Jeep recalling nearly 1M Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs over airbag fault

George Kennedy — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:30:00 EST

Filed under: SUV, Recalls, Safety, Chrysler, Jeep, Off-Road

A recall has been issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for select model year Jeep Grand Cherokee models and Liberty vehicles over airbag concerns. The recall extends to 2002-2004 Grand Cherokee and 2002-2003 Liberty models, affecting nearly a million vehicles worldwide.

The central recall issue is a faulty sensor in the airbag control module that may result in the inadvertent deployment of front or side curtain airbags while vehicle is in motion. This obviously has the potential to be quite dangerous.

Specifically, Liberty vehicles built between January 9, 2001, and March 28, 2003 are in question. As for the Grand Cherokee, potentially affected vehicles were built between February 13, 2001 and May 23, 2003. The number of recalled Jeep vehicles in the US totals 744,822, though when factoring global sales, that number swells to over 919,000.

Chrysler plans on notifying owners beginning in January. The repair program will involve installing a supplemental jumper harness to the airbag control module at no cost to the owner.

Continue reading Jeep recalling nearly 1M Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs over airbag fault

Jeep recalling nearly 1M Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs over airbag fault originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feds escalate Jeep Liberty airbag investigation

Jonathon Ramsey — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:31:00 EST

Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety, Crossover, Chrysler, Jeep

In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began a probe of 2002 and 2003 Jeep Liberty models. Owners were reporting that airbags were deploying when there hadn't been an accident. At the time, there were 39 complaints filed: seven to NHTSA and 32 field reports from Chrysler. Ten of those complaints resulted in injuries.

A report by The Detroit News says the probe has been upgraded - there have now been 87 complaints, with 50 of them resulting in injury. Chrysler hasn't been able to nail down a single cause of, or even a single protocol for the problem; the airbags have deployed on startup and when the car is running - sometimes it's just the driver's side unit and sometimes it's both driver and passenger bags.

There are 386,873 Liberty vehicles included in the probe from those two model years. Chrysler says it is cooperating fully with the investigation and trying to find the source of the issue, with one suggestion being "a transient voltage spike" in a circuit.

Feds escalate Jeep Liberty airbag investigation originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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