diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index 69e168d79c4..d902c3c1a2a 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -226,6 +226,9 @@ Bug Fixes
 
 * SOLR-9128: Fix error handling issues in Streaming classes (Joel Bernstein)
 
+* SOLR-8801: /bin/solr create script always returns exit code 0 when a collection/core already exists.
+  (Khalid Alharbi, Marius Grama via Steve Rowe)
+
 Optimizations
 ----------------------
 * SOLR-8722: Don't force a full ZkStateReader refresh on every Overseer operation.
diff --git a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java
index b5960f39dc5..13274847157 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrCLI.java
@@ -1641,7 +1641,7 @@ public class SolrCLI {
       String systemInfoUrl = solrUrl+"admin/info/system";
       CloseableHttpClient httpClient = getHttpClient();
 
-      Tool tool = null;
+      ToolBase tool = null;
       try {
         Map<String, Object> systemInfo = getJson(httpClient, systemInfoUrl, 2, true);
         if ("solrcloud".equals(systemInfo.get("mode"))) {
@@ -1649,7 +1649,7 @@ public class SolrCLI {
         } else {
           tool = new CreateCoreTool(stdout);
         }
-        tool.runTool(cli);
+        tool.runImpl(cli);
       } finally {
         closeHttpClient(httpClient);
       }
diff --git a/solr/core/src/test/org/apache/solr/cloud/SolrCloudExampleTest.java b/solr/core/src/test/org/apache/solr/cloud/SolrCloudExampleTest.java
index f084c207345..a844db3296b 100644
--- a/solr/core/src/test/org/apache/solr/cloud/SolrCloudExampleTest.java
+++ b/solr/core/src/test/org/apache/solr/cloud/SolrCloudExampleTest.java
@@ -93,6 +93,10 @@ public class SolrCloudExampleTest extends AbstractFullDistribZkTestBase {
     ensureAllReplicasAreActive(testCollectionName, "shard2", 2, 2, 10);
     cloudClient.setDefaultCollection(testCollectionName);
 
+    int invalidToolExitStatus = 1;
+    assertEquals("Collection '" + testCollectionName + "' created even though it already existed",
+        invalidToolExitStatus, tool.runTool(cli));
+
     // now index docs like bin/post would do but we can't use SimplePostTool because it uses System.exit when
     // it encounters an error, which JUnit doesn't like ...
     log.info("Created collection, now posting example docs!");