[s-cars] response to inquiry re. maintenance records

[John Cunningham]

Yeah that's a total bald faced lie as far as I have been able to determine. Certainly at the fed level , maybe some states have unique laws but most privacy laws i know about cover:
- medical records
- financial records
- providing customer contact lists to marketing spammers / telemarketers
- keeping the government from demanding your info without asking
And not much else. 

I agree that's the common answer from dealerships and I am sure from experience asking that it's national policy from AoA and BMWCCA now, but the "because of like, it's the law and stuff" seems total BS - I looked around some time ago trying to validate that claim but haven't found any evidence of a law saying car repair records somehow qualify under right to privacy. Welcome any lawyers on the list to educate us otherwise but I've never been able to find it. 

The real reason I'm sure is not pissing off former/current/future customers. There's little to be gained by giving us the records but if it contradicts a sellers claim etc the dealer doesn't want to get in the middle and appear to be narcing him out and risk getting screamed at by some nut job about "violating my privacy!" when he was lying about the car...

That said if you have p secret friends working at dealers who will pull the svc records quietly that seems to work fine... 

Sent from iPad

On Jun 26, 2012, at 0:01, Taka Mizutani <t44tqtro at gmail.com> wrote:

> Steve-
> I don't know when they started this, but any service information that is
> connected to a client cannot be disclosed. I've had this same issue with
> buying used cars, although the dealership allowed me to view the screen at
> the dealership with the service information displayed, along with the
> previous owner's name and address (!).
> 
> Taka
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 9:33 PM, Steve Marinello <smarinello at entouch.net>wrote:
> 
>> So, I was perusing ebay for an A4q for my daughter and found one that
>> seemed
>> interesting and queried the dealership as to whether they had knowledge or
>> records of the service history, particularly the tb service.  A simple,
>> "No,
>> sorry" would have been disappointing, but acceptable.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The response: "Privacy laws prevent records being passed on."
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Really.?  Nice looking car, too.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>>