Every test drive runs on an unspoken deal. The dealer hands over the keys and you bring the car back in the condition you found it. A customer in Hope, British Columbia, broke the second half of that deal, then argued in court that provincial traffic law turned him into a temporary dealership employee. A judge didn’t buy it.
On October 8, a B.C. Supreme Court justice dismissed the appeal brought by Kirby Sewell. That leaves in place a 2025 judgment ordering him to pay Gardner Chevrolet Buick GMC $17,182.23 (Canadian) for repairs, lost value, and interest.
How a Truck Stop Ate a Corvette
Sewell, a longtime customer of the dealership, had ordered a high-performance Corvette with an expected sale price of about $121,000. He took it out on June 12, 2024. Nobody signed any paperwork before he left, and nobody discussed insurance. Somewhere during the drive, he decided he wasn’t going to buy it.
He then pulled into a Flying J truck stop and parked in the area set aside for commercial trucks so he could look the car over and take photos. A waiting driver needed the space. While Sewell moved the Corvette out of the way, he hit a concrete barrier and did serious damage to the passenger side.
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Anyone who has sat in a mid-engine C8 knows the problem. You sit very low, the nose falls away out of sight, and the bodywork behind your shoulder is wide. A knee-high concrete barrier can disappear from view entirely, especially when you’re hurrying for an annoyed trucker.
Doing the Math
The dealer spent roughly $10,000 fixing the car. It then sold it for $115,000 and told the buyer about the damage. Disclosing it was the honest move, and the reason the car sold for less.
Add the $10,000 repair to the $6,000 gap between the expected price and the actual sale price and you get about $16,000. Interest carries it to the final award. The court didn’t penalize Sewell. It billed him for what the car actually lost.
That repair bill isn’t shocking for a Corvette. Chevrolet has used composite body panels instead of stamped steel since 1953. A damaged panel usually means replacing and refinishing it rather than banging it straight, and matching modern multi-stage paint costs money. Then comes the hit no shop can repair: a car with disclosed damage is worth less than an identical one without it.
The Section 86 Argument
Sewell’s main defense relied on section 86 of B.C.’s Motor Vehicle Act. When someone drives a car with the owner’s consent, that section treats the driver as the owner’s agent or employee. His argument was simple: the dealer consented to the drive, so he was effectively their employee, and the dealer’s coverage should absorb the damage.
The appeal judge agreed with the trial judge that this misreads the law. Sewell’s lawyer couldn’t point to a single case supporting it. The judge wrote that the provision exists to protect innocent third parties. In the judge’s words, “It is not intended to protect a negligent driver from their own negligence.”
Look at how the rule actually works and the problem with Sewell’s reading becomes obvious. In Harris v. Ward, B.C.’s Court of Appeal found a Victoria dealership to be the “owner in possession” of a car involved in a crash and held it vicariously liable. The reason was so injured people have a solvent owner to pursue.
Section 86 widens who can be held responsible to a victim. It doesn’t move the bill from a careless driver onto the owner of the car he damaged. Sewell was asking a rule written for victims to protect the person who caused the damage.
Dealers Will Remember This One
The case started in small claims court, and B.C.’s Small Claims Act allows an appeal to the Supreme Court. That’s a lot of legal effort over a parking-lot bump. It’s also the sort of ruling dealers will remember the next time someone wants an unsupervised spin in a six-figure car.
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Signed test-drive agreements, licence and insurance checks, and salespeople riding along are already routine at many stores for exotic and high-performance inventory. A court-backed $17,000 bill gives every dealer a reason to make them mandatory.
What to Do Before Your Next Test Drive
Ask who pays if something happens. Get the answer in writing. Some dealers’ policies cover test drives, and some expect you to cover the deductible or the whole bill.
Call your own insurer first. Coverage for driving a car you don’t own varies a lot by policy and by province or state. Don’t assume you’re covered.
Read anything you sign. If the store has a test-drive agreement, it probably spells out who is liable for damage.
Treat a test drive like it’s your own car. Sewell’s real mistake wasn’t parking in the truck lane. It was the hurried repositioning that followed. Low cars punish rushing.
Stay away from truck stops and parking lots. The dangerous part of a test drive in a low, wide car is usually tight, slow maneuvering, not the highway run.
Has a dealer ever made you sign anything before a test drive, or did they just hand you the keys?
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