Chinese Maserati Owner Destroys Car Over $390 Repair Bill

It’s a thing in China: You don’t get the car service you expect, and instead of waiting for the J.D. Power questionnaire, you hire thugs with sledgehammers. Not to beat the dealer to pulp. No, to smash your car in front of a lot of cameras. It so recently happened to a Maserati Quattroporte. According to Carnewschina, the owner of the car (starting at 423,000 USD in China) disagreed with the dealer over a $390 repair. After a flurry of letters, the car was smashed.

The wronged Maser owner lives in Qingdao in Shandong Province. It just so happened that there is a minor car show in Qingdao, with lots of journalists in town. The owner of the Maserati did set up a special Weibo account (Chinese variant of Twitter) where he chronicles the iniquity.

According to Carnewschina, “the windows were all smashed up and the bonnet received some blows as well, but the vehicle is otherwise all right.” Apparently, the owner went for maximum show effect with minimal destruction.

In 2011, the owner of a Lamborghini, also in Qingdao, did the same. In that case, the car was totally smashed by nine hammer-bearing men.

Protest by public shame is a popular tactic. This Volvo XC60 SUV was dragged through Hangzhou by an ox.

This Porsche Cayenne was simply put on a flatbed and parked in front of a Porsche dealer.

A year ago, I sat with foreign friends in a fancy restaurant in Beijing. At the neighboring table, a group had fancy dinners. Then a ruckus ensued. They complained about a cockroach that was found in a glass of water melon juice. My foreign friends, most of the 6ft-and-as-wide-as-a-subzero-fridge variety, became annoyed by the noise and transported the protesters outside. We didn’t have to pay for our dinner.