A GARAGE customer handed over his sports car for a routine airbag recall only to discover dashcam footage of a worker “thrashing” the powerful vehicle on roads around Swindon.

Iain Inglis was shocked to see his Mazda RX-8 being “red-lined” by a driver overtaking traffic on the Great Western Way and pumping loud dance music out of the stereo system.

Mr Inglis, 47, claims the Johnsons Mazda worker damaged the Japanese car’s highly-responsive rotary engine as he repeatedly exceeded its 9,000 revs per minute limit.

Mr Inglis said: “The car was picked up from my house for what should have been a standard airbag recall. When it was dropped off I just had this funny feeling so I checked the dashcam and found the car being abused, thrashed and red-lined by the driver.

“The worst parts are when it arrives at the dealership and when it leaves. It was a sunny day and the driver must have decided to go for it. It was horrible to watch.”

The dealership has apologised for the “regrettable” incident but says the engine was not damaged and says Mr Inglis is now asking for free work on the car which goes beyond a compensation package he originally agreed to several months earlier.

The footage from June 26 last year shows a worker pick up the car from Mr Inglis’s home in Abbey Meads before heading to the garage on Great Western Way following Mazda’s global airbag recall.

At several points in the video a beep sounds to indicate the car has hit 9.000 revs per minute, and as the driver arrives at the garage the music is turned up full blast.

While it is in a workshop Mr Inglis says the dashcam shows excessive and unnecessary use of the throttle, which he interprets as a worker showing off.

A comment can be heard about “raggin’ it” in the video before the car heads back onto the Great Western Way, with revs sounding in the background.

While the speedometer is not shown, Mr Inglis believes full throttle was used by the driver and the car overtakes other vehicles on the highway.

Further along the footage shows more noisy revving as the car is dropped off at his home.

MrInglis is now asking Johnsons Mazda Swindon to either fix his engine or buy the vehicle off him for a similar price.

“Once I had shown the footage to the general manager he apologised and offered a free service,” the service engineer said.

“In the end we agreed on four wheels refurbished, full fluid change, excluding oil, and a Mazda used car warranty. The car also had a compression test to see if the engine had been damaged. The compression was below Mazda’s stated limits, but they are refusing to carry out any engine work.”

Mr Inglis says he is now struggling to sell the car, which he originally bought second hand with 4,000 miles on the clock. He values the vehicle at £2,500 with the engine problem, which he claims has wiped around £1,000 off the price.

The dealership provided a summary of its position under its trading name, Johnsons Cars Ltd.

It read: “Johnsons Cars are aware of this regrettable incident and the customer complaint dating back to May 2016 for which we have apologised and reached an agreement with Mr Inglis.

"This complaint resulted in an internal investigation and subsequent disciplinary action of the member of staff involved.

“During the investigation, we carried out a number of tests on the engine which all failed to highlight any damage to the engine when compared to tests prior to the event. Following on from this we discussed a number of options for a compensation agreement as a gesture of goodwill.

“One of the proposals was to provide a warranty for the vehicle. This was accepted by Mr Inglis but he understood that the engine would not be covered as the car had been previously modified for race track use, and the warranty conditions would not support the cover. Mr Inglis finally accepted the support package offer on 30/06/16 without the warranty on the engine.

"Mr Inglis acknowledged that we had restored his faith as a customer as a company that goes above and beyond to fix issues.

“After this conclusion was agreed and several months later, in early 2017, the customer requested further over and above additional free of charge work be carried out to his vehicle, which we have declined.

“As a further compromise, we then offered to be bound by the findings of the national conciliarity service which is a completely independent party. We are waiting to hear back from Mr Inglis from our letter dated May 25, 2017.”