This is horrible news. I've been too busy to spend much time online, but the dieselgate news has brought me to the site to watch the ongoing train wreck thread; I can't look away. I read a post from Tomo and saw his sig line and thought ***?
Like everyone, I have my Chris stories, even though I only had the chance to buy one car from him (I'm across the country). In 2007 when there were rumors of a new TDI JSW, I sent him a $100 deposit. The wait was too long, I ended up getting something else, and I never bothered to get the deposit back. I did refer a friend to him for an EOS, my friend loved buying from him. In 2012, I was looking for a specific color and set of options with 6MT, and I was happy to find out that he had the only one in the country in that combination. When I finally bought a car from him, I brought up the five year old deposit after the deal was pretty much done, and he laughed and said "no problem, we'll honor that". Then he called me the next day and said "you have a Honda, right - I just got you another $750 off, VW's giving it to conquest sales of Honda, Toyota and Ford". I had already signed the paperwork - the deal was done, he didn't need to do it, but he did. Talk about going out of his way - he arranged to register a car in Utah (and deliver Utah plates) for a car he had delivered to me in Los Angeles - and he beat the best local price in a highly competitive market by over $1000 (before the competitive discount, and after shipping).
He pinged me on occasion to touch base on an extended warranty; I wanted to get it before the 10k mileage limit. At one point I said "I'm going to get it, but I'll do it in two weeks, I'm going to Philly for a conference". He exclaimed "Whaaaat?" and proceeded to give me a list of sandwich shops I had to visit, other restaurants, and things to do and not do. Talking with him was a pleasure.
When I come to the site one of my first stops is to go to the "Cars for Sale" forum and check on Chris's latest deals. I didn't see him on the first page when I looked the other day, but didn't think too much of it, figured he was busy. Now this. I didn't have the chance to buy a bunch of cars from him, or hang out with him, or even meet him in person, but he was the kind of guy who called you buddy, and interjected "my friend" into sentences, and you knew he meant it. The world was full of Chris's friends, but he just hadn't had a chance to meet most of them yet.