Joshua Nair
A woman was left with a nasty surprise after sending her car in to be fixed at the garage.
It's every car owner's worst nightmare, but many wouldn't expect their mechanic to take their vehicle out for a joyride after leaving it at the garage. But unfortunately for Australian Megan Bolton, she and her Ford Focus RS fell victim to exactly that.
The 21-year-old's dream car was what she worked towards for some time, even taking a loan out to be able to afford it.
So when the sporty hatchback needed a temperature sensor fixed, Megan brought it in to a nearby garage to get the new part put in.
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When she was told by a mechanic on the Friday that the part needed 'wasn't going to be coming in for quite some days', she left the car there over the weekend, looking to collect it on the following Monday.
Speaking about the car more, Megan revealed: "I've always wanted a car like this before and when it came up, it was the first thing I wanted. I do everything for it, I barely drive it, I garage it, I look after it. I spend all my spare money on it."
The limited edition Ford Focus was meant to be in the care of the mechanic, but the owner was horrified when she checked the dashcam footage after getting her beloved car back.
It turned out that the mechanic took the car out for a few joyrides, completely irking Megan.
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"It's a disrespect to the vehicle and myself you know it's not yours to just play around and have fun with. You've got no reason to even be doing that on a test drive," she claimed.
Megan further claimed that he told her that it was okay to leave the car at the garage, as it could have broken down again if she drove it home due to overheating.
Speaking about the footage, she explained: "He took it home, he left it parked in his driveway overnight, which is something that I don't even do. He took it through a McDonald's drive-through with his kid in the car. He went to a 7-Eleven."
As well as this, the dashcam clocked the car doing 71 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, even hitting 93 km/h in a back street.
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Simply saying it was 'not okay', it was clear that Megan was shaken up by the events, adding: "I was crying for days, that is my pride and joy and he just absolutely mistreated it."
The news team at A Current Affair approached the mechanic in question, Ross Wye, who was working on a red Ferrari at Euro Prestige - Prestige Performance.
After being accused of taking the car out himself and leaving it parked outside, he claimed it was okay, saying: "It was explained that if we drove it during the day she had to pay the hours for the car to be driven, whereas if I drove it home then drove it back to work the next day, she didn't have to pay for our labour."
Megan claimed that she was only told that the part would take time to arrive.
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The news reporter showed the mechanic the dashcam footage of him speeding, to which he responded: "That's going by an uncalibrated GPS."
He added that the drive through McDonald's was okay as he was on his way to work, even though the reporter reiterated that it's not his car to drive.
Looking closer at the footage, he even asked: "Is that even me driving?"
Ross added: "I don't believe so, I don't know. I'm not the only person here, there's five of us here," to which the reporter said: "So you're all taking it for a spin?"
After she pointed out that he took it cause 'it's a cool car', he pointed out that they 'work on Ferraris, Porches, Lamborghinis'.
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Megan concluded: "I thought I trusted him, I really did. I felt absolutely betrayed to leave my car in the trust of someone and a company and for him to go and make it his own and drive it the way he did. I don't even drive it like that."
Branded as a 'he said, she said' story by the news team, the mechanic then apologised for the 'misunderstanding'.