The state is investigating complaints against a high-end used- car dealership in Sheridan whose owner was found dead shortly after the inquiry began last week.
Rocky Mountain Autosport owner Blaine “Skip” Evans was found dead in his Jefferson County home July 12, just days after the state opened a formal inquiry of his business following a number of consumer complaints.
The Colorado Motor Vehicle Division began the investigation into buyers’ complaints that they hadn’t received titles for expensive cars they had purchased from Autosport – Jaguars, Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys and Mercedeses among them.
Though an official cause of death isn’t expected until at least Monday, investigators with the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office said preliminary evidence indicates Evans’ death was not the result of suicide or foul play.
Inspectors with the Motor Vehicle Division wouldn’t say how many complaints they’re investigating but did say the number is likely to grow.
“My expectation is we will have a high number of additional complaints,” said Gene Tardy, supervisor of the division’s criminal-investigations unit.
Meanwhile, a court-appointed conservator has seized the dealership’s inventory to ensure that lienholders get their money and shuttered the showroom at 4211 S. Natches Court, just south of the intersection of West Oxford Avenue and South Santa Fe Drive.
Autosport has had nearly a dozen consumer complaints filed since 2001, most of them involving customers having problems getting car titles, state records show.
Car-title problems can be signs of more serious problems with a dealership.
Here’s how car-title transfers are supposed to work:
A consumer buys a car, typically makes a down payment and secures a loan. Using the consumer’s payment, the dealer is to repay his own financing on the car – the money he borrowed to buy it for resale.
Then the finance company or bank that loaned the dealer the money transfers the title to the consumer, who registers the car with the state and gets a new title. Sometimes, the title goes to the bank or finance company that the customer borrowed from to buy the car.
Problems arise when a dealership with financial troubles uses the customer’s money to pay off a different car that the dealer sold weeks earlier, hoping that another sale will happen quickly enough to pay off the car that the customer purchased.
The customer is left waiting for his title since the dealer’s bank hasn’t been paid and won’t release the document.
In the worst cases, a title may not even exist or, as has sometimes happened, the dealer pockets the consumer’s cash and runs.
Banks then will repossess cars from consumers, who are left with no car, a bank loan and nothing to show for their down payment. At best, they have a car with no title and no license plate.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
