Car Performance Tuning Shop Used My Car To Go To A Party, Damaged It, Tried To Cover It Up And Lied To Me About The Circumstances (video Proof)

Location: CA

Background:

A foreign parts manufacturer has intentions of entering the market in the United States. They partnered with a tuning shop near me, who was tasked with finding a local owner of my specific car model to install their product on at no cost, then bring the vehicle to Las Vegas and display it at the SEMA auto show earlier this month. That's where I came in, saw the post on social media, interviewed and was chosen.

A contract was signed - a single page with a few bullet points detailing the parts to be installed, agreeing any cost to remove the installed parts would be at my expense, and that for the period of one year I would leave the branding livery/wrap added to the car and would participate in track events (entry fees, track wheels/tires to be paid for by the shop) and car meets, and be active on social media in order to promote the brand.

I handed over the car in late September, would told it would be a few weeks. Originally was supposed to have the car back before driving to LV, but he said he needed to keep it and I would pick it up the day of our drive up together.

During this entire period, I did have access to my car app that alerted me to doors/windows being unlocked, and also could provide me with the car's location and a 360 surroundings photo when I manually requested them. I had followed the car infrequently over the first couple weeks, saw it visit various shops, some road testing, mostly normal things. A few random visits to what looked like maybe going out to a meal, maybe local parking lot meets, which were a little disconcerting but I wasn't about to make a stink about it. It was never for very long that I could see, or very far.

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Meat of the issue:

Then the final weekend before the show, Halloween night - it was out much further and in an area/time of night that was not comfortable for me. I was out of town and ended up getting distracted and falling asleep. The next day I remote-located the car at a Paintless Dent Repair shop. Obviously a red flag. It spent the entire day and overnight there. The following day, it was taken to a wrap shop for a couple hours and then back to the tuner shop.

I arrived the next day to pick up the car. The shop owner asked if I wanted the good news or the bad news - so obviously I knew something was up. He would only say the car 'got tapped' implying that someone hit it while it was parked somewhere and he discovered it that way. Told me since we were just going off to the show there wasn't time for much so he had to try and get it presentable quickly. The damage was to the front left and the hood area. It looked almost passable, but things are definitely misaligned/creased/bent. He offered me a carbon fiber (light weight, expensive-ish) hood as compensation, he did not offer to fix the damages for me. When I insisted that this be made right, he didn't seem too happy and said "we would work something out". We took the car for a test drive, the car was making an awful noise from the drivetrain. He insisted it was something that they had fixed previously but "didn't happen until you drove it just now," and that we would fix it when we returned to town. I didn't have a lot of time to process this - we had a schedule to keep to get the car into the convention center in time. I believed if I didn't take the car, it would really put that foreign company in a bad position and waste their money and time coming to the US and entering the show. I found a temporary workaround to the drivetrain issue and decided to continue as planned and drive the car to Las Vegas.

What the shop owner did not seem to realize, is that I have a well integrated (FitcamX) OEM-looking dashcam installed in the car. I knew there was a good chance I had this video because he sent a photo of the car earlier in the day on Friday and it was undamaged. I immediately removed the SD card from the camera and drove home, downloaded the footage and uploaded it to cloud storage to review later.

That evening in LV I began downloading the footage to my laptop and discovered what had happened:

10/31 ~9pm he started heading towards a beach city, stopped to take some photos, then continued on. He "cruised" it up and down the main highway for a long while, finally pulling into a back alley in the trendy part of the city and parking it around 10:40pm. He back it in next to what looks like a telephone pole in front and to the left of the car. 15-20 minutes later the car turned back on and he put it in drive, then pulled out towards the left and drove straight into the pole. He cursed and jumped out of the car, and in view of the camera, was wearing a Halloween mask. He fiddled with it for a second then drove it out of the area about a half mile and parked it on the street, with people walking by on the sidewalk in costumes. He paced around worried (maskless now), hands on his head, obviously panicked and trying to figure out what to do. He spent some time trying, it looks like, to manually fix it with his hands. He then drove it to another location a few miles away more private, stopped there about 20-30 minutes continuing to attempt to fix it. He took some photos with his phone. He then took it back to his shop, the garage was open but with the car off, I wasn't able to see anything that might have been done. He drove it to a private residence somewhere (maybe his?) then back to the shop finally around 2am.

11/1, he took it to the dent repair, and the following day 11/2 to the vinyl wrap place.

I spent the week in Las Vegas and didn't say anything to the shop owner, who was there with us the whole time. I did speak with the reps from the foreign company, told them that I didn't want to ruin their show and would keep quiet about it the rest of the week. I asked them to be mindful of their future relationship with the shop owner, and to please get involved after the show and help make things right. They were unable or unwilling to commit to anything in person, have since gone home and I doubt I'll hear from them again. They have not returned any communication's I've sent.

When I got back home, Monday 11/10 I took it for an estimate for the collision damage to two places, one gave me a rough estimate but both places said they would need to take apart the front end to really see what has happened - you could see some cracked/broken pieces underneath but not fully. I also took it to the dealer for a paid full inspection of the car the same day. They discovered some install-related issues that I would also like to get resolved.

In regards to the drivetrain noise, the dealer identified an issue that they believe could be remedied with an additional installed aftermarket part and an alignment ( a relatively inexpensive part and as it turns out should have been installed with the modification by the shop). I purchased have the part being delivered this week and hopefully installed to see if that resolves the issue, otherwise I would want to include this issue in the damages imposed upon the car. I do have video (with audio) of the shop owner driving associates around discussing the noise, with the noise audible as well, so it was definitely not something that just happened when I drove it.

Now, based on these events, I am absolutely not going to be giving the car back to this shop owner for any reason as there is no trust there. The problem is, the owner still has my OEM parts, wheels/tires from pre-installation. I felt I needed to have those back in my possession before telling him what I know and trying to work out a course of action. I attempted to schedule a time this past week, originally set for Friday but then he pushed it to Saturday, then he didn't show up at all. He gave me the "oh i tried to (meant to?) message you" excuses. It's possible he knows that I know what happened. I'm worried he is going to damage or 'lose' my original parts. I'm also worried about retribution if I cause harm to his business/street reputation. I just got a text while writing this and am now scheduled to pick up my stuff tomorrow afternoon so we'll see how that goes.

So my fantasy "resolution" to this was the foreign company hooking me up with another local shop, establishing a new relationship with that shop to continue to carry out the terms of the contract, part ways with this original shop owner and aside from paying from the damages in full, terminate that relationship. Over the course of the week at the SEMA show I came to understand this shop owners talents and value to the foreign company, as a proficient salesperson and smooth networker. I am not eager to ruin this guy's business/life, but I should be made whole on this, without having to put my property at risk with him again in the future. I would also like to have the paid track days and tires part of the contract filled but its lower on my priority list.

Sorry this was so long - its very complicated (in my head?) and I'm not great at dealing with this stuff. But I know it's only getting more difficult the longer I wait. I appreciate your reading this if you made it this far.

So I feel my options are (please add to this if I'm missing something)

1. Tell him what I know, attempt to get the owner to agree to pay in full for the collision damage, install-related issue repair costs, part ways, without involving lawyers/insurance
2. Talk first to a lawyer, potentially sue for damages, loss of value due to the accident, install-related issue repair costs
3. First file a claim with my insurance and let them go after him for the damages (including or not including the install-related issue)

What is the best course of action here? Or the correct order of the options at my disposable in order to minimize headache, damage to either party, and getting this resolved as soon as possible. Would this be worth the time for any lawyer? What is the right kind of lawyer to contact?

Thank you for your time!