Owner Says Valet Took His C8 Corvette For Joyride

There seems to be quite the problem with valets taking high-performance cars for joyrides. It was a thing of pure suspicion back in the day, as hilariously portrayed in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but in this age of dashcams and other technology, it can be proven with cold, hard facts. That’s exactly what the owner of a brand new C8 Corvette has after a valet took his sports car for a raucous joyride.

See the aftermath of a C8 Corvette crash that critically injured a GM engineer here.

The owner of that Corvette he handed over to the valet service at a Birmingham, Alabama airport told local station WVTM it had under 300 miles on the odometer. If you know C8s then you’re well aware it was still in the break-in period and so shouldn’t have been driven hard.

Also, if you know C8 Corvettes you know they have an onboard camera that’s part of the Performance Data Recorder system. Using that, the owner of the Chevy looked to see what happened after noticing the mileage on his brand new vehicle was higher than when he dropped it off.

He claims the PDR recorded the valet hitting 6,000 rpm multiple times – a big no-no for a C8 still in its break-in period. But the valet didn’t care about any long-term damage he might’ve done. After all, the guy was having a blast on someone else’s dime.  

Also caught on the video was the valet bragging to his passenger about taking a McLaren out for a joyride as well. In other words, it sounds like this wasn’t an isolated incident.

One might think with all this evidence the valet service would’ve been highly apologetic. The Corvette owner says they were at first, but then when asked for a letter detailing out that it would be responsible for future engine failure thanks to the abusive driving during the break-in period, the company refused. From what we’ve seen this is pretty typical of valet services, sadly.

The airport says it’s “looking into this matter” and will “ensure that the responsible parties are held accountable for any misconduct which resulted in damages.” The thing is the damages might not manifest until much later.

Something needs to change with valet services because we see these types of stories often lately. Too many valets are eager to go joyriding in customers’ vehicles, then the companies weasel out of any responsibility. It’s an increasingly broken system.