1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4x4 on 2040-cars

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7 months later, Jeep 'trailer hitch' recall still stalled

For the past few years, Chrysler and its CEO, Sergio Marchionne, have gone head-to-head with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its boss, David Strickland, over the government safety agency's request for Chrysler to recall almost three-million Jeep vehicles due to what NHTSA says is a safety issue that has caused at least 51 deaths. After a three-year investigation and Chrysler's initial refusal to issue a recall because it deemed the vehicles safe and built to the day's federal requirements, last summer, the two parties compromised on a "voluntary campaign" to inspect 1.56 million vehicles, those being the 1992 to 1998 Grand Cherokee and 2002 to 2007 Liberty.
Those vehicles were designed with their gas tanks between the rear axle and the bumper, and NHTSA says that in rear-end collisions, damage to the fuel tank has caused fires responsible for those 51 deaths. The compromise reached last summer was that Chrysler would inspect 1.56 million vehicles and, "if necessary, provide an upgrade to the rear structure of the vehicle." Practically speaking, that meant Chrysler would replace aftermarket trailer hitches, but would take no action if a vehicle had a factory-installed hitch or an aftermarket hitch from Mopar.
A report in The Detroit News says the "voluntary campaign" is just now getting under way, with Chrysler saying last week that the design of the replacement part had been finalized and it was tooling up "to deliver the required volume." Seven months later, still in question is whether NHTSA will crash-test the fix engineered by Chrysler, noteworthy because not only did the vehicles in question pass every safety standard necessary to be cleared for sale at the time, there are still questions (to those of us on the outside) as to how the Jeeps at issue fare among their peers in such incidents. Either way, Chrysler and NHTSA apparently still disagree on the efficacy of the remedy itself: the carmaker says it might help in low-speed crashes but not high-speed collisions, a position the NHTSA is at odds with. All of this means the campaign doesn't yet have an end in sight.

Jeep gunning for 1M sales this year

Jeep CEO Mike Manley would rather soft-pedal the seven-figure prognostication for now, but Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne won't have it, proclaiming in an interview that Jeep will sell one million units worldwide this year. Manley has called that come-hither number "a stretch," the history of recent gains perhaps reason for his caution: in 2011 the brand sold 568,317 units, followed by the record-breaking tally of 701,626, then another record in 2013 with 731,565 units moved.
That kind of gap means everything will need to go magically for Jeep to record a 37-percent increase this year - amazing Cherokee sales, a brilliant launch for the little Jeep arriving in Europe later this year and a heavy wave to raise sales in US, European and Chinese markets. Manley is confident about the prospects in 2015, though, with the Cherokee in full stride, the Fiat-based Jeep on its way to the US and expanded global production. It's not as though Marchionne's prediction for Jeep's 2014 sales is unexpected, since he first made it last year. But even if the number ends up a little short for 2014, there's no doubt it will be impressive.

Chrysler investigating complaints of vehicles with faulty power modules

Chrysler owners are hopping mad after experiencing a series of electrical gremlins in some of the company's vehicles. Issues range from mere annoyances - windows rolling down and radios turning off of their own accord - to serious safety issues, with headlights that randomly shut off at night and cars that stall and refuse to start.
The issues are being blamed on the total integrated power module, which can cost up to $1,000 for customers to replace. This, of course, has led to a hefty batch of complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with 240 owners expressing their displeasure so far. Another site, CarComplaints.com, has registered over 300 complaints relating to the 2010 to 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango, alone, according to The New York Times.
Chrysler has acknowledged that it's investigating the complaints and is analyzing the faulty TIPMs, but that isn't quite enough for customers of the affected vehicles. The newspaper has snagged a few of the more harrowing tales with the electrically challenged Chrysler products, culled from the NHTSA complaints.