DD20 car serious safety recall - left with no car?

[Doornon]

DD20 lives at home and drives a car to work that’s had a stop drive notice put on it urgently. You need to get a slot with a dealer to carry out the recall but some people are having to wait months for the repair. We couldn’t get through to anyone yesterday by phone so I will try again today. She won’t be insured to drive the car as it’s unsafe

DD is too young to hire a car as you need to be 21. I think the manufacturer will maybe give some compensation if there is a long wait, but we don’t know this for sure. They are NOT giving courtesy cars.

I am not sure what to do.

DD’s job is shifts, 10 miles away so I’m having to take and collect her as no direct public transport at all. I also have a FT job in the opposite direction! I’m already exhausted

She can’t work from home or change her shift times

Public transport doesn’t run at her shift times and isn’t direct (would involve 2 hours of changing/waiting)

She could get taxis but this will be very expensive there and back and not sure if she will be able to claim any costs back.

Insure her on my car at our cost and then I hire a car?

Ask my job to WFH so I can lend her my car?

WWYD? I am frazzled by this

We got advised there is a 2 month wait for a fix.

If you use an app like Veygo, you can insure your car for short periods. It is still ££ but not thousands. That way, you can do it only when she really needs it as you can’t drive. You could then patch things together with some careful planning. Even if she could get the bus part way or take the car some days, it would help. I think Marmalade do something similar. It gets cheaper as they build up no claims as well.

Definitely try your dealership again for a courtesy car. Dd is an apprentice mechanic and has been using a work courtesy car to travel 3hrs to college since she was 17 as she's only insured on her own car for leisure, not work.
She is an employee but I would assume the courtesy car thing would be a legal thing so if it was not legal it wouldn't matter if she was employed by them or not.

It’s not the same - the roads are much busier when my husband is on them. Personally I would prefer to cycle at 5am/11pm rather than battle with commuter and school run traffic. I do sometimes cycle back late at night if visiting friends. As long as you have good lights it is fine. And I am a nervous cyclist who got her first bike in 30 years recently.

😂😂mumsnet, home of bike obsessives who have no idea what a bonkers suggestion is it for most people
-cant ride a bike
-dont have a bike
-cant afford a bike
-commute on a motorway or other unsafe road
-lone woman who goes to work in the small hours
-have to carry large items
-have no where to park a bike at work
-multiples of the above

No problem, just ride a bike 😂

No mention of how difficult it is to fix a repair either. I cant get my tyres off, I cant even release my back wheel as its an ebike, I dont have the strength to do bike maintenance either so would be stuck if I got caught on my own needing to do something with it. We use it for leisure cycling only.

@raven0007 sorry I had to take a break from this thread and people are still at the bike topic argh.

can people just not bear or comprehend someone having a different life to them?

@raven0007 so we did get an appt with a local dealer for mid August. I just called the dealers direct, did you get through to anyone?

DD needs to check with her insurer about the cover for a courtesy car she assumed it wasn’t valid or any point but I’ve told her to find out. She also needs to call Citroen about the claim part but she has time as such a long wait.

We are car sharing for now but it’s stressful in a logistical way but at least we are luckier than some people as we have another car

citroen will reimburse you for some of the cost of a tow to the garage.

she is a new driver who only passed her test 8 months ago so it is expensive for her insurance

Call the manufacturers customer service - Ask them to clarify what they can do to keep her on the road.

Get them to hire a car from a specialist company who does insure under 21’s or confirm reimbursement of any taxi fares.

They may pay for you to insure her on your car if it’s cheaper than what the total taxi bill will be.

They can also look to prioritise the repair to her car if her age means she cannot use a courtesy/hire car and wait as long as an older person could who can be provided with alternative transport.

Give them some options that work for you and tell them they need to pick one.

I’ve just googled and there are plenty of companies offering car hire for young drivers, it will just be more expensive, but that’s for them to arrange/pay for.

Plenty of manufacturers use hire companies when they don’t have enough courtesy cars, it can be arranged so don’t let them fob you off.

The reality is most of the cars that have been recalled are old; it affects all C3/DS3s between 2009 and 2016, and some DS3s from 20016 to 2019. The very youngest car is 6 years old, the oldest 16 years old.

One of the risks of driving an older car is that something goes wrong. Now, the fault here is serious so Citroen is being forced to fix it, but I think it's unreasonable to expect them to have 120,000 courtesy cars knocking around, and unreasonable to expect a courtesy car as a matter of course. An old car could have gone wrong for many reasons. If the dealer has a courtesy car and offers it, then great, but I don't think you'll get far in trying to force them to give you one.

In the case of a PP and the BMW, that car was newer and so the dealer came up with the goods. I expect that almost all of these Citroens have been through several owners, have been outside the dealer newtwork for years and there is little to no incentive for a dealer to go above and beyond what Citroen UK are offering. Old cars go wrong. All just my opnion!

She is 20 and held a licence for 8 months. There is one company who are legit offering it that someone recommended but you must sign up to their app at a monthly cost first to find out. And it says this:

Do you offer a younger driver fee?

No, drivers must be over 25 years to drive our vehicles. However, you might be interested in our Enterprise Car Club service which caters for drivers aged 19 and above who have held a full driving licence for a minimum of 12 months.

A lot of the google hits are AI and not real. If you click the links it’s all over 21’s in the UK and it’s just click bait or EU based and they say they have no companies hiring even with a surcharge under 21. I really am not an idiot I promise. I did check before I posted this.

Plus even the one company that does offer it (for upfront costs) you can’t get any quotes or prices until you sign up and pay but it says £8-£60 a day and licence for 12 months, which she doesn’t have. How is a 20 year old meant to afford that if it’s £60 a day?

it’s an option that’s been ruled out. Same as the bike. She will try her insurance next. Citroen are not giving out courtesy cars so age is not even relevant there.

I don’t know if anyone reads the replies but we are car sharing and some people are in far worse situations than us so I don’t mind trying to help them rather than continually defend myself 🙄

Did they offer any costs to you) did you get through to Citroen?

Was going to ask if it was Citroen. It's awful what has happened, but given people have died from these airbags, it's not worth taking the risk.

I overheard someone talking about it as their car had been affected. Basically saying there are so many people affected they dont have enough courtesy cars to go around. They did mention that they might be able to claim £20 a day travel expenses for taxis or trains etc.

I know thats third hand information, but might be worth enquiring?

Edited to say seen your reply that someone on Reddit has mentioned about the £20 reimbursement. Fully appreciate you are sti k between rock and a hard place. Is there anyone at her place of work she could get a taxi to with the £20, and then get a lift if they are on the same shift?

Do not take this advice....

I did get through to Citroen. The next booking I could get was 6 months so I booked it. I raised the following points with them which are not going to be relevant to everyone...

1. My Citroen needs an MOT in a few weeks but I can't get it to an appointment and if I could it would fail on the recall.
2. After the MOT expires I can't keep it on the road and it will take up the only space on my drive which will prevent me from charging my electric vehicle.
3. I have nowhere else to keep the car until it can be repaired.
4. If I leave it for 6months without driving it this is likely to cause significant mechanical problems with the vehicle and it is not likely to be economical to repair.
5. Citroen advised that if I got a hire car then I should keep receipts and they MAY refund me. Enterprise car rental would charge approximately£1200 a month for a similar car = £7200 in hire charges on a vehicle currently worth around £1500 for the time until the repair was completed.
6. I cannot find anyone to do the repairs at my house so I also need to pay for a tow truck to lift the car to the garage to do the work.

It appears to me that by far the best thing for Citroen to do is to offer to pay market value for all affected cars now or offer a significant discount on new vehicles but the longer this goes on the higher the financial and reputational damage to them.

@dad11122 i really don’t know what to say! This is awful for you. No easy solution. I assume there will be a lawsuit at some point!

Thanks but I'm in a very fortunate position where it is a second car in a family where both adults have good jobs. We will just go and buy another car, take anything we can for the Citroen and look for compensation in due course from whoever. This is a huge inconvenience but imagine if it was your only car or you couldn't afford to just go and buy another car. What if you were due to take it on holiday and now couldn't? I understand that this has probably taken Citroen by surprise but they've got to do better than this.

check insurance about courtesy car. DD’s car was written off (not her fault) just 3 months after passing her test and we had a courtesy car no problem until the money came through for a new car

This is ridiculous…

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jul/08/citroen-ds3-stop-drive-recall-airbag-repair

That's pretty standard
Another thing to check is if you get a courtesy car in the event of a theft. Friends if mine find out the hard way so now I always check

We checked insurance - not covered for courtesy car

My daughter found out from TikTok. She got no letter

Can someone please let me what it says when you put your registration number into the government MOT checking page

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

We have just MOT one that must come under the stop drive recall but we have had no information from the ministry and the VOSA page just says that it has a recall, not that it is stop drive.

These are old cars now, and coudl have gone wrong for any reason. It'd be nice if they covered some costs, but I don't see that they have to

It’s not really the same. If your car goes wrong you can get it fixed or sell it. Now everyone is just stuck with a dud car that is literally a timebomb that can go off in your face and kill you

@EssentialGarage what car do you have, you have to check the VIN on Citroen recall site (or Stellantis) to find out if it’s stop drive