Comment by macNchz

Comment by macNchz 6 hours ago

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I rented a Jeep Wagoneer recently and found it to have such comically glitchy electronics that this comes as no surprise. The second day we had it, the liftgate stopped latching entirely, it beeped and popped some error messages on the dashboard and simply wouldn't latch shut at all, no matter what we did. Searching the internet produced lots of people with the same problem, reporting that it required a software update to fix. There was no manual override to the electronic latching mechanism.

Luckily we were near a location of the rental car company—rather than deep in the middle of nowhere where we were headed—and exchanged it for another of the same model, which was all they had available. The next 1000-something miles we drove were filled with endless weird glitches:

- When a passenger plugged in their Steam Deck in the back, the entire infotainment system cut out and went black, including the instrument panel, and then started glitching in and out until they unplugged it.

- When parking, the driver's seat would retract slightly to make it easier to get out, but it never moved forward again, so the seat would get further back at each stop until it was manually repositioned.

- The entire drive the system flashed an un-dismissable error about a rear seat latch, which seemed completely functional.

- The TPMS light went on and off periodically as it seemingly lost and then regained signal from one wheel or another.

- The system flashed errors related to the automated cruise control being unavailable/broken at random times.

- The electronic parking brake kept applying itself while briefly paused in parking lots.

- There was something inscrutably wrong with the climate control that we never really figured out where sometimes it'd just get hot inside the car despite no change to the AC settings.

When we got back I found tons of people online talking about similar (often worse) issues. Incredibly terrible for any new vehicle, never mind one that costs $80k.

op00to 5 hours ago

On a recent one week trip with my family, we went through FOUR Grand Wagoneers, each one with another show-stopping problem.

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tristor 6 hours ago

Honestly, unsurprising. Jeep and Stellantis/Dodge in general has horrible quality control and extremely poor electrical designs. They have a huge enthusiast community that will be happily apologize away the copious amounts of flaws. Frankly, nobody should ever buy their vehicles, it's just robbing yourself.

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  • trollbridge 5 hours ago

    I own a 2002 Grand Cherokee which sometimes will have a 10A+ power drain for no apparent reason. Of course it doesn’t do it when I’ve got my voltmeter on it, except once (when the 10A fuse in my Fluke blew). I resigned myself to unplugging the battery or leaving it plugged in to a high current battery charger at home, and leave it running if I drive it somewhere.

    I rented a Jeep Liberty or Compass circa 2018 whose headlights were permanently in DRL mode: couldn’t turn them off or on. Fortunately I didn’t need to drive at night.

    In 2017, rented a 300 with 500 miles on it; the infotainment was completely broken, which hosted the controls for the seat heaters and temperature setting. It was well below zero in Minneapolis but we had to drive around with our windows down because the fancy climate system defaulted to max heat blast + max heated seats based on ambient temperature.

    Long ago I had a 1996 Neon where the wiring harness started to fail, and the speedometer would stop working. Later on the oil light would come on despite oil pressure being fine. Eventually the entire car just quit running at all at random - nothing but a dim oil light. I sold the car for scrap for $65 since I got tired of being randomly stranded.

    So what I’m saying is that it sounds like Chrysler has managed to actually keep doing the same thing for 29 years: electrically unreliable vehicles.

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    • dylan604 5 hours ago

      In my personal experience with cars that had strange electrical problems, they tend to be on a bad ground somewhere in the loop. I once took a Chevy S-10 to a place my dad recommended. A guy walked out to ask what the issue was, he nodded, took a step back to look at the truck and asked the year of the truck. He then nodded and said "Yep", and then without looking reached under the dash on the driver's side and tightened a screw by hand. All electrical problems went away. He walked away after politely telling me to have a nice day. I was baffled, and he said it would cost him more in time to write the repair up than he could honestly charge me.

      The point is that stable ground connections are notoriously hard on something that by design shakes, rattles, and rolls with all of the vibrating and bouncing on our "modern" streets. It's also a very easy thing to misdiagnose unless you're a mechanic that specializes in automotive electrical systems. It also takes time for new year models to display their warts enough that non-dealer mechanics gain experience repairing them.

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  • jmcqk6 5 hours ago

    I own a Jeep Wrangler, and you're right the electronics are terrible. The rest of the vehicle is really solid though. The only problems I've had with it in three years are electronic in nature. And I've really pushed it to the limits: Colorado Passes, Utah Dessert, Montana backroads. I drove it to the Arctic Ocean and back on the Dempster.

    Still there is no excuse for how terrible the electronics are in Jeep / Dodge (I'm assuming all Chrysler) vehicles. And it's been that way for decades.

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    • jpitz 5 hours ago

      I owned a Jeep 4XE, and I was glad the day we sold it, and I'm doubly glad today. The electronics and software were crap, and the powertrain was simply insufficient. At one point, they issued a notice that amounted to 'it might catch on fire, keep it away from your house.'

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    • tristor 5 hours ago

      Yeah, I have family members with 2 JKs and a JL, unfortunately all plagued with issues, almost entirely related to the electronics. A Jeep Wrangler is a vehicle that sounds great on paper, but actually owning one is an exercise in frustration unless you just enjoy fucking with wiring harnesses. I am sure many others will come out of the woodwork to say that Jeeps are great, unfortunately they are not.

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  • nwienert 5 hours ago

    It’s too bad because the wagoneer is the best designed car in the segment, inside and out for the most part.

    I have a somewhat bad back and want something that I can occasionally work from, so a big space, comfy middle seats, a wide center console. Car makers for some reason refuse to make essentially a Tahoe but shorter wheelbase / 2 row which would be ideal. Instead you have to go with the full size to get full-width.

    But out of those, only American brands seem to understand the utility of blocky interiors. Armada and all the Japanese and Korean large SUVs always use swooping rounded edges which really reduce utility.

    But the American brands are all less reliable and struggle with consistent quality.

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