Man Drops His Car Off At The Dealership. Then He Checks The Car’s Driving History: 'That's Not OK'

A CFO who dropped his car at a service department and then opened the trip log app on his phone has posted a 13-second video to TikTok with a question: Should my car be at a restaurant?

Abir (@cpaish), whose channel usually covers topics in finance, says he watched via his phone as a dealership employee drove roughly 50 miles across town over the course of the day, with stops including what looked like a home address as well as outings for food.

His clip has seen more than 96,700 views and over 100 replies, with dealership employees confirming that all too often, customer cars leave the lot for unauthorized trips.

Restaurant Trips

Abir films from the passenger seat of what appears to be a courtesy vehicle. "Yo, is it normal that when you drop off your car at a dealer for something, the dealer just takes your car and it becomes theirs?" he says. "I'm looking at the Journeys app on my phone, and this dude's driving everywhere. Drove like fifty miles—taking the car home, going to the restaurants. What the [expletive]?"

He does not say what the car is in for or how long the service is expected to take.

‘I Saw My Car At H-E-B. He Was Running Errands’

Several commenters who identified themselves as service-department staff defended diagnostic driving but said that it requires a disclosure.

Kilo Lee wrote, "Extended test drives are normal, but they should not be taking your car to go to other places." 

Ryan, who said he worked at a dealership, put a finer point on it: "We have to drive the cars, but definitely not allowed to go shopping or home. That's not okay."

Others pointed out that some technical problems can only be reproduced by extended driving. A commenter posting as feral_dwarf wrote, "If you have some kind of a weird intermittent concern that only happens at 3:47pm on a Tuesday after a light rain when passing a McDonalds, yeah, you're gonna have some crazy test drives."

PhoenixRising624, however, whose husband works at a dealership as a mileage-adder for the mechanics, said that the practice is usually governed by norms. "They should not be making stops, getting food, or anything personal. Driving miles only depending on what the mechanic needs," they wrote.

Dealership workers all said that the customer should be told. "The dealer is supposed to communicate all that to the client. Not just run up the mileage," gurshi17 wrote. Rebecca said her own dealer required her to sign a stack of paperwork before an extended test drive began, "and that was only after they had done their normal diagnostic."

The Cases That Already Made The News

The Journeys app is one of a growing stable of trip-log apps that let vehicle owners watch their cars' movements in real time. FordPass, MyChevrolet, BMW ConnectedDrive, Volvo On Call, Tesla's app, and third-party OBD trackers all do variations on the same thing.

This newfound visibility has made some dealership joyrides public in ways that would not have been possible a decade ago.

In 2024, an Illinois Ford Explorer owner named Jonathan Gregory, working in Germany at the time, was pinged by FordPass alerts each time his leased SUV left the Naperville dealership for repairs.

Two service visits produced 100 and 140 unauthorized miles, respectively, with the technician passing multiple toll booths. The dealership initially claimed the tech had to drive the car to record the sound of a noisy sunroof. Fair Oaks Ford eventually fired the employee, waived the sunroof repair, offered lifetime free oil changes, reimbursed the tolls, and adjusted the lease's mileage cap.

In summer 2023, a customer of Modern Chevrolet in Burlington, North Carolina, dropped off his 2016 Corvette Z06 for a fuel-injector replacement and, weeks later, pulled the dashcam footage.

One technician performed several full-throttle pulls in the car; another used it to pick someone up to show them "just how fast it is." The dashcam sat unnoticed until the owner reviewed the footage after the car was returned.

The Advice The Comments Kept Circling Back To

Commenters on Abir's video offered some practical recommendations, including to take a photo of the odometer at drop-off, note the fuel level, ask up front whether an extended test drive is anticipated and, if so, request written notice with an estimated distance.

These steps match up with what consumer regulators already recommend. California's Bureau of Automotive Repair consumer guide tells drivers a shop must give a written estimate before any work, that they can demand their old parts back, and to keep records of everything done to the vehicle. A trip log screenshot is just the modern version of that paper trail.

For those without a factory app, commenters recommended dropping an AirTag in the vehicle before turnover. TimNope, who said he was a technician, pointed at a factory-level fix on many modern cars. "This is why the service key (second key) is programmed as a valet key, 10-mile radius from the service department,” he wrote. “If it passes the geo-fence I'll get notified along with the dashboard notifying the driver."

And if the mileage starts climbing without disclosure, commenters recommended talking to the service manager first, then the dealer principal, then the manufacturer's corporate line. Two commenters said their earlier reports had produced restitution—free maintenance packages, waived service charges, or, in one case, a toll-road ticket paid by the dealer.

Motor1 reached out to Abir via the contact link in his TikTok bio for additional comment. We'll be sure to update this if he responds.