- In 2025, almost 38,000 lawsuits will be time-barred.
- Stellantis refuses to appear in court
- AFESTEL will file another 245 conciliation claims in court this month.
12/02/2025
The strategy of Stellantis, the manufacturer of more than 750,000 defective engines, seems clear: to buy time. On the one hand, the IT platform that allows those affected to file their cases is paralysed, and it is practically impossible to register and upload a file, which means that no one is responding to the claims. Stellantis announced this tool as the way to initiate an analysis of each case in order to respond. In practice, it has served to waste the time of those affected and gain time for its legal teams.
On the other hand, time passes and the first reported cases of defective Puretech engines date back to 2014 and are therefore now time-barred.
This year, 2025, it is estimated that 37,634 cars will no longer be eligible for compensation simply because they have expired. Aware of this, the Afestel law firm will file conciliation claims to stop the statute of limitations from expiring.
Time is on the manufacturer’s side and to the detriment of the thousands of victims of what is now known in Europe as the ‘Puretech scandal’. Stellantis is also playing the no-show card in court. Through a certified letter, they have made it known that they will not appear at any of the court hearings in Vigo, where the lawsuits filed by AFESTEL’s lawyers are being heard week after week. Users feel doubly affected, firstly by an engineering fault in the engines that has forced them to invest in repairs that were not their responsibility or simply to watch their vehicle die in a scrapyard, and secondly by the company’s lack of sensitivity and the contempt they show by not appearing in court.
Stellantis’ policy of turning a deaf ear and looking the other way does not discourage the more than 7,000 members of AFESTEL. In fact, this February, the lawyers representing those affected will file another set of lawsuits, this time involving 245 cases, which are expected to be accepted for processing by the court in Vigo, where the company is based.
European class action
Meanwhile, AFESTEL president Yerba Luca de Tena, accompanied by Manuel Cerezuela, a member of the association, recently attended a motor show in Brussels where they met with Belgian and French organisations representing those affected. The latter have been preparing a class action lawsuit against the company for months. It is possible that Spanish, Belgian and other EU countries will also join the lawsuit. It should be remembered that there are more than four million cars affected by these engines in Europe.
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.