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Taking a car to a dealership for routine work is not supposed to end in an insurance claim. But that is exactly what one Dodge Challenger owner says happened after he recently left his SRT Hellcat Last Call Jailbreak in for servicing.

A man named Robert Hill wrote on his Facebook page that he took his Challenger to Matt Bowers Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Louisiana on July 3 for routine maintenance, and his account was later highlighted more widely by Carscoops. He says he then spent around six hours waiting at the dealership before being given some deeply upsetting news.

Hill said the dealership’s general manager told him that an “unqualified lube tech” had taken the 717-horsepower muscle car out on what the general manager described as a “test drive,” before crashing it. Images shared on social media showed a Sublime Green Challenger with major front-end damage; the collision appears to have been serious enough to deploy all of the airbags.

According to Hill, the manager told him that although the dealership claimed it was under no obligation to do anything, it still wanted to “help out,” and would sell him another similar car at MSRP instead of applying the dealer’s usual $25,000 markup over sticker price. It is not clear whether this proposed replacement was meant to be a new, never-titled car or a used Hellcat, but as these models went out of production in 2023, it is likely that any car being offered at MSRP would have been used.

The story does, however, end on a more positive note. In an update to his Facebook post, Hill said a senior representative from the company — though it is unclear whether he meant the Matt Bowers dealership or Stellantis — got in touch with him and apologised, saying he believed the matter was already being dealt with. That representative is reportedly looking into whether further compensation can be offered, and whether another arrangement can be made for a comparable car.

For the moment, the owner says he has used part of his insurance settlement to buy a more affordable vehicle, rather than pushing his finances to replace the Challenger. He added that he intends to use the money he saves as a down payment on a house.