Right, I got a call back from Maserati today. But don't get excited.
I was called by Paul Green, who is the Customer Support Manager at Maserati GB Ltd, even though I called Anna Angelini, their Press & Public Relations Manager.
I told him of the issue, the failures and that it was not acceptable for Maserati to turn a blind eye to this. He told me that Maserati has a failed part they are analysing and they are "in dialogue" with the DVSA.
I asked how the analysis of the wishbone was going and he told me it was in progress. Pushing him harder he told me they had had it 3 months. I told him this was absurd for a fault which could potentially result in a fatal accident. I informed him that any metalurgist would be able to perform an material analysis on the faulty part and draw a conclusion in 24 hours. He disagreed, then I asked him if the Suderia Ferrair take 3 moths to do their failure analysis on their F1 cars. He tried to claim this was different, but I reminded him that the failure of these parts which resulted in a fatality, subsequent to Maserati having full knowledge of the condition was a very serious and possibly criminal negligence. He refused to budge.
So I revisited the point that I called Anna Angelini and he told me it was unnecessary and that matters of this nature stopped with him.
So I asked him if he thought it would be a PR issue when the Daily Mail plasters its pages with Maserati death trap news should the worse happen. He seemed happy to wait. So I invited him to take to the wheel of my car, strap his wife and kids in, and go for a 100mph blast. He declined and told me he knew why. I asked him if it was because a wheel could fly off and he and his family would crash and burn. He did not deny this was the reason.
I asked him if Maserati would cover the cost of my car being inspected, obviously collecting and delivering the car as I cannot be certain it is safe. He told me to take it to a dealer if I wanted to, but he was in no position to make any contribution to costs.
So I think its time to ramp this up a bit.
I think the best way will be for all of us to book our cars for inspection, and on dropping them off make it abundantly clear we are not paying for the inspection. If enough of us do this in a short timeframe across the dealer network, they might actually do something. The other resort is to take this matter to the press.
Anyone connected to any motoring journos at Autocar/Evo etc?
