni $39,385.66 in the settlement, which is much less than he spent on the vehicle.
“It is terrible,” said Patrick Hill, a co-owner of Litchfield Ford, “and, unfortunately, it happened to us as a dealership. Believe me, I felt for the guy. We were upset about it. He can’t replace that current car today because maybe it’s $60,000.”
Mastroianni, who’s now driving a Nissan Frontier pick-up, says he’s still pretty distraught about the whole ordeal.
“I can go on and on about this car,” he told the Courant about his Shelby. “I lost time from work. It had a huge impact on my life. How does stuff like this happen?”
We’re just as confused by this whole ordeal as Mastroianni, but one thing’s clear, it doesn’t seem quite fair.