| Components - Details | |
|---|---|
| NHTSA Complaint Number: 991042548 | Incident Date: Sep, 30 1991 |
| Consumer's City: AUMSVILLE | Consumer's State: OR |
| Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO | Manufacturers Name: Chrysler (FCA US, LLC) |
| Model Name: CHEROKEE | Model Year: 1991 |
| Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No | Component's Description: Power train:automatic transmission |
| Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No | Persons Injured: 0 |
| Vehicle's VIN#: CHEROKEES 1 | Date added to File: May, 25 2021 |
| Date Complaint Received: Jul, 30 2000 | Complaint Type: IVOQ |
| Incident Reported To Police: No | Purchase Date: Jul, 31 1991 |
| Was Original Owner: Yes | Anti-lock Brakes: Yes |
| Number of Cylinders: 0 | Date of Manufacturer: - |
| Was Vehicle Towed: - | Description of the Complaints: The jeep cherokee equipped with the aw4 automatic transmission which is all auto vehicles manufactured since the begining of the 1987 model year have a serious design defect in the transmission that will cause unwanted and dangerous automatic downshifting into first gear from second gear at an unacceptable high rate of speed. if the operator has moved the shift lever into the 1-2 gear shift position for better control and engine braking and the vehicle speed drops below 28 to 23 mph the transmission will without warning abruptly downshift to first gear. if the vehicle is on wet, icy or gravel covered roads it will go into a skid condition usually with loss of vehicle control. when i took the vehicle into the dealer to have them fix the problem, they said they had never heard of the problem and contacted chrysler. chrysler replyed that this was normal operation as per its design. over the next year or two i contacted chrysler directly including their engineers. the said they were aware of the design defect, however not enough customers had complained about the condition to warrant them taking care of the problem. of course it is not mentioned in their operators manual, and if someone lost control they would probably not have a clue as to what had caused it. i then came up with electronic circuitry that could be incorporated in the vehicles transmission control unit that fixed the problem. i offered it to the company in 1992 so they could make it either available to their past customers and to re-design the circuitry into the new cherokees produced since that time. they declined the offer. the design change would not have cost them more than $10.00 per vehicle for retrofitting past vehicles and less than $5.00 per vehicle to incorporate the circuitry into newly manufactured vehicles. you can find more info and chryslers response to the problem at http://www.cherokee-jeep.com thank you. *ak |
