Feds want a recall Chrysler says no!

[Manic!]

So the US government claims older Jeeps can explode if hit from behind and want a recall. Chrysler claims they are safe ans will not do a recall. I think it is ridiculous the government has no power to force a recall.

Shocker: Chrysler tells feds 'no' on Jeep recall request

Chrysler Group is taking the very rare step of defying the government by refusing to recall 2.7 million Jeeps that federal safety officials say are dangerous and should be recalled.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent the automaker a letter late Monday asking it to recall the 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty. NHTSA says the rear-mounted gas tanks in those vehicles are too vulnerable to leaking and catching fire in a rear-end crash.

Chrysler said Tuesday it "disagrees with NHTSA's recall request," and won't honor it.

Government data show 44 deaths in 32 rear-end crashes and fires involving the Grand Cherokees that it wants recalled, and seven deaths in five Liberty rear-impact/fire crashes.

The infamous Ford Pinto and Mercury Bobcat gas tank fires in the 1970s involved 27 deaths in 38 rear-end impacts. Ford Motor recalled those in 1978.

Adjusted for the number of Jeeps on the road, the Grand Cherokees had a rear-crash fire death rate of just 1 per million registered vehicle years; the Liberty, 0.9

NHTSA says similar SUVs sold by other companies had rates of around 0.5, so the Jeeps "are poor performers." Chrysler says the numbers, and the differences among them, are so tiny that they are statistically meaningless.

The unusual public argument is the latest step in a Jeep probe that NHTSA began in August 2010, after a 2009 request by the Center for Auto Safety, an advocacy group.

"NHTSA hopes that Chrysler will reconsider its position and take action to protect its customers and the driving public," NHTSA administrator David Stickland said in a statement late Tuesday.

Chrysler said NHTSA's analysis is faulty. It didn't use all the available data, and it made some incorrect comparisons, the automaker said.

The government and the automaker now will exchange more information. NHTSA eventually could take Chrysler to court in an attempt to force a recall.

"Chrysler must feel like it has a compelling reason to take such a bold stand. Since Toyota was publicly humiliated for dragging its feet on recalls just a few years ago, automakers have been quick to recall vehicles at NHTSA's request," says Michelle Krebs, an auto industry analyst at researcher Edmunds.com.

"It's extraordinary for a manufacturer to refuse a recall request from NHTSA," says Allan Kam, a former NHTSA senior enforcement attorney. He foresees the automaker having to endure "a crescendo of adverse publicity" in "what will probably be a losing battle."

In what Chrysler called a "white paper" criticizing key points of the NHTSA investigation, the car company said: "After an exhaustive engineering analysis, Chrysler Group has found no evidence that the fuel systems in the subject vehicles are defective in either their design or manufacture. ... The 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee and 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty are among the safest vehicles of their era."

Chrysler notes that the Jeep models were popular and their high numbers on the road would naturally lead to more incidents.

NHTSA did not identify a remedy for the tank positioning. It normally doesn't press for a recall unless the automaker has a remedy for the alleged problem.

In fact, there might be no real "fix" for a rear-mounted fuel tank. Relocating it under the vehicle would involve re-engineering the tank and the underbody of the vehicle. Or using a different rear tank that somehow could be tucked in differently. But testing to see if a change actually improved a rate as low as one deadly incident per million registered vehicle years could be impossible.

Chrysler presumably could make the problem go away by buying back the 2.7 million vehicles. Probably unaffordable. Most are new enough to be worth at least several thousand dollars. Even if an average buy-back price were as low as $1,000, that's still $2.7 billion, and that's more than the $1.7 billion Chrysler earned all of last year.

Most newer vehicles, including Jeeps, now have tanks mounted ahead of the rear axle, suggesting that has become the acknowledged standard.

The automaker noted that the Jeeps more than met the safety regulations of the time, and said, "NHTSA seems to be holding Chrysler Group to a new standard for fuel tank integrity that does not exist now, and did not exist when the Jeep vehicles were manufactured."

The last time Chrysler refused a NHTSA recall request was 1998, involving 1995 Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Cirrus mid-size sedans that NHTSA said had a fault with safety restraints. The agency did not force the recall.

General Motors in the 1990s refused to recall some 4 million of 1973 to 1987 pickups still on the road that were built with so-called sidesaddle gas tanks. The government and other critics said the tanks, situated outside the trucks' frame rails, were too vulnerable to damage in a side crash.

GM lost a $105 million lawsuit involving a death blamed on the tanks, but that was overturned on appeal and the government didn't sue to enforce a recall. GM offered $1,000 discount coupons to owners of the trucks who bought new GM pickups or vans.

The gasoline shortages in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s made the extra fuel capacity of the sidesaddle tanks a strong selling point, and GM sold some 9 million of the pickups before a redesign in 1988. Among other changes, that redesign relocated the tanks to a central spot, between the frame rails.

Gas tanks originally were moved to the vehicles' extremities because they'd been located near the occupants -- sitting totally exposed directly behind the passenger compartment in cars of the early 1900s.

But ever since the high-profile Pinto recall in 1978, NNHTSA said in its Monday recall letter to Chrysler, automakers have been moving to "designs in which fuel tanks were located in less vulnerable locations than behind the rear axle." The agency cited a 1978 Chrysler internal memo discussing the location of fuel tanks under the rear seat in its new Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon compacts, and the soon-to-be launched Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant K-cars.

The memo said: "This location provides the protection of all the structure behind the rear wheels -- as well as the rear wheels themselves -- to protect the tank from being damaged in a collision."

NHTSA's telling a company to perform a recall is nearly as remarkable as Chrysler's "no."

Almost always, the company and the government work out an agreement that lets the automaker announce a "voluntary recall" to fix an alleged safety problem. NHTSA's view has been that getting supposedly unsafe vehicles fixed is more important than who gets credit -- though the agency isn't shy about taking credit for the recalls later.

Automakers don't like to be seen as arguing in favor of potentially unsafe vehicles. And they know that federal regulators could make life difficult for companies that don't cooperate, perhaps by extraordinary scrutiny of other interactions between the automaker and the government. That would soak up more time and energy and, often, run up legal fees that an automaker prefers to avoid.

Contributing: Jayne O'Donnell

[sdubfid]

1 in every million?? How can it not be blamed on driver error? If one in a million people drive a jeep off a bridge and drown should every jeep be equipped with flotation devices?
Posted via RS Mobile

[Marco911]

Fiat is obviously not aware of how litigious Americans are. The next Jeep that explodes in a fireball (a deserving end to every Jeep), will have a multi-million dollar judgement. I'm sure the lawyers are just licking their chops.

[- kT]

Originally Posted by sdubfid

1 in every million?? How can it not be blamed on driver error? If one in a million people drive a jeep off a bridge and drown should every jeep be equipped with flotation devices?
Posted via RS Mobile

...what? how can a fire, which occurs by being rear ended, be driver error?

[Phil@rise]

I can understand the libertys but the 93+ grand cherokees that just stuppid its a 20 year old truck for fucks sakes!

[sdubfid]

Originally Posted by - kT

...what? how can a fire, which occurs by being rear ended, be driver error?

Someone has to do the rear ending.
Posted via RS Mobile

[Gridlock]

I've kind of got to side with Chrysler on this one. I mean, if they want to go on this issue, then next you need to force ford to recall Crown Vics(not sure if they did or not).

Regardless, you are asking a manufacturer to haul in cars that are probably pieces of shit(1990's car in a salt area) and come up with some fix that fixes the gas tank...a solution that even they can't really think of.

Bullshit. Should have done it when the government owned them.

[BrRsn]

I got excited for a second thinking I'd get the rear end of my jeep overhauled for free lol


the jeeps they're recalling are already 2 and 3 generations old, seems asinine to be recalling a truck thats so old

[Phil@rise]

If chrysler caves on this then GM would be forced to recall all the 73' and up trucks with saddle tanks for the same reason. I think this is just the gov flexing their muscles sayin we bailed you out now play by our rules

[Gridlock]

Originally Posted by dhillon09

I got excited for a second thinking I'd get the rear end of my jeep overhauled for free lol


the jeeps they're recalling are already 2 and 3 generations old, seems asinine to be recalling a truck thats so old

Oh yeah...you want to drive a vehicle that is 10 years old or more, its on you man.

[RRxtar]

the 93-98 Grand Cherokee is FOUR generations old already. Whats next, recalling mid 80s cars for no side impact protection?

2.7 million vehicles recalled with a 1 in 1 million chance of a fatality. Im sure there are better ways to spend money to save less than 2 lives. Most of those vehicles are probably garbage now too.


<---- owns a 96 grand cherokee and would love a free skid plate tho

[- kT]

Originally Posted by sdubfid

Someone has to do the rear ending.
Posted via RS Mobile

okay.. but the problem in question addresses the car that is rear ended, so the person who does the rear ending is irrelevant. the point stands that there is no way this can be driver error of the driver being rear ended

the problem should be fixed, even if it is one in a million

[sdubfid]

Originally Posted by - kT

okay.. but the problem in question addresses the car that is rear ended, so the person who does the rear ending is irrelevant. the point stands that there is no way this can be driver error of the driver being rear ended

the problem should be fixed, even if it is one in a million

What I'm trying to say is that it's caused by an external source. If there was an issue with brakes/steering/throttle sticking that Chrysler had some control over I would think differently. It's a car, there are risks with driving a car. Any car could catch fire in a collision, there are too many variables.
Posted via RS Mobile

[heleu]

Update: Chrysler WILL recall the Jeeps

Chrysler Group Gives In, Will Recall 2.7 Million Jeeps - WOT on Motor Trend

Chrysler Group has just announced that it will be recalling 2.7 million Jeeps the company originally refused to recall. When the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration originally issued the voluntary recall request, Chryser refused, saying the affected Jeeps met all applicable safety standards relating to fuel-system integrity and that incidents involving the vehicles “occur less than once for every million years of vehicle operation.”
The recall includes 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and 2002-2007 Jeep Libertys for an issue with potentially defective fuel systems. The potentially expensive recall will include a visual inspection and, if necessary, an upgrade to the rear structure that Chrysler says will help the SUVs “better manage crash forces in low-speed impacts.
Another perspective on the Chrysler-NHTSA Jeep recall: Opinion: Chrysler is Right to Refuse the Jeep Recall Request
Though Chrysler won a court case in 1996 when it refused to issue a recall on 91,000 vehicles, with more widespread coverage of recalls today, a continued fight may not have been in the company image’s best interests.
In a statement today, Chrysler said the following:
Chrysler Group’s analysis of the data confirms that these vehicles are not defective and are among the safest in the peer group. Nonetheless, Chrysler Group recognizes that this matter has raised concerns for its customers and wants to take further steps, in coordination with NHTSA, to provide additional measures to supplement the safety of its vehicles.
Source: Chrysler


Read more: Chrysler Group Gives In, Will Recall 2.7 Million Jeeps - WOT on Motor Trend
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[GotRice?]

so the feds don't have the power to tell Chrysler to put out the recall but they can tell Toyota to recall almost the whole line-up of their cars for the gas pedal problem... interesting...

[vantrip]

You think other car manufacturers would learn after the ford pinto but nope..