Owners told to stop driving 2009-2019 Citroën C3 and DS 3

Stellantis has told all UK owners of Mk1 DS 3s and Mk2 Citroën C3s built between 2009 and 2019 to stop driving their cars immediately.

The order affects both the Citroën DS 3 and later examples of the supermini that were sold solely under the DS brand.

It comes a week after a woman in Reims, France, was killed after the Takata airbag in her 2014 C3 exploded.

French officials put Stellantis under pressure to take DS 3s and C3s fitted with the faulty Takata airbags off the road. The company had already recalled the affected cars, replacing airbags in just under 70% of the 690,000 examples. France's transport minister, Philippe Tabarot, said the brand’s response had “not matched the scale of the risk”, according to a report by state-owned news network Radio France Internationale.

All affected C3 and DS 3 owners will be notified by letter, Stellantis said. It has urged owners to ensure their address and contact details registered with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) are up to date so that they can be contacted as soon as possible.

Owners can check whether their car is affected by using a vehicle identification number (VIN) search on the Citroën UK website.

Stellantis UK said owners of affected cars should register their vehicle for an airbag repair as soon as possible. This can be done online, by calling the company’s recall helpline on 0800 917 9285, or by calling Citroën customer care on 0800 093 9393.

It added that it is “mobilising its full network of suppliers, retailers and manufacturing plants” to ensure the repairs are conducted as quickly as possible.

The company also said: “Stellantis remains fully committed to acting swiftly, transparently, and responsibly in addressing this issue.”

Faulty Takata airbags were the cause of the world's biggest ever vehicle recall, in 2017, when the company conceded that it had hidden issues with the systems. The potential faults were first raised in 2006, when Takata officials said some of its airbag inflators expanded with too much force, sending metal shrapnel into cars. More than 100 million cars were affected globally.