Fiat Chrysler Australia refunds Fiat Ducato owners $50,000 after Public Defender intervenes

The Public Defender reader advocacy service is back with a $50,000 victory over Fiat — and shocking stories from other owners of Ducato vans.

The Joneses run a fireworks business, but no matter how many times they put a rocket up Fiat over their dodgy Ducato, they couldn’t get a refund on the $52,500 van — until we stepped in.

By April this year the Jones’s Ducato, bought in October 2019, had spent 92 days off the road for repairs after being towed away four times with faults in the transmission, gasket and the diesel particulate filter (DPF).

“It’s been a nightmare,” said Michelle Jones, of Tarago, near Goulburn.

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Business manager Michelle Jones, daughter Skyla and their failed Fiat. Picture: Gary Ramage

In one of umpteen emails to Fiat Chrysler Australia, her husband Owen pleaded on April 26: “I know it’s hard sometimes but please do the proper and legal thing.”

At the time, all FCA was offering the Joneses were two scheduled services at no cost and a one-year factory warranty extension “as a gesture of goodwill”.

In situations like these, sending email after email is not a good idea.

After one email and one phone call, it’s time to get serious and file proceedings in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. It’s an inexpensive process and you don’t need a lawyer.

It is worth flagging in that one and only email that NCAT action will result if you are not satisfied with the response.

Alternatively, you could foreshadow your intention to turn to The Daily Telegraph.

Part of the difficulty the Joneses faced was having to deal with people with limited authority.

This is one of the ways Public Defender can assist. Put simply, it is easier for the media to get to people with the power to resolve problems.

Mrs Jones described owning the Ducato as a “nightmare”. Picture: Gary Ramage

I wrote to FCA Australia chief executive Kevin Flynn four weeks ago.

Mr Flynn replied a few hours after I sent my note, saying: “I’ll make it clear, if we have a responsibility under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), we will meet it.”

And that they have, albeit only after being prodded by Public Defender, and only for the Joneses — at this stage.

In seeking a refund, Mr Jones cited various refund grounds under the ACL in his emails to FCA, including that the goods were not fit for purpose or of acceptable quality.

He said the faults constituted a “major failure”, which, if proven, would automatically require a refund or replacement — his choice.

I also made the case that there had been a major failure, but in a different way. I pointed out to Mr Flynn that some manufacturers had been accepting, since as far back as 2017, that a series of minor failures added up to a major failure, even though this only became law in December last year (after the Joneses bought their Ducato).

This new ground for a refund is a powerful weapon for consumers left with lemon products.

Richard Andary with his lemon Fiat Ducato vans, for which he paid $240,000. Picture: Jonathan Ng

On Thursday I asked FCA why a refund was only forthcoming after The Telegraph intervened.

The question was ignored. Instead, a spokeswoman said “customer satisfaction is at the core of what we do and we are committed to meeting the expectations of consumer law in Australia.”

When I spoke to Mr Jones last week, he was incredibly grateful for the assistance in getting justice. Since then he has been muzzled by FCA, via a nondisclosure agreement. I find that pathetic.

Before being gagged, Mr Jones said: “It could not have happened without you. Please don’t stop doing what you’re doing.”

Stop? We are just getting (re) started. 

Mr Andary has struggled to get information on what repairs have been done. Picture: Jonathan Ng

A wheel fell off one of Sydney businessman Richard Andary’s Ducatos a week after it came back from the authorised service centre.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, from my point of view,” he told Public Defender.

Mr Andary owns four Ducato vans. He has an off-airport parking business at Mascot. The vans are used to take passengers to and from the terminals.

“If that had happened with a full van going to or from the airport and the van veered into oncoming traffic, it could have been a disaster,” he said.

FCA told him the wheel fell off because the vans were being driven over speed humps.

“It’s not like we were off-roading,” Mr Andary said. “If these vans can’t take speed humps, there’s a problem.”

Frustrated Fiat Ducato owner Maxine Townsend. Picture: Supplied

Like the Jones’s Ducato, all Mr Andary’s vans have had ongoing transmission problems and issues with the diesel particulate filter.

“When you have the luxury of owning four you know that it’s a common problem among them,” he said.

All the vans are well within warranty. Mr Andary said the van’s repeated faults had “cost us a lot of money in loss of productivity in terms of time off the road. Dollar-wise, it’s significant.”

He has repeatedly requested details of the repairs apparently undertaken but had never been given specific information.

I have asked FCA to give back to Mr Andary the $240,000 he paid for the four vans.

FCA has since done analysis of the vehicles and Mr Andary said he was told the next step would be to determine if he “qualified” for a refund.

I will keep readers updated. 

Maxine Townsend's Fiat Ducato being towed away outside Coffs Harbour in May. Picture: Supplied

In some ways, grey nomad Maxine Townsend’s experience is the worst of the four we present today.

Ms Townsend sold her home and bought a Ducato.

But it has been off the road and in for repair for nearly all of the past 3½ months.

So she’s had to stay with her children.

Ms Townsend, formerly of Nambucca Heads, bought the van new in October 2019.

It operated without issue until March this year, although it only travelled 16,000 kilometres in that time.

Since then, it’s moved mainly onto tilt trucks — to mechanics’ workshops.

Public Defender is back! The Daily Telegraph journalist John Rolfe.

The first failure was while driving at Armidale, when several dashboard lights came on. She was told by an NRMA mechanic that the van “had no gears”.

It was returned to her several weeks later, supposedly after being repaired, only for its gears to again fail almost immediately.

It was taken away once more, then supposedly fixed. But it wasn’t.

The fault had not been rectified.

Ms Townsend had hoped to travel across the Nullarbor Plain in her Ducato. But she no longer has any confidence in it. It is not reliable.

“I definitely think that I deserve a full refund. There’s something dodgy with these vans,” Ms Townsend said. “You’ve got to be responsible if you have a bad product.”

Tim Collins has two 2018 Fiat Ducatos for his pet and vet supplies business in Sydney.

Each has been off the road for gearbox-related repairs three times.

Evidently there is a problem FCA cannot fix.

Mr Collins is not seeking a refund because his vans are out of warranty.

But he would like FCA to buy them back at second-hand-dealer prices.

I think that he is being more than reasonable in only seeking that outcome.

Despite not wanting his money returned in full, Mr Collins’s experience further supports the refund claims of Messrs Jones and Andary, as well as Ms Townsend’s, in that his vans have the same ongoing problems as theirs.

Mr Collins told me: “If I had known what would go wrong I would have got different vehicles and saved myself a lot of lost income.”

How much, you say? Mr Collins estimates the cost to his business has been a whopping $30,000.

That supports the others’ claims too, because the Australian Consumer Law says if a product has multiple minor problems that, in retrospect, when taken as a whole, would have stopped a reasonable person from buying it, then the failure is major and a refund is justified.

FCA is considering Mr Collins’s claim.

In my view, there is only one acceptable outcome and that is to buy back his vehicles and let him get on with running his business, lemon-free.