“I worked in a few different shops, but the one I worked at that was located in Bethesda, MD, was by far the worst. The vast majority of the customers were uppity rich or semi-rich folks, which seemed to demand we cater to their every whim despite knowing nothing about cars.
We had one lady that brought in her Land Rover one day. She complained that it was making horrible noises. As expected, the brake pads had been completely demolished and were grinding into the rotors. Had this been a little Honda or something, her rotors would have likely been completely destroyed; it was only by the sheer size of them that had managed to not fall apart (i.e. the disc completely separate from the portion that went on the wheel hub.) Seriously, I have no idea how this thing was even able to move or stop. It was that bad. Metal on metal.
Anyway, Land Rover parts are notoriously expensive, so after markup, they’re even more expensive. She balked at the price, which wasn’t all that surprising. We didn’t feel comfortable letting her drive the car out of the shop (not just because of the danger to her, but the danger to us as well. Liability is not something you mess around with when surrounded by rich people). We even offered to pay to have it towed to another shop of her choosing.
For some reason, this hit a sore spot with her. She flew into a rage, yelling and pointing fingers at people, accusing us of refusing to let her drive her own vehicle and that we were imposing on her freedom and (I kid you not, she said this): her ‘god-given right to drive a car no matter how messed up it is!’
At this point, our manager came out and refused to let her drive the car out due to liability concerns, plus the fact that this woman was going crazy.
This sent the insane woman over the edge alright. The psycho Karen starts throwing tools, knocking tires over, and just generally acting nuts. We ended up calling the cops on her, and when they got there, she tried punching them and screamed at them.
She ended up in the backseat of a cruiser, and her truck was towed to the local impound. Just another crazy day at work.”
