Tricolor Implosion Pits Wall Street Against Immigrant Car Buyers

Three years ago, Yosvanys Garcia Diaz paid $47,000 for a used Ford F-150 from Tricolor Holdings. What the now-shuttered auto dealership neglected to tell him was that the pickup had been in at least one wreck and had already changed hands three times. Oh, and it sold new for $33,700 in 2021.

After a warranty dispute over a bad transmission and about $30,000 in payments, Diaz still owes $29,500. That’s only partly because of the 11% interest rate on his auto loan, says the 36-year-old, who immigrated to the US from Cuba in 2008 and has a green card. The bigger problem was shoddy recordkeeping at Tricolor.