[ariesonu]

Any info available on who will bear the costs of these damages and how much?
Can the customer be held liable for these damages?
Did dealer have Liability insurance?
Can this customer sue dealer on Liability grounds?
Who actually will be held responsible for these damages, in court of law?

Rgds.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by asingh1977

Well at times, the handover ceremony is done inside the showroom, and the customer is eager to "drive" the car out. I have seen people driving their new cars out....

The cars have already been driven by manufacturer, dealer and showroom staff to get it from assembly to showroom delivery bay, so another few meters to the compound gates makes sense safety and liability-wise.

Originally Posted by silverado

Cars these days come with lots of features.Showroom guys have to show them off, hence I believe all the keys must be in display cars....

Not very difficult to keep electronics active while cutting out the ignition circuit (maybe remove relevant fuse?). Meets the feature show-off requirement and negates accidental driving risk.

[sidpunjabi]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Not very difficult to keep electronics active while cutting out the ignition circuit (maybe remove relevant fuse?). Meets the feature show-off requirement and negates accidental driving risk.

My 2 cents:

The 30-second autolock feature is actived once the keyfob is outside the car. I guess someone (probably from the showroom) decided to let it stay inside to override this feature.
Unfortunately that also means that anyone can start the car.

Everything else that followed - A series of unfortunate events.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by sidpunjabi

...
Everything else that followed - A series of unfortunate events.

My point precisely.

Unfortunate but entirely avoidable sequence of events, if display cars were impossible to start in the first place.

[RaviK]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Through several showroom visits, I was under the impression most dealerships disconnect the battery from the cars displayed inside the showroom; isn't that standard SOP? Shouldn't that be the case.

Yes, ideally that should be the case. However, not everyone seems to follow that. Visited a Ford showroom in CHD Ind. estate a few months back, an SA was parking a freestyle in showroom. Few minutes afterwards, the same car was being evaluated by a prospective customer (didn't see anyone disconnecting the wires).
So in such cases, there is a possibility of happening an incident similar to this one !

[ToothyPetrohead]

Till date whenever I have gone to a showroom all cars have their battery disconnected so Manual/automatic and Key-less systems (Hyundai) though highly sensitive would be disengaged. I wonder what was the reason here?

Loss true, but the dealer can claim Insurance. (Insurance fraud due Poor sales scenario at the moment cannot be ruled out).

Bringing home a car is something quite big for a lot of people but a brand new damaged one. That too not one three damaged ones.

One silver lining being that everyone is safe and no causalities and the showroom was not at higher level.

My heart goes out to the poor three brand new cars once damaged can never be the same damaged (frame damage on first one due to drop from a height) and the unsuspecting person who later buys one of these thinking it is brand new.( Pre- registration check -list only we Team Bhpians would do,thanks to the advice section.)

[speedogod]

If you look closely the women is seen adjusting the drivers seat. Maybe she was preparing for her own version of "Gone in 60 seconds".

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

With keyless start; the car won't start if the key is outside the vehicle. But once the engine is running, it will continue to run even if and after the key is taken out.

I totally agree with you, the key needs to be inside the car for it to start. Once the engine is running, it doesn't matter if you throw the key in the valley or a sea. My friend owns a Hyundai Grand i10. So what happened once was, he and his friend had driven to some place and on the way back, his friend got down at his village but the key remained with him in his pocket by mistake. My friend meanwhile continued to drive without stopping/turning off the car anywhere enroute for the next 20 kms and reached his home. Only then he realised that the key was missing

Personally, I am not a fan of keyless system at all.

[FrodoOfTheShire]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Lucky indeed that there wasn't any serious injury to anyone

Originally Posted by toppor

Thank God that no one was hurt

Originally Posted by speedguy

Because there are no 'IMPACT' sensors that triggers the Airbag. There are actually "Deceleration' sensors.

Really sorry for the lady. She must be inconsolable right now

I feel she must have been badly injured. She wasn't wearing seat belt and the airbag didn't deploy. First the jarring crash with the glass wall and then the drop from ~3-4 feet. And then she crashed into the cars parked outside, around the 37s mark, you can see her head bang into the steering really hard

[MSC]

Home sweet home.
Dev Bhoomi Hyundai, the Hyundai dealership happens to be in my town. It's the main dealership having it's branches & sub branches through out Mandi district.
The affected car and two parked cars, which were hit have sustained some damages.
The only saving grace was that no one was injured on the road as this dealership is bang on the always busy Chandigarh Manali Highway. It would had been a different story had this car entered the highway.

[gunsho]

Originally Posted by vivek95

So what happened once was, he and his friend had driven to some place and on the way back, his friend got down at his village but the key remained with him in his pocket by mistake. My friend meanwhile continued to drive without stopping/turning off the car anywhere....

While it’s true that engine will continue to run when the key goes out, it will beep like anything. How the new driver missed that sound? The moment first driver opened the door and moved out with the key in his pocket, the alarm would start before even he could shut the door.

[saket77]

Probably she wanted to pay the 'on-road' price.

Hope nobody was injured. The car looks like finally ended on the road which is out of the camera field.

[ashwinprakas]

All said and done I'm grateful no children or unsuspecting motorists were involved considering that the showroom was located besides the highway.

[MSC]

The easiest and safest way to keep a display car in a showroom is to keep the battery connection intact, just remove the self starter fuse. In this way, the car won't start at all & the SA can show every thing like display, ICE etc to customers.

[vharihar]

What could have also happened is that the engine may have been started at some point in time and kept running, and then she and the salesman may have begun conversing about various things for quite some time (with the engine running all the time), and after the extended conversation she perhaps forgot that the engine was running (can happen with some quiet petrol engines, you can't hear the engine noise), and just happened to floor the accelerator pedal for the heck of it or (thinking that the engine is off). And there it went!

Am sure glad no one other than the driver was injured!

I'd apportion the blame (after whatever insurance pays) between the showroom (corporate level) and the lady, and some on the salesman individually. Its the showroom's responsibility to ensure that its staff are trained well (to remove ignition fuse) and the buck stops with them, so they *must* be held accountable too. Thats the way you incentivize them to improve on this front in future.

The lady for sure is accountable very much.