- Next Saturday 9th, the victims of Pure Tech engines will tour Barcelona.
- Affected parties denounce Stellantis’ false promises to extend warranties
- Oscar Ferreira: “I have been without a car for a month and they have not stopped harassing me between the workshop and the Stellantis/PSA customer service”.
7/11/2024
Those affected by Stellantis’ failed engines are fed up with the manufacturer’s lack of solution regarding the thousands of defective engines that are ruining their pockets. The absolute lack of understanding and sensitivity on the part of the company to try to solve the drama that is plaguing thousands of families is encouraging those affected to take to the streets to be heard.
So far, the company has not offered any official solution. In a meeting held with AFESTEL spokespersons in September, they limited themselves to saying that they would try to find a “global solution”. a “global solution”, but so far they have not taken any steps and both the users and the president of AFESTEL himself, Yerba Luca de Tena, consider that this is a way of gaining time.
Nor does the announcement made by the company to certain media that Stellantis would extend the warranty on Pure Tech engines, appear to be a trial balloon. Oscar’s experience proves it: his car, purchased in 2017, had its timing belt break, in theory covered by the special warranty, as the vehicle had not reached 6 years nor 100,000 kilometers since its installation in 2021, Oscar has an invoice for the belt change. He now has a repair estimate from the garage of 4,660 euros.We can’t afford it. I have been without a car for a month now and they have not stopped harassing me between the repair shop and Stellantis/PSA customer service. In each call they told me different and inconsistent things and they blame each other. A month later Stellantis confirms that they are not going to take care of it because the belt is broken and not worn and now they say that to benefit from the warranty the belt must be only worn and not broken”.
There are thousands of people like Oscar who find themselves in a similar situation, with their lives conditioned by an engine that all the expert reports to date qualify as factory-damaged engines.
Another victim, A.P. says she is desperate: with only 70,000 kilometers she has had to change practically the entire engine: belt kit, water pump, brakes, clutch, spark plugs. She has paid 1,700 euros, the price a garage gave her, the repair at the dealership would have cost her much more. “I’m a mileurista with a child to take care of on my own and I had to pay for it in installments.. Now I get a call from Citroen to tell me that the airbags are defective from the factory and do not work, putting our lives at risk. They refuse me any kind of compensation, I am desperate.”
Objectives of the demonstrations
After demonstrating in front of the headquarters in Vigo on October 5, they will demonstrate again with the aim of getting the company to recognize the factory defect, withdraw the vehicles for scrapping and return the amounts paid for excessive repairs and maintenance; to offer compensation for each day that the vehicle has been stopped without a replacement car for the user and to compensate for the devaluation of the vehicle.
Data extracted from DGT records indicate that more than 765,000 vehicles with Puretech engines have been sold in Spain. Catalonia is the Community with the most affected cars. Nearly 80,000 are in Barcelona, the city where the first demonstration of this series of mobilizations, called by AFESTEL, will start next Saturday, November 9. The demonstrators will meet at 10:30 a.m. on Constitution Street in Barcelona.
Two Saturdays later, on November 23, it will be the Andalusians who will gather in Seville. Andalusia is also among the communities with the highest number of victims of this situation. On December 14, the demonstration will take place in Zaragoza – where Stellantis has a branch – and the last one planned for this year is scheduled for December 21 in Madrid.
The engines of the fiasco: Puretech
It should be noted that this is a manufacturing defect in this type of engine used in brands such as Opel, Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Jeep and Toyota, which consists of a gradual deterioration of the timing belt, leading to high oil consumption, malfunctioning of the vacuum pump and other serious faults that result in premature engine failure. All of this means costly repairs for owners, as dealerships do not honour claims on the grounds that the warranty period has expired or that the repairs were not carried out at the brand’s own dealership.
WHAT IS AFESTEL?
The Association of Stellantis Affected People (AFESTEL) currently represents more than 6,000 affected people, ready to go to court to defend their right to compensation, aware that the only way to force the company to find a solution to compensate for the economic loss is to act collectively.