For 1.5 years

Trouble over a broken-down team bus

Why is the e-trolley not running?(Bild: zVg)

For one and a half years, there has been a lot of trouble between the chairman of the KSV ice hockey club and an Opel dealer and the Stellantis Group. This is because the team bus broke down again shortly after its arrival. That was two years ago. The car manufacturer has still not taken the vehicle back. A bitter legal dispute has broken out.

The leased, 60,000-euro electric bus was actually supposed to regularly transport the players of the Kapfenberg ice hockey club back and forth between the match and training venues. But: the bus is not working!

KSV President Franz Gärtner is fuming: "The car was claimed to have a range of 350 kilometers. In fact, my players had to get from Vienna to Kapfenberg without heating and sit in it with their winter jackets, so that with normal driving behavior it would only cover 120 kilometers. Shortly after we bought it, it broke down at a junction with a battery charge of 30 percent and wouldn't move even when idling."

The team car has been in the workshop for 1.5 years.(Bild: zVg, Krone KREATIV)

Since then, the vehicle has been at a dealer and has even been dismantled and reassembled several times by an expert from Paris. But nothing is happening. 

Lawyer considers criminal charges
Three months later, the association withdrew from the leasing contract, but this was ignored by the leasing bank. However, the club was left with the costs incurred up to that point (leasing, fully comprehensive insurance, costs for a replacement vehicle) amounting to several thousand euros.

Gärtner therefore called in lawyer Christian Fauland. He also finds the car giant's actions inexplicable, as Gärtner is a loyal, long-standing customer. Some of the letters simply went unanswered, as Fauland says. "Or rather, we receive very unsatisfactory answers."

In my opinion, Opel and the Stellantis Group are mainly to blame. It is inexplicable to me how a company can display such massively customer-hostile behavior.

Anwalt Christian Fauland

The story has now become a court case. "In my opinion, Opel and the Stellantis Group are mainly to blame. It is inexplicable to me how a company can behave in such a massively customer-hostile manner," the lawyer rages. An inquiry from the "Krone" to the company also remained unanswered.