Georgians who drive 2012-2013 Dodge Durangos and Jeep Grand Cherokees should watch their mail for a recall letter announcing the fix for a problem that consumer investigator Jim Strickland highlighted months ago.
Nick Cooper of Barrow County told Strickland about stalling problems with his Durango. The same day that Channel 2 aired the video in February, Fiat Chrysler expanded a recall from 2011 models like Cooper’s to include those from 2012 and 2013.
More than 500,000 vehicles have now been recalled to fix the fuel system component in an under-the-hood electronic brain known as a TIPM. Cooper's recall appears to have solved his stalling.
"It was more or less a patch, a roundabout way of fixing the issue without replacing the total problem," he said.
Federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have decided that those recalls are action enough. The agency has dropped any further investigation into complaints of TIPM malfunctions in nearly two dozen other models.
"Here you have NHTSA not even investigating the TIPM module and giving it a clean bill of health, which is just wrong," auto safety advocate Clarence Ditlow said.
Ditlow had petitioned for the investigation and a recall of 4.7 million TIPM-equipped cars
"What NHTSA's not considering is these cars are stalling on the roads, and they are accidents waiting to happen," he said.
A separate class-action settlement expected to be finalized next month will reimburse drivers who got repairs before the recall. It also covers only three model years of Grand Cherokees and Durangos.
Drivers of other cars are involved in a second lawsuit filed in New York.
"Consumers are still having TIPM modules fail in these vehicles.They're paying $1,100 to $1,200 to get them repaired," Ditlow said.
A spokesman for Fiat Chrylser said the company won't comment about court cases until they're finalized.
The company issued a blanket statement that its cars meet federal safety standards.
WSBTV
