- It is estimated that more than 750,000 vehicles with the Puretech engine have been sold in Spain, 4 million in Europe.
- “Every time I take the car I shudder… They are playing with our safety.”
- “My husband has a disability and we have to take a cab to go to the doctors because the car won’t run.”
20/09/2024
Silvia Torres’ car is one of those 750,000 vehicles, her Peugeot 3008 Puretech with 62,000 kilometers and six years old is parked on the street, only a complete engine replacement can make it run again and neither the brand nor the manufacturer will take care of it. “My husband has a disability and a tumor that is killing him, I can’t take him to the doctors, we have to pull cabs, I have been left without a car because of a factory fault, because of a mistake by Stellantis that they don’t want to recognize“says Silvia, a resident of Barcelona.
There are thousands of people like her. The Association of Affected Stellantis (AFESTEL) represents today more than 6,000 of them, ready to file a collective complaint. They hope that at the next meeting the manufacturer of the Puretech engines – Stellantis – will agree to look for compensation formulas for the thousands of users who daily live the tragedy of having bought a car that cannot be fixed and that is ruining their pockets with expensive repairs that the dealers do not accept to assume. Belén Rilova is retired, from Sopelana, Bizkaia, “I’m having a hard time, every time I take the car I start to tremble, I don’t dare to take anyone, they are playing with our safety”.
AFESTEL expects Stellantis to acknowledge the factory defect, remove the vehicles for scrap and return the amounts paid for excessive repairs and maintenance, to offer compensation for each day the vehicle has been idle without a replacement car for the user and to compensate for the devaluation of the vehicle.
Let us recall that this is a manufacturing anomaly of this type of engines used in brands such as Opel, Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Jeep and Toyota, which consists of a gradual degradation of the timing belt that causes high oil consumption, malfunctioning of the vacuum pump and other serious failures that result in premature engine degradation. All this means costly repairs for the owners, since the dealers do not attend to the claims on the grounds that the warranty periods have expired or that the repairs have not been carried out at the brand’s own dealership, although there are numerous users who have done so.
The flaw was discovered in 2020, in cars released since 2014.
It is necessary to take into account that these cars present failures, on average, after 4 to 6 years, therefore, there are thousands of cases that have not yet been reported.
The serious defect of this engine does not only affect Spain. In France, the class action is already well advanced. Cases have also been filed in other EU countries, such as Portugal, Italy, Belgium, and even outside the EU. The European dimension of the problem (around 4 million cases) makes legal specialists think of possible formulas for collaboration with the affected groups in other EU member states. In Spain, the victims of the case are spread throughout the country, although the Autonomous Communities with the largest number of victims are Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia, Andalusia and Galicia.
Like Silvia and Belén, every day there are more and more users who, faced with the situation of helplessness in which they find themselves, turn to AFESTEL, ready to join a class action lawsuit that gives them back the hope of recovering their car or, at least, part of what they have invested. The brands are not responsible, as the failure often manifests itself when the warranty has already expired, and their silence leaves the engine manufacturer, Stellantis, which has not yet made any statement. Hopes are pinned on the representatives of AFESTEL and on the first conversation that will take place soon with the management of Stellantis. For Afestel, the objective is to reach a consensus on a fair solution so that thousands of innocent motorists do not have to pay for a manufacturing error.