AutoSavvy Lawsuit: Counterfeit Airbag Death and Colorado Award

The AutoSavvy lawsuit drawing the most attention is a Utah wrongful death case alleging the salvage-title dealer sold a 2019 Hyundai Sonata equipped with a counterfeit Chinese airbag inflator that killed a 17-year-old girl in a minor crash. It is not the only legal trouble the company faces. A Colorado arbitrator ordered AutoSavvy to pay $313,921.52 in June 2025 for deceptive sales practices, and customers in multiple states have accused the dealership of hiding structural damage and shoddy repairs on the branded-title cars that are its core business.

The Utah Wrongful Death Lawsuit

On July 30, 2025, Alexia De La Rosa was killed in a Utah crash while driving a Sonata her mother had bought from AutoSavvy. Attorneys for the family described the collision as minor and “fully survivable,” noting that occupants of the other vehicles walked away uninjured.¹ The suit alleges the driver-side airbag ruptured “like a grenade” on deployment, sending metal and plastic shrapnel through the cabin. A jagged piece of metal struck De La Rosa in the chest, and she died minutes later.²

Tessie De La Rosa filed the case in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court in Salt Lake County against AutoSavvy Holdings Inc., AutoSavvy Dealerships LLC, and AutoSavvy Management Company LLC. The family is represented by Andrew Parker Felix of Morgan & Morgan.³

According to the complaint, AutoSavvy bought the Sonata after a 2023 collision that had triggered the original airbag, then installed a counterfeit inflator made by Jilin Province Detiannuo Safety Technology Co., a Chinese manufacturer known as DTN.⁴ The suit claims the dealership sold the car knowing it contained counterfeit parts, violating Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 and breaching its warranty of merchantable quality.⁵ It also alleges violations of the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act.³

The case remains in early litigation. No trial date has been set, and AutoSavvy had not publicly responded to the airbag allegations as of the most recent reporting.³

Why the Airbag Allegation Matters Beyond One Case

The inflator at the center of the De La Rosa suit belongs to a class of parts marked “DTN60DB,” manufactured in 2021 and 2022, that federal regulators have tied to a string of deaths.⁶ The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation in October 2025 and, by early 2026, had linked DTN inflators to twelve crashes, ten deaths, and two serious injuries, mostly in Chevrolet Malibu and Hyundai Sonata models with salvage or rebuilt titles.⁷ NHTSA has declared the inflators defective and effectively banned their sale in the United States. DTN has claimed the inflators may be counterfeit copies of its product and that it did not sell them into the U.S. installation market.⁸

Detection is the hard part. Standard VIN recall lookups do not flag these inflators, because they are installed after the vehicle leaves the factory. State salvage inspections generally do not require tearing down a steering wheel or dashboard to verify airbag parts.⁴ NHTSA advises anyone who owns a salvage or rebuilt-title vehicle whose airbag has previously deployed to have it inspected immediately and to stop driving it if a DTN inflator is found.⁷

Morgan & Morgan has filed three wrongful death suits across three states involving DTN inflators, with one already resolved and additional fatalities under investigation.⁹

The $313,000 Colorado Arbitration Award

The airbag case landed on top of an existing consumer-fraud problem. Charly Darnell bought a salvage-title 2019 Dodge Durango from AutoSavvy’s Colorado Springs location. After a minor accident in March 2022, a body shop found parts of the vehicle held together with zip ties and drywall screws, with required safety foam missing from the frame.¹⁰

Darnell, represented by consumer protection attorney Trent Wallace, took the case to arbitration. On June 2, 2025, arbitrator Kathleen E. Craigmile found that AutoSavvy had violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act by falsely representing the Durango as restored to “factory or like-new status” with OEM parts and as having passed a “150+ point inspection.” Removing the rear bumper alone would have revealed the substandard repairs. Craigmile also found “clear and convincing evidence” of bad faith, pointing to AutoSavvy’s refusal to address the safety problems after being notified. That finding triggered treble damages under Colorado law, bringing the total to $313,921.52.¹¹

AutoSavvy moved to vacate the award on grounds of arbitrator bias. A judge denied the motion, finding “no proof of partiality or bias,” and the company paid the full amount in November 2025.¹⁰ The arbitrator noted that AutoSavvy is the country’s largest seller of branded-title vehicles, with more than 50,000 sold, and that its marketing had “significant potential to impact tens of thousands of consumers.”¹¹

Other Customer Complaints

Denver7’s investigative team documented multiple Colorado customers with similar accounts: hidden structural damage, parts fastened with inappropriate hardware, missing safety components, and one vehicle sold as hail-damaged that turned out to have flood damage. Some independent collision centers refused to repair AutoSavvy cars, classifying them as “structural losses” because of the prior work.¹²

Other litigation is in progress or already behind the company. A 2022 lawsuit from an Aurora, Colorado buyer over undisclosed structural damage was settled. Another suit making similar allegations was filed in August 2025. Wallace confirmed he was representing at least one additional customer in a similar arbitration case scheduled for late 2025.¹⁰

AutoSavvy’s Better Business Bureau profile shows 168 complaints filed in a recent three-year period, with 58 closed in the most recent 12 months. Only 32 of the 168 were marked “resolved” from the customer’s perspective.¹³ Recurring themes in those complaints:

Engine, transmission, and electrical failures appearing soon after purchase.
Difficulty accessing warranty coverage, with customers passed between the dealer and third-party administrators.
Allegations of unauthorized warranty fees added to loans and altered deal terms.
Full voicemail boxes, unreturned calls, and unfulfilled promises to follow up.

AutoSavvy commonly cited “goodwill” repairs or buyback offers in its BBB responses, and pointed to “as-is” agreements on older, high-mileage cars.¹³ Denver7 also obtained a dozen closed complaints filed with Colorado’s Auto Industry Division; in each, the state either found no violation or told customers to pursue the matter in civil court.¹²

What AutoSavvy Says

CEO Brett Parham has acknowledged the company “is not perfect” and pointed to roughly 100,000 cars sold over 20 years. After the Colorado allegations, Parham said AutoSavvy stopped working with the rebuilder responsible for the Durango in the Darnell case and was reviewing its sales, disclosure, and inspection procedures. The company’s policy is that dissatisfied customers must return vehicles to AutoSavvy for inspection and possible repair or buyback rather than seeking outside fixes.¹² AutoSavvy did not respond to Denver7’s questions about the arbitration payout or the wrongful death suit.¹⁰

If You Own or Are Considering an AutoSavvy Vehicle

The airbag risk is narrow but serious. If your car has a salvage or rebuilt title and its airbag has been deployed and replaced at any point, NHTSA recommends an immediate inspection to check for a DTN inflator, and it recommends not driving the vehicle if one is found.⁷ A standard VIN recall search will not catch these parts.

For the broader repair-quality concerns, the arbitrator’s finding in the Darnell case is instructive: the substandard work was visible once the rear bumper came off. A pre-purchase inspection by a body shop unaffiliated with the seller is the practical response to that pattern.

Utah law requires dealers to give buyers written disclosure that a vehicle has a salvage certificate or branded title, display that disclosure on the windshield while the car is for sale, and keep a copy for three years.¹⁴ The statute also requires warning buyers that the vehicle may not be safe to operate unless properly repaired.¹⁵ Neither the Utah disclosure law nor its inspection rules specifically address whether aftermarket parts installed during a rebuild, including airbag inflators, are authentic. That gap is the practical space in which the counterfeit-airbag cases have arisen.

1
Fox 13 Now. Utah Teen’s Death Sparks Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over Allegedly Defective Air Bag
2
KUTV. Lawsuit Claims Utah Teen Killed by Counterfeit Airbag
3
ABC4. Teen Killed Crash Lawsuit Car Dealership Faulty Airbag
4
Denver7. Lawsuit Claims AutoSavvy Sold Car With Deadly Counterfeit Airbag
5
Repairer Driven News. Family Files Suit Over Teen Killed by Improper Repair Involving Counterfeit Airbag
6
Federal Register. Initial Decision That Certain Frontal Driver Air Bag Inflators Manufactured by Jilin Province
7
NHTSA. Urgent Warning Two More Deaths Substandard Dangerous Chinese Air Bag Inflators
8
NHTSA. Deadly Air Bag Replacements
9
GlobeNewsWire. Morgan Morgan Continues Fight Against Deadly Counterfeit Airbags Following NHTSA Safety Warnings
10
Denver7. Denver7 Investigates Follow Up Colorado Woman Beats AutoSavvy in Court Wins 313K Payout
11
Scripps Media. Darnell v. AutoSavvy, LLC, JAMS Case No. 34541 – Final Award
12
Denver7. Beyond Salvage AutoSavvy Faces Fraud Allegations as Colorado Customers Speak Out
13
BBB. AutoSavvy BBB Complaints
14
Utah Tax Commission. TC-814 Disclosure Statement for Salvage Vehicles
15
Justia. Utah Code Section 41-1a-1005.3