Green machine is gone/ Family mourns loss of its Geo and Christmas

Well, at least Fred and Donetta Alvarado don't have to worry about their Geo Metro's starting problem.

The little teal Geo - despite being broken down - has got up and gone.

The Alvarados woke up the morning before Thanksgiving to find the car they'd bought in September wouldn't start.

No big deal, thought Donetta Alvarado, who called her husband at his job in Denver and then took another car to work in the Springs. When she came home that evening, she saw a tow truck driver from Northside Towing giving her car the hook. It would be the last time she would see her mean, green machine.

The tow truck driver was told to drop the car off at Performance Auto Service on Nichols Boulevard in Colorado Springs and put the keys through the slot in the door.

The next morning, Fred Alvarado had to be in the city and decided to stop by his mechanic's place to make sure the car had gotten there. But it wasn't there. Not in the driveway, the locked lot or the garage. And the keys weren't lying on the floor on the safe side of the door.

The tow operator, Duane O'Brian, although new to the city, swore he dropped off the car the night before at the right location and put the keys in the shop door. He said two other tow company employees saw him do it.

"I panicked," Fred Alvarado said. "I paid almost $5,000 for it in September and I just started making payments."

Frantic calls didn't help.

The police said he should wait until Monday to report it stolen, in case the car was hidden from view somewhere in the closed shop.

The Alavarados' insurer, GEICO, was quick to tell the couple it would only pay retail value if the Geo was gone for good - and that was going to be less than what the couple paid a couple months ago.

The investigating police officer and the owner of the tow company did not return phone calls.

"I'm going to lose money on this deal," Fred Alvarado predicted.

The Alvarados are going to lose something else, too. Donetta Alvarado had hidden Christmas gifts for her husband and two children in the trunk.

Fred Alvarado's biggest question: Who would be desperate enough or dumb enough to steal a 1993 Geo Metro? True, it had only 60,000 miles on the odometer. But the little two-door has only three cylinders, so it accelerates like a lawn mower.

Even its owner wouldn't steal it:

"I'd steal something worth going to jail for," said Alvarado.

Still, if you see a teal Geo Metro, license plate 782 COU, give the cops a call. The Alvarados could use it and the Christmas gifts back.

Copyright 2000
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