Mechanic bagged by red light camera at 3AM driving customer car

Mon, Dec 8 2014

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An Oregon woman took her 2001 Mitsubishi Montero to Steve's Imports in Portland to have the emissions system fixed; the business, however, is a repair and body shop that doesn't appear to specialize in emissions. After paying $2,299.05 for the fix she got a call from the shop informing her that a repairman had been caught on camera running a red light, so she should expect a ticket. When the ticket came, the image with it was the one above, taken at 2:59 AM.

The shop's owner, Steve Spinnett, said the man in the car is his son, Tommy Spinnett, who is the shop foreman. The woman is a "family friend" that Tommy was picking up from a concert. Steve told KVAL news that his son had the car all weekend to put it through a drive cycle, and that the shop doesn't charge for drive cycles done after hours. Even if all of that is true, drive cycles don't take a whole weekend - a thorough emissions-test drive cycle can be done in a couple of hours. And then there's this: the owner needed to pass the emissions test to get new license plates; the ones on the vehicle that Tommy drove over the weekend were expired.

We've written about some egregious instances of customer abuse at the hands of dealership and repair shops, but this isn't one of them. But it looks bad and it's suspicious, and everyone involved might want to be more careful next time. You'll find more details on the incident in the video.

By Jonathon Ramsey