A California woman has gone viral on TikTok after posting a video, alleging that a mechanic in Newhall, California, has refused to return her boyfriend’s Tesla for over eight months following a repair dispute.
Cheyenne Serano (@cheyenneserano) claims that John Wright, the owner of Gary’s Auto Collision Center, is holding the vehicle without having performed any meaningful repairs, while Wright maintains that the car is being held because he has not been paid for work he says he completed.
The dispute is said to have begun in November 2025, when Serano’s boyfriend, Malcolm Moyenda, crashed his Tesla on a mountain road. After the vehicle was towed to Gary’s Auto Collision Center, Wright reportedly asked Moyenda to sign a repair authorization form before the shop would inspect the car. According to Serano, Wright told Moyenda the form was simply to allow them to look at the vehicle and did not commit him to paying for anything.
The dispute escalated after Moyenda tried to pull out and stop all repair work
Wright confirmed to BroBible in a video interview that he had Moyenda sign a preauthorization form prior to beginning any work. He said the car had significant damage, and after assessing it, he gave a verbal quote of around $4,000 to replace the bumper, fenders, and components behind the bumper; an estimate Serano and Wright both say Moyenda verbally approved.
Within roughly two days of the verbal agreement, Serano said she and Moyenda had not yet received a written estimate, which she described as unusual compared to her experience with other mechanics. Concerned, she said they decided Moyenda should withdraw from the arrangement.
Serano said Moyenda then texted Wright, saying he no longer wanted the repairs done and asked for his car back. Wright responded, according to her, saying he would try to cancel the parts order but that Moyenda was likely “stuck” paying for it since the request had already been submitted.
After that, Serano alleged that Wright became unreachable. She claimed the couple repeatedly called both Wright personally and the shop, and were told Wright was unavailable and would call back, but he never did. Wright, however, said he continued working on the vehicle based on the agreement that had already been made, and that during this process, he discovered additional structural and frame damage in approximately mid-January 2026.
When Wright contacted Moyenda about the new damage, Moyenda reportedly demanded his car back again. Serano told BroBible that by that point, they had already asked Wright to stop working on the car back in November, and said there was no reason for him to continue looking for further damage. Wright maintained that the work he performed up to that point was covered under what had already been authorized.
Wright told the outlet that he could not release the vehicle without payment. “I’m already into it for parts and labor. So the parts, I can put inside the car, and then he can come tow the car out for the agreed price of $4,000,” he said. Serano, however, claimed that Wright never communicated this offer clearly to them, and said they would have accepted it had they known.
On January 26, 2026, after visiting the shop and alleging the car appeared untouched, the couple had a lawyer send Wright a demand letter. The following day, Wright filed a lien against the vehicle, listing charges of $158,983, with an additional $450 accruing daily.
Wright told BroBible that the total was calculated by his lien company based on storage time and associated fees, and described the figure as a negotiating number rather than a fixed demand.
“It’s a fictitious number. How are you going to pay me $200,000 for a car that’s worth $35,000?” he said, adding that the authorization form allowed for charges “up to $450 a day.” This pattern of a shop holding a vehicle and demanding exorbitant fees mirrors other recent disputes, such as a California man accusing a collision center.
Serano alleged in one of her TikTok videos that someone at the shop told them the car was no longer theirs because Moyenda had signed the repair authorization form. In her BroBible interview, she clarified that the words came not from Wright himself, but from a man she described as being from one of Wright’s other shops, who was allegedly present when she came to check on the vehicle.
She alleged the man said, “No, you’re not getting this vehicle. This is ours now. You’re not taking it,” and that he warned her it had not ended well for the last person in a similar situation. Wright denied that anyone at his shop would have made such a statement. “No one would tell her that because it’s not true,” he said.
Some viewers who followed the story online weighed in with suggestions for the couple. “Supposedly it’s only $50 to file a civil suit at your local courthouse,” one commenter wrote. Another advised, “File a complaint with the attorney general office.” A third suggested, “If you have proof of ownership, report the car stolen. Tell them where it’s at.”
Fox 11 also reported on the case, speaking to a former employee named Vanessa, who alleged that customers were regularly told their repairs were in progress when no work was actually being done.
Wright denied instructing her to mislead anyone. “I did not tell her to lie. Those words did not come out of my mouth,” he told the outlet. Fox 11 also reported on a separate customer, Mark Haberman, who claimed he paid $20,000 for repairs to his truck at Wright’s shop and that the vehicle remained “almost untouched” over a year later.
Wright said he was not stopping work on Haberman’s vehicle and expected it to be done by July 10, 2026. A mediation hearing in the Tesla dispute is reportedly scheduled for July 30. Similar allegations of vehicles being mishandled by repair shops have surfaced elsewhere, including a Houston man whose Camry was lost.
Published: Jul 9, 2026 11:12 am