STRONGSVILLE, Ohio — An incident report was recently filed involving the Conrad's Tire Express & Total Car Care after a technician drove 25+ miles an hour over the speed limit twice during a "test drive."
Matt Kizys told me he went to the Conrad's on Pearl Road on August 27 to get one of his tires patched after driving over some wire.
"It's literally within one mile of my house. Normally I wouldn't take my car there, but it was a tire issue. I figured I'd take it to the closest place so I don't do any damage to the tire, they're able to get me in immediately," he said.
Kizys said a manager told him within 20 minutes of being there that the tire was patched and needed to be taken out for a test drive to reset TPMS sensors.
"No problem," Kizys thought.
But then, he said he saw and heard his car fly out of the parking lot.
Kizys has a dash camera set up behind his rear view mirror. It collects in real time the location, time, date, and speed of the car.
He provided the video to us that includes audio, revealing the technician reached a top speed of almost 57.3 miles per hour in a residential area that has a posted speed of 25.
"Pushin' boy," the technician says while speeding. "Ooh, they just can’t catch me in this."
The test drive took a total of three minutes.
Once Kizys' car returned, he reviewed the dash camera footage, and couldn't believe what he saw.
"I was livid," he told me on Tuesday. "I didn't expect him to get that fast, especially on that road. The road it happened on is one road over from me, so it's basically my neighborhood. The car is pretty recognizable, so to have a tech do that and if someone saw them and recognized me or like where the car's parked, they would say like, 'Oh why is this guy speeding in his own neighborhood like that?'"
Kizys said he made the store's manager aware to which he was told the technician is on his "final strike."
Shocked by his conversation with the Conrad's manager, he posted the footage to social media to spread awareness, which is where I initially caught wind of Kizys' situation.
"The district manager called me four hours after it actually happened. First thing he said was, 'Hey, I saw your post on Facebook,' and he actually reached out to the store manager because he wasn't sure if he was aware because it wasn't reported to him by the store. He told me that obviously it's unacceptable, that the technician's been reprimanded, and then he asked me to take the post down," Kizys said. "I was kind of shocked when he asked about it."
Kizys said he wasn't expecting a refund, but that it would've been a gesture of good faith considering what happened.
At that point, he told me he would've either removed the post or added an update to the status.
He told me he has yet to receive any offer like that as of Tuesday.
The following day, on August 28, he filed an incident report with the Strongsville Police Department.
The report describes the incident as "unauthorized use."
A Strongsville police officer documented in the report that he spoke with a manager at Conrad's "who assured that the tech was being disciplined internally for the incident."
Kizys said, "If you wanna go that speed down a residential road, that's fine, but do it in your own car because if I didn't have a dash cam, that would have come back on me if someone reported that."
I called Conrad's Monday afternoon for more information regarding the incident. I briefly spoke with a manager who took down my name and cell phone number, but didn't provide any comment.
I called again Tuesday afternoon and left a voicemail.
With a lack of response, I stopped by the store on Tuesday and spoke with a manager again.
"We're told not to make a comment, that 'they' will handle it," the manager told me.
I asked him who that response would come from, but he said he's "not exactly sure."
I provided my email address and explained the story would run Tuesday night, but I have yet to hear from anyone representing Conrad's.
"I'm less concerned about what happens to him (the technician) and more concerned about how the company handled it," Kizys said.
Moving forward, he does not plan to have his vehicle serviced by a Conrad's store again.
"Based on the comments on the post, people have posted issues with Conrad's," he told me. "Just seeing those makes me aware of taking it to a place like this. I got a lot of great recommendations on where to take my car that are close by. The community definitely came together to bring awareness."
Kizys recommends to anyone who drives to buy a dash camera.
Without it, he said he likely would have never known this situation happened.
If Conrad's provides a response, it will be added to this publication.
