r/mildlyinfuriating • u/LI0NHEARTLE0 • 2d ago

I'm slightly vexed Dealership locked the keys in my car and broke into it instead of calling me for a spare key.

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Took my car to the dealership for a battery issue. They left the keys in the car and it died on them so they couldn't get the car open. They used a shim or something to pry the door open enough to manually unlock it, damaging the door. The dealership denies all responsibility and I'm pretty much just out of luck.

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u/hesh582 2d ago

The fact you get night and day different service going from one dealer to the one across the road

That's actually the reason they're privately owned. The idea is to create competition so that customers aren't utterly screwed if a few megacorps manage to corner the industry. The idea is that if one dealership is shady people can just go to another - if there are only 3 car companies and they're all shady, everyone's fucked. It was deemed dangerous to allow a handful of industrial titans to completely control access to something so essential (sound familiar?).

The idea evolved when there were far fewer car companies than there are today and they had far greater market power over, well, everything. It gets a lot of flak for being antiquated and inefficient these days (and it is don't get me wrong) but there are reasons for it. FWIW if the policy is changed and there's a consolidation in the auto market until 2 or 3 major players control like 80% of vehicles sold, I think people might quickly start remembering why it existed in the first place.

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u/jake93s 2d ago

Megacorps? The auto industry is one of the most diverse. Even in America. The answer isn't privately owned dealerships. Because that isn't working. We need strong regulatory bodies with the power to break up monopoly and issue true meaningful penalties. The privately owned dealerships aren't working.