Stellantis’ race against time to repair its Citroëns equipped with defective airbags

In addition to replacing the affected vehicles, Citroën has been offering home repairs to customers who want them since the beginning of July. However, 80,000 owners of defective vehicles have still not reported their faults.

Stellantis is accelerating its recall campaign for vehicles equipped with Takata airbags. This defective equipment, under the effect of heat and humidity, has caused several serious accidents, some of which were fatal, in Overseas France and in France. The problem now concerns some 240,000 Citroën C3 and DS3 models in the south of France, vehicles manufactured between 2009 and 2019. Customers have been urged for several months to stop driving their cars until the airbags are repaired.

To date, there are still 160,000 vehicles to be taken care of. In addition to the replacement offered at the group’s dealerships and partners, Citroën has also been offering home repairs to customers who want them since the beginning of the month. On Monday, Citroën’s boss, Thierry Koskas, even attended one of them in person, in Vitrolles, near Aix-en-Provence.

First the driver’s side, then the passenger airbag. After about half an hour of work, Jade can drive her DS3 again. “I will be able to ride quietly, safely, and go where I want, leave where I want.” Even though the 20-year-old woman, who lives with her parents in this residential area of ​​Vitrolles, has continued to drive for the past two months, despite the instructions she received from Stellantis: her car is essential to get to her work-study program every day, around sixty kilometers from her home. “We pay attention to everything, we don’t drive fast, much slower than normal, because we tell ourselves that if something happens, we are not protected,” says Jade.

“When you’re used to using a car every day and suddenly you’re told there’s a problem and you can’t use it anymore, it’s a bit hard to take.”

Jade, driver of a DS3

to franceinfo

Her mother, Hélène, is obviously also relieved. No hard feelings towards Citroën, even if in addition to the danger her daughter is in, she regrets the very sudden sending of these alarming registered letters, without being able to benefit from a replacement vehicle. “I understand that it was also difficult for them to deal with this all at once, but I know that it is not something that happened just now: it has been going on for years, she laments. So I think they were a little overwhelmed by events.”

More than 35,000 courtesy vehicles are nevertheless available to aggrieved customers, according to Stellantis. Thierry Koskas, head of Citroën, remains discreet. A little apart, he assures us: “This is absolutely not a Citroën crisis, it is a Takata crisis.” And promises that Citroën will bend over backwards for everyone. “Of course, I can absolutely understand and accept the inconvenience that we are causing for this operation, he continues. But first, I want to stress that it is totally exceptional in its scale. We are gradually improving the system. We launched the campaign as quickly as possible, completely guided by the precautionary principle.”

Today, Citroën replaces more than a hundred pairs of airbags per week, and aims to have a thousand vehicles repaired per week by the end of the summer. Another challenge: finding the 80,000 owners of defective vehicles who have still not reported it. On Monday, July 29, a complaint against an unknown person in the Takata airbag case was filed with the Versailles public prosecutor, on behalf of six initial plaintiffs brought together in a consumer collective.