Citroen owners left stranded over airbag safety risk

An estimated 120,000 motorists in the UK have been left unable to drive their cars after a safety alert over a potentially lethal fault with airbags.

The car giant Stellantis recently said people should stop using versions of the popular Citroen C3 and the related DS3 altogether until they were fixed.

The "stop-drive" instruction came amid growing concerns about the safety of airbags fitted to these models, following a fatal accident in France last month.

A number of owners have since told the BBC they face long waits to get their cars fixed. Stellantis said it was "inevitable" that customers would be inconvenienced.

Among those affected is Lisa Shackleton from Hull who contacted the BBC via Your Voice, Your BBC News. The 69-year-old owns a 2014 Citroen DS3. She needs it to take her elderly husband to specialist medical appointments.

She has also booked a summer holiday in a cottage a three-hour drive away, to be close to her daughter, who is undergoing chemotherapy. But now she is unsure of how to get there.

"I've tried to get the car fixed, but as I didn't get to know about the recall soon enough, the earliest it can be done is the end of July," she says.

"It's booked in at a dealership in York, and that's an hour's drive away."

Another motorist told the BBC she had not been able to book her car in for the repair until January next year.

Stellantis, the multi-national firm which owns the Citroen brand, said it was "working to maximise" the number of vehicles it could repair each day, and that priority needed to be given to those with the most urgent needs.

Stop-drive recalls, where owners are told not to use their cars at all due to safety risks, are rare. This one affects all C3 and DS3 models built from 2009-2016, as well as a handful of DS3s produced from 2016-2019. Stellantis said they should not be driven until airbags produced by the now defunct Japanese supplier Takata have been replaced.

It is the latest development in a long-running saga which has led to the recall of an estimated 100 million cars worldwide over the past decade.

The issue was brought back into focus last month by the death of a motorist in northern France. A 37-year-old woman driving a Citroen C3 was killed after a minor collision in Reims when she was struck by flying metal from a faulty airbag.

Takata was once one of the world's biggest suppliers of airbags, safety devices which are meant to protect people from impacts when accidents occur. But in 2013 reports began to emerge of people being killed or injured by their products.

Explosive chemicals, used to inflate the bags quickly in the event of an accident, were becoming more volatile over time, especially in warm and humid conditions.

This could cause them to explode with too much force, fracturing their metal container, and sending shrapnel into the cabin of the vehicle.

A large number of car makers were affected and rapidly responded with a swathe of recalls. However Stellantis, then known as PSA Group prior to a merger with FiatChrysler, said it had been told by Takata that airbags made in its European factories were not affected, and they continued to be fitted in new vehicles as a result.

Takata filed for bankruptcy in 2017, its reputation destroyed by the affair.

Stellantis said it had only become aware of incidents involving European-made airbags in 2019, and initially believed only cars in hot and humid regions were affected. It began a recall campaign in those areas.

In April last year the recall was extended across the whole of Europe, but people were still allowed to drive their vehicles while they awaited a repair.

The C3 and DS3 were already covered by this recall, but following the incident in northern France, Stellantis went further, announcing a stop-drive action across the continent, including in the UK. This took effect on 20 June.

Since then, however, dozens of car owners have complained to the BBC of poor communication from Stellantis and mixed, sometimes contradictory, messages from Citroen and DS dealerships.

Despite the sometimes serious disruption caused to car owners' daily lives, Stellantis said it had no plans to provide compensation while adding that it had "mobilised the whole company" to source the number of replacement airbags required.

A spokesperson said: "It is inevitable, with such a large number of vehicles affected, that customers will be inconvenienced in the short term."

What is not clear is how customers should get their cars to dealerships for the repair work, as they cannot be driven. Industry experts say drivers should check with their insurers before getting behind the wheel.

The company said it was "investigating options of airbag replacement at other sites, in addition to our Citroen network, including at [the owner's] home".

Meanwhile in France, the government has told drivers in Corsica and in the country's overseas territories, where the climate is hotter, to stop using any cars of any brand fitted with Takata airbags.

The same instruction applies to vehicles on the French mainland built before 2011. In total, around 2.5 million cars are affected.

In the UK, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency said it supported Stellantis' decision to issue a stop-drive recall and was working with the company to raise awareness of the issue, but did not currently have any plans to order a wider recall.

Owners can find out whether their car is included in the recall here.