- The first demonstration will be in Barcelona, followed by Seville, Zaragoza and finally Madrid.
- There are more than 765,000 vehicles with this defective engine in Spain.
- Rafael: “We bought a car with illusion and it turned out to be a fraud.”
21/10/2024
Those affected by the failed Stellantis engines are tired of the lack of answers from the manufacturer of the defective Puretech engines and have decided to return to the streets to exert pressure and demand a solution to the drama they are experiencing.
Stellantis has only held one meeting with the spokespersons of those affected, last September, but without any formal commitment. They have only stated their intention to seek a global solution (in Europe alone there are four million cars with this type of engine), but this intention has remained in words. No concrete proposal has been made to the victims. The president of the Association of Affected Stellantis (AFESTEL), Yerba Luca de Tena, believes that “The global solution should have been sought from the first moment the problems were detected”. She is pessimistic and does not believe that this solution will come, “They say it to gain time and bore us”.
The association, which groups more than 6,000 affected people, has decided to establish a calendar of demonstrations in the cities where Stellantis has its headquarters. After demonstrating at 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. It will take place on November 9.
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. To Seville will go Rafael, owner of a car with Puretech engine. The vehicle is registered in 2015 and has 52,000 km. In the month of June he was driving on the A-4 highway arriving in Madrid at 120km/h: “My car stopped at 120km in the middle of the highway and I escaped an accident by chance. The repair cost me 2,200 €, but the worst thing is to risk your life with these cars every day, we have the sword of Damocles over us every time we use these time bombs. We bought a car with illusion and it turned out to be a fraud”.
In December, on December 14, the demonstration will take place in Zaragoza, where Stellantis has a branch, and the last one scheduled for this year is scheduled for December 21 in Madrid.
The engines of the fiasco: Puretech
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, resulting in high oil consumption, malfunction of the vacuum pump and other serious failures that lead to premature engine degradation. All of 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.
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.