
Altroconsumo - "AdBlue" gate
There are hundreds of Citroen diesel cars that have an anomaly in the AdBlue anti-pollution system. The most common solution is to replace the tank: an intervention that can cos...
CICLE project’s cross-border data dashboard of consumer compliants developed by Euroconsumers members OCU and Altroconsumo has triggered its first enforcement action about problems with Citroen’s AdBlue system.
In 2022, CICLE project (cross-border data dashboard of consumer compliants developed by Euroconsumers members OCU and Altroconsumo) tracked a growing number of complaints from Citroen and Peugeot car owners about problems with the anti-pollution system in their cars’ diesel tanks. Diesel cars need to regularly top up their tanks with AdBlue to keep emissions within EU rules – if the levels are wrong, cars won’t meet legal requirements and could be immobilized.
Drivers found that warning lights about low AdBlue levels were coming on when the tank was full, which then could automatically stop the engine starting. Customers who contacted Citroen were told to replace the whole tank system at a cost of around €1000.
The work of all of our members and consumers across Italy, Spain and Belgium has played a major part in detecting the issue, alerting the authorities that consumers were being charged to fix a fault that was not their responsibility to put right.