We’re all a little upset with car dealerships right now, but one man in Sioux Falls, SD is clearly more upset than the rest of us. Two days ago, Joseph Blackbonnet axed several new cars from the lot. Amid the continued shortage of inventory, this vandalism hit the dealership in a particularly sensitive spot.

Tension mounts at car dealerships

Blackbonnet was allegedly filmed taking an ax from Graham Automotive’s inventory. The suspect is accused of smashing the windows of 18 cars on the lot. You can watch the video here.

“We had a few calls from people who saw a guy breaking new car windows. Turns out he was using an axe, swinging it and smashing windshields and windows and into the car itself,” said Sam Clemens of the Sioux Falls Police Department.

In an interview with Dakota News Now, Kyle Kneip, the dealership’s sales manager, said, “Having an axed car is something that has never happened to me before. Our owner has been in the automotive business for over fifty years, and this is the first time he says he’s had cars destroyed. I hope it won’t happen again, but it did.

What caused the destruction?

Bluebonnet didn’t say why he smashed the cars, but it would be easy to speculate. Going to parking lots has never been too much fun. However, the experience of most people buying a car these days is horrible. Dealerships have little inventory, and what they have is so bloated that buying anything feels like stealing.

That’s not to say dealerships deserve to have their inventory destroyed. The only point to raise is that many customers feel desperate and frustrated with the country’s financial situation; whether you’re trying to buy a car, a house, or even groceries, life is getting expensive at a rate that seems unsustainable.

We recently covered the story of a dealership inflating the price of a new Ford Maverick by $20,000, nearly doubling the cost of Ford’s least expensive vehicle.

In another case of wildly inflated car prices, a Chevy dealership in Florida recently asked $100,000 over MSRP for a 2023 Corvette Z06. reminiscent of a post-war collapse.

The dealer is going to have to fix the cars

It was a blow for the dealer after a few difficult years.

“In general, inventory was hard to come by. All of our cars on our front line were new at the time; we got some, we were doing fine,” Kneip said.

The dealer must now wait for insurance claims to be processed so that valuable inventory can be repaired and put back on sale.

“You do the police report so the insurance can absolutely start to kick in; we immediately started ordering parts, windshield, you know anything, headlights, whatever was damaged,” Kneip said.

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