A Vancouver SUV owner has received an apology from an auto glass company after his vehicle was written off in a bizarre Hollywood-style accident while it was supposed to be in their shop getting fixed.
Calvin Chan brought his beloved seven-year-old Land Rover to Broco Auto Glass in Burnaby after a side window was smashed in during a break-in at a mall parking lot.
The SUV had been in the shop for several days when he said the manager nagged him to return a courtesy car before the job was done.
Then Chan received a call that his vehicle was T-boned in an accident on the road outside of the shop by a speeding Honda Civic.
"It ends up hitting my car. The driver loses control and he ends up flipping the car in the air. It was airborne and it lands roof-first on top of a parked vehicle," Chan said.
Two Broco trucks were also damaged in the crash. Police estimate the Civic was gong over 100 kilometres an hour. The driver, who was treated in hospital, faces a charge of driving without due care and attention.
"I'm thinking to myself, ‘after all I've been through, I bring my car to you to get the windows replaced, I get hassled on the phone -- and now my car is totaled,'" he said, adding that he had been insurance claim-free for the entire seven years he owned the SUV.
But it wasn't so much the crash that had Chan firing off angry letters to Broco's head office. He said the lack of customer service was like a punch to the stomach after the news his car was destroyed.
Fred Beck, the president of Broco Glass, admits the manager of the Burnaby shop reacted poorly in this case because he felt he was being blamed for the fluke accident that totaled Chan's vehicle.
"We just tried to explain our side of the story and say, ‘look at his side of it. Look how, if it was your car and you dropped it off at a shop and you came back and it was written off, how would you want to be treated?" he told CTV's Steele on Your Side.
Chan's car has been formally written off by ICBC and will receive a $13,000 cheque to replace his vehicle.
After he came to Steele on Your Side, he also received a formal apology from the president of the auto glass company.
"Calvin, I apologize from the deepest part of my heart, and the whole Broco family. If there's anything in our power to make it better we will," Beck said.
Watch CTV News for more details of this bizarre crash, and a full report from Lynda Steele…