The $20,600 that finally reached two former Sunset Auto Sales customers in Wichita this summer did not come from Sunset Auto Sales. It came from the surety bond Kansas requires every used-car dealer to keep on file, and getting it paid took the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office more than 500 days, a lawsuit against the dealership and its manager, and a second push after the bonding company turned the claim down.
Both buyers got full refunds, and the dealership is out of business under the settlement. The route to that result shows how Kansas protects used-car buyers in practice: with a fixed pot of money, held by a surety company, that pays only after the state is satisfied the dealer broke the law.
A Mustang with no title, then no transmission
According to the district attorney’s office, a customer bought a 2006 Ford Mustang GT from Sunset in September 2024 as a gift for his daughter. He paid for the car, but the dealership never provided a title, so the family could not register it. He covered other repairs out of pocket. The dealership then charged him to replace the transmission, took the car, and neither replaced the transmission nor gave the car back…