DISGRUNTLED Jeep Cherokee owner Ashton Wood, who became an online national hero for owners of lemon cars by videoing his anger with his near-new car as it was crushed, torched and buried on a vacant property in Queensland, has now become an advocate for the brand.

In a turnaround from the conflicts with the brand in 2014, Ashton Wood, who works in IT, is a vocal supporter of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles after taking his repeated complaints to the car-maker’s new Australian president and CEO, Steve Zanlunghi – and getting what he says was ”the right approach”.

“I heard there was a new CEO of FCA and I simply reached out. Steve Zanlunghi answered,” Mr Wood told GoAutoNews Premium from his Queensland home.

“I had a meeting with him and Stephane Lamari (FCA director of aftersales) and I presented four cases that I knew about with Jeep owners having grievances with the company.

“He told me the cases were closed but after an hour and a half meeting, he asked me what he could do.

“So I said to him, ‘please have a look at some of your closed cases that I would like to send you and tell me honestly if you believe these were handled in line with the Australian Consumer Law’.

“Within a week, three people had their car either replaced or received a refund. The owners couldn’t believe it. They’d given up.”

Mr Wood said he estimated it would have cost FCA about $800,000 in replacements or refunds.

“They avoided three major court cases and one who was ready to take the matter to the press,” he said.

“All I wanted was to see FCA do the right thing. And they have now started to do that.”

While praising the action of Mr Zanlunghi and Stephane Lamari, Mr Wood was not so impressed with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) which he said fobbed him off.

“The ACCC said it couldn’t do anything because it looks and acts on patterns, not individual complaints,” he said.

Equally the Queensland Office of Fair Trading could not help him “because it holds no power” and cannot force a manufacturer or dealer to do anything.

“QCAT – the Queensland tribunal – only has a maximum jurisdiction of $25,000 so it’s useless for anyone with a vehicle that costs more than $25,000.

“I have been joined by others and are now lobbying government for changes to the Australian Consumer Law to include lemon laws, so that they can specifically be applied to vehicles. My requests have gone through one state government committee and now we’re waiting to see if it will be taken up on a national level.”

Mr Wood said he has been asked by visitors to his facebook site DestroyMyJeep to look at the complaints against Ford for the dual-clutch automatic transmission failures as experienced by Focus and Fiesta owners.

In the meantime, he’s driving an old Commodore “until I know there’s a law to protect buyers of new cars”.

By Neil Dowling