HUGE state inspection dilema, need some insight.

[Mighty.Mighty_XJ]

>cough< >cough< whistle-blower >cough< >cough<

Under Federal law You could be protected if you blow the whistle on unethical practices by your employer. You could be protected from losing your job and other forms of retaliation from said employer. Being in Management, however, I can tell you that there are many ways to skin a cat, so don't consider yourself "safe". I suggest you dust off the ol' resume if you plan on ringing that bell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower

As someone said, your employer can't legally force you to work off the clock. If he has to pay someone for this service though, he could garnish your pay for various future "infractions". Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere unless I'm on the clock. If something should happen to you on that trip, your employer should be liable and that won't be so if you go for "free". All this brainstorming could go away if you have that non-threatening chat you mentioned.
Good Luck.

Edit: In Jersey used cars are (were) required to be in condition to pass inspection in Jersey, regardless of where the car was purchased. I don't understand if your vehicle was inspected as a State inspection or as a dealer inspection. If as Dealer inspection and it failed inspection in the home state of the customer, if said home state has a law similar to Jersey's then your shop is probably liable for the repairs, regardless of your warranty. Also I suspect that Maryland has legal provisions that dealers are required to sell their cars in passable condition.

Edit: Looks like I wrote this as you wrote your comment above, so some of what I said could be redundant!

 

[Mighty.Mighty_XJ]

Performing a vehicle inspection isn't illegal. I can look over something and check a few boxes on a piece of paper saying it needs this this and this to pass our standards. If it's a MD state inspection paper, that's different.

Where it gets illegal, is when my supervisor signs off on the certificate without even looking at the car. Along with issuing repair orders without looking at the vehicle ...

That's not illegal. It's called delegating duties to a subordinate. Happens all the time in business. What's illegal is presenting the work of an untrained unlicensed subordinate as the work of a licensed individual. Now that's fraudulent.

 

[DanMan2k06]

Well things went pretty well today. I went in and told my team leader, I wasn't going to get the car. I gave him my list of reasons, and he said yea I'm on your side. But I think in the end you're gonna have to....

Sure enough 10:30 roles around and I get called into the parts/service managers office. I was demanded to go get the car. We had a brief discussion as to why I felt like I shouldn't be going, and he finally said "I can't tell you anything or make any decisions until I personally see the car."

I was about ready to walk out and throw in the towel. But I thought you know what I'm gonna humor this situation just to see what happens. At this point I had my friend's state trooper's number in my phone ready to schedule a sit-down. I get to the Land Rover dealer (an hour each way) and pick up the car. On the way back I did notice the alignment was out. She had originally gone to the dealer for that, and they decided it also needed the new arms I suppose.

I put it up in the air at work, and spend about 15 minutes trying to find something wrong under the car. Everything was tight. Some slight TINY cracks in the rubber, but absolutely NO deteriorating, NO dry rotting, and certainly no bad bushings that would fail in ANY state... I had 3 of our other legitimate inspectors (who aren't on my team) come over and take a look. They pryed on them, stabbed them with screw drivers trying to find something. Nothing. All 3 said they would have passed it no questions asked.

I notified the manager and he was pissed. Called the guy from Land Rover and had what looked to be a pretty heated discussion. He apologized to me for the entire incident, and said I would be compensated double pay for the time I wasted.

I hope they feel like complete idiots....

In the mean time I'm updating my resume, sending it out to BMW, Porsche, and Aston Martin, and looking in to what I can do about the illegal practices that are being performed at our shop....

 

[ECKSJAY]

Such a victim, you are.