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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — After Contact7 aired an in-depth investigation and bombshell follow-up about The Sharpest Rides car dealership, dozens more people came forward with similar complaints that the dealership sold them mechanically defective cars.
Those two stories garnered over a thousand comments and three thousand shares on Facebook. The Contact7 tip line received over 75 calls and voicemails. Denver7’s Jason Gruenauer received additional Facebook messages, emails, calls, and texts. Many of those complaints came from people claiming they purchased a vehicle and within a few months or weeks, they had mechanical problems with it.
“This number of issues is not acceptable by any standards,” Dominique Youakim told Contact7.
Youakim says his 2015 Nissan Altima broke down hours after he drove it off of The Sharpest Rides lot.
“I’m kinda angry,” Antonio Rodriguez added.
Rodriguez says he dealt with several issues with his Mercedes not long after purchasing it from the dealership. A Mercedes shop mechanic would eventually tell him there were bolts missing from his engine bay.
“I think, 'how many more are there that haven’t said anything about that?” he said, referring to the large number of complaints.
Voicemails into the Contact7 tippling told a similar story.
- “After a month of me buying it, it broke down and they told me I needed a new engine”
- “We’ve bought a few vehicles from them and have had nothing but problems”
- “It was a horror story, I literally got a lemon”
- “A car that I just bought from them two weeks ago and it’s already breaking down”
The Sharpest Rides General Manager Robert Lipp sat down with Contact7 last week. He claimed that the number of issues stemmed from the large number of cars the dealership sold.
“It’s congruent to the number of cars we sell,” he said.
Denver7’s Jason Gruenauer pressed the GM for more answers.
“Should you be selling cars that have problem after problem in the first place?”
“When it comes in the lot and you drive it and oil is good, tires are good and something happens in a week, I don’t have crystal ball,” Lipp answered.
Within a day of the original investigation, a former employee of The Sharpest Rides spoke to Contact7.
“They sell it like it was nothing wrong with it, knowing there’s something wrong with the vehicle,” Ruben Castillo said.
The dealership’s owner, Kevin Sharp, claimed that Castillo was lying. Since that story aired, two more former employees have come forward to corroborate Ruben’s story.
“Every preowned dealership anywhere in Colorado will have issues. Period,” GM Robert Lipp said last week.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” Delanda Franklin, who bought a car that now needs a new driveshaft, told Contact7. “This is what they do.”
The full interview with The Sharpest Rides General Manager is included in our previous story.
