SUNSET, Utah — Imagine paying thousands of dollars for a car, only to find out you cannot get license plates to drive it legally.
When it happened to a Salt Lake City woman, she decided to Get Gephardt.
“This is the car that I was supposed to get, or that I did have for a week” Nataly Fontoura told KSL, as she pointed to a photo of a 2011 BMW sport utility vehicle that she purchased last spring from AutoPro Motors in Sunset.
Nataly Fontoura tells the KSL Investigators that she has not been able to get license plates for a 2011 BMW she purchased from a dealer because it cannot pass emissions.
Fontoura, who lives in Salt Lake City, later learned the state will not give her license plates for the 12-year-old car because of mechanical issues.
“It didn’t pass emissions, so I wasn’t able to register it,” she said.
Fontoura said she contacted the dealership, and the owner told her he would fix her SUV to get it to pass emissions. But week after week, she said the car just sits in an auto shop.
“It’s been five months now; they don’t know what’s wrong with it,” she said. “They don’t know when I’m gonna get it back.”
Fontoura does have a car she can drive. After pestering the dealer, she said he delivered an oil-leaking loaner. But she said the small sedan is much too small to get her mother, who uses a wheelchair, around. And she does not trust it in the snow.
“I don’t feel safe at all in this car,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I bought an SUV is because I want my family to be safe.”
With no clear answer on when she would get her BMW back, last October, Fontoura asked the dealership for a refund, and she said the owner agreed.
“I just want my money back,” she said.