If ever there was a symbol of the decline of the European car industry it is my wife’s Citroen. For the past two months it has sat out on the driveway, inert. We can’t drive it, we can’t sell it and we cannot get it fixed. It is a waste of space, but one that we must continue to tax and insure.
The little C3 – which I used to think of as a pleasant vehicle without too much of the electronic junk fitted to most new cars – is one of 120,000 Citroens subject to a ‘stop notice’ following the death of a French motorist in June. The cause of her death turned out to be a faulty airbag which exploded, peppering her with metal shards. Every vehicle fitted with these kinds of airbags has been officially grounded. Should we take it out on the road we would be committing an offence, as all insurance policies of the affected vehicles have been effectively voided.
According to a letter we received from Citroen, the airbags will be replaced, free of charge, if we would just like to book it in with a Citroen dealership. This we did, only to receive a phone call the evening before it was due to be fixed telling us that actually, the garage didn’t have the parts, and it might be weeks until it did receive them. This was four weeks ago. Still, the garage says it doesn’t have them, and it might be weeks more before it does. Fortunately, we have another vehicle, but many owners do not and have been forced to resort to taxis and hire cars to get to work. Yet we have been offered no compensation and no replacement vehicle – as we would have done had we pranged the car and it been in the hands of our insurers.
The only consolation is that this fiasco has not coincided with the bizarre incident which befell our other vehicle two years ago, and which I also related here. That car, a Volvo V60, managed to commit an act of self-harm when it encountered a deer in the road. The ‘Pedestrian Protection System’ fired off, which is essentially a self-crumpling mechanism. Fixing it cost £2,000, requiring new bonnet hinges and an engine control system.
Every vehicle fitted with these kinds of airbags has been officially grounded
I have never much warmed to the idea of fitting pyrotechnics into cars. I am sure that the number of drivers and passengers who have been saved by airbags outnumbers those who have been killed by them – which, besides the unfortunate Citroen driver, include a baby in the US who was decapitated in a very low-speed accident, and whose death inspired the little switches which allow airbags to be turned off when a rear-facing child seat is in use.
Nevertheless, there is something uncomfortable about driving around with powerful explosive devices fitted within inches of your head. These things can kill if they happen to go off when you have your head or body in the wrong place – say in bending down to look for something in the glove compartment.
Nor does the experience of our grounded Citroen make me feel exactly sympathetic towards the Stellantis Group, Citroen’s parent company, which is already fighting for its life in the face of competition from affordable Chinese electric cars. It is, I fear, becoming to the European car industry what British Leyland was in the UK – an ungainly conglomerate that signifies the end days.
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