What Alfa Romeo must do about the Bonnet Catch Problem?

Alfa Romeo have known about this problem for several years now and are not admitting that accidents caused by the faulty catch is their liablity, but instead telling owners that it is their fault for not checking the bonnet has been closed properly. Even though it is a well documented manufacturing fault with them trying to recalling all Alfa Romeo 156 cars in 2005.

I've been a Alfa Romeo 156 owner since 2002 and never received a recall letter or any notification from Alfa Romeo.

In my case the bonnet seemed to close properly, but the safety catch had only half closed and driving at 70mphs it opened causing a near death crash - even the safety catch failed.

Alfa UK sold a total of 18,379 cars in 2003 and 2004 (http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/statistics/), I’m not sure of the amount of 147 and 156’s sold but I’d guess it is quite a large percentage.

Most of those cars are now on the secondhand market and their new owners will not have a clue they are driving around in potential death traps (and like me wouldn't know of the problem until it was too late). My guess is most of these Alfa’s will not be serviced by main dealers either so the problem will go unnoticed.

So what should Alfa Romeo do? They need to send letters out today via their dealers to all known Alfa Romeo 156 drivers. They should put together a national media campaign, TV and Press Ads. Tell the likes of Watch Dog, Top Gear, Vosa to warn people of the problem and get them to service the bonnet catch.

If they keep up the attitude they have today we are going to see more and more crashes and certainly some deaths on the road.

Alfa Romeo you have a duty to your drivers and other road uses to fix this problem before it is too late.