Consumer Complaint Detail

JEEP / GRAND CHEROKEE / 1996

Recalls
0 Injured
Investigations
0 Death
Complaints
No Fire
Components - Details
NHTSA Complaint Number: 004295664 Incident Date: Aug, 25 2004
Consumer's City: LOS ANGELES Consumer's State: CA
Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO Manufacturers Name: Chrysler (FCA US, LLC)
Model Name: GRAND CHEROKEE Model Year: 1996
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No Component's Description: Steering:hydraulic power assist system
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No Persons Injured: 0
Vehicle's VIN#: 1J4GZ78Y6TC Date added to File: May, 25 2021
Date Complaint Received: Aug, 29 2004 Complaint Type: IVOQ
Incident Reported To Police: No Purchase Date: Jan, 31 2001
Was Original Owner: No Anti-lock Brakes: Yes
Number of Cylinders: 8 Date of Manufacturer: -
Was Vehicle Towed: - Description of the Complaints: I have a 1996 jeep grand cherokee limited which i took into the shop for optional maintenance while i was away on vacation. merely one day after picking up the car, my power steering mounting bracket broke completely away from the engine assembly. i lost all steering capability. fortunately i was only 2 blocks from home in a 35mph zone, and had not gotten on the freeway at that point. i managed to drive it to a point in the road that curved in and got the vehicle haphazardly to the curb where i called aaa. the car was towed back to the dealership that had just done the maintenance. they informed me that they had never seen the steering bracket/pump come fully away from an engine before. not having any options, i had them repair and replace whatever parts were necessary. but i'm shocked that this happened, and i'm just thankful that no one was killed or injured including me. because this is (in the words of the service manager) an "extremely rare" occurance which they had "never seen before", i have to suspect one of two things, 1. either faulty equipment on the part of jeep, or 2. tampering by the mechanic to cause failure. if this occured regularly, there would be death tolls in the thousands every day from losing all steering on one's vehicle. the steering malfunction also caused other damage to my cooling system and my fan cover due to the serpentine belt coming loose. while the vehicle was running the belt spun around freely at about 1000 rpms according to the technician he suspected that this was what caused the other damage, so the car was also overheating. *ak