A woman expressed her outrage after returning to a Kia dealership for a simple tire change, only to find her car had been stripped for parts to service another vehicle.
Shirley Poullard brought her vehicle to Kia of Lake Charles in Louisiana on June 17 after her tire blew out on the interstate.
She said in a social media post that she had not heard from the dealership for days after the SUV was towed.
After Poullard was told that the damage was not covered by her warranty, she showed up at the dealership weeks later and found the hood of her car was open.
When an altercation with one of the service members, who Poullard named as Adrian Walker, became heated, she began recording and shared the video online.
Poullard showed that her motor had been touched and demanded to know what was wrong with it.
‘I drove it! What’s wrong with my motor? Is that a motor, sir? Are they not working on my car, sir?!’ she demanded.
The service manager asked Poullard to calm down and said they had borrowed two injectors from the vehicle.
Shirley Poullard expressed her outrage online after she went to a Louisiana Kia dealership and found her car hood open when she had taken it in for a tire blowout
Poullard said a service manager at the Kia dealership in Lake Charles took out the injectors in her vehicle and replaced them
‘Did I send my car here for you to borrow parts?!’ she questioned.
Walker said they would replace the parts for free, but admitted that Poullard had not sent her car to the dealership for that.
Poullard claimed that she was initially told that the vehicle had not been touched, but she later found her motor had been taken apart for the injectors.
She went on to say that her SUV now drives and sounds worse than when she first got it.
Poullard added that a general manager later apologized to her and decided not to charge her the $175 diagnostic fee.
‘Taking something without permission is stealing,’ Poullard told local NBC affiliate KPLC, accusing the dealership of stealing her injectors.
She also warned her neighbors in the Lake Charles community that whoever purchased new injectors for their Kia Telluride received used parts from her vehicle.
Poullard’s post went viral, and the dealership told KPLC it took the allegations seriously and launched an internal review.
The dealership later said the employee had been let go and apologized to the customer involved
Poullard claimed that the car drives and sounds worse than when she first got it and plans to seek legal representation
‘Following that review, the Service Manager is no longer employed with our company,’ Kia Lake Charles said in a statement.
‘Our team is held to a high standard of customer care, professionalism, respect, and honesty. Every customer deserves to be treated with dignity, and we sincerely apologize to the customer involved.’
Poullard told KPLC that she plans to seek legal representation in the matter. The Daily Mail has reached out to Poullard and Kia for additional comment.
