Recalls are often just a normal part of car ownership, but some cars see recalls more frequently than others. Earlier on Friday, the Jeep world got hit with recall 68C. What’s recall 68C? It affects a number of 2020 to 2025 Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrids and 2022 to 2026 model year Grand Cherokee 4xe plug-in hybrids, and regards unexpected combustion. As the internal communication reveals:
Some of the above vehicles may have been built with a high voltage (HV) battery manufactured with cells which may be susceptible to separator damage. Separator damage, combined with other complex interactions within the cells, may lead to a vehicle fire. A vehicle fire can result in increased risk of occupant injury and injury to persons outside the vehicle.
Well, that’s not good. A separator sits inside a battery between the anode and the cathode, ensuring the two materials don’t contact each other. If it fails, the result would be an internal short circuit, which could lead to thermal runaway. Not every use of the word “thermal” describes a fire, but in this case? Yeah, fire. Although a recall report hasn’t hit the NHTSA website yet, recall 68C has appeared on the Transport Canada website which describes…huh, you aren’t going to believe this.
On certain vehicles, the recall repairs completed by an FCA dealer during recall 95B (Transport Canada recall no. 2024-566) may not be effective. As a result, another repair is required.
On certain vehicles, there could be a problem inside the high-voltage battery that can cause a fire, even while parked with the ignition off.
Yeah, it turns out this is sort of a recall of a recall. The last round of fixes in 2024 didn’t all work and didn’t apply to every affected vehicle, which is especially concerning when one potential result of this problem is a vehicle bursting into flames unattended. But it gets wilder: That recall from last year is also a fix for another recall, as the recall report for last year’s recall states:
• On June 25, 2024, the FCA US LLC (“FCA US”) Technical Safety and Regulatory Compliance (“TSRC”) organization opened an investigation after receiving two reports of fires originating from the high voltage (“HV”) battery in Jeep Wrangler plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (“PHEVs”) outside the scope of FCA US Recall ID B9A (NHTSA ID 23V-787) (“B9A”).
• From April 2024 through July 2024, FCA US received additional reports of fires originating from the HV battery in certain Jeep Wrangler PHEVs and certain Jeep Grand Cherokee PHEVs. FCA US has conducted further analysis of the battery packs from some of these vehicles with Samsung SDI in an effort to determine root cause.
• From June 2024 to July 2024, FCA US received three reports of fires originating in the HV battery in Jeep Wrangler PHEVs which received the B9A remedy software. FCA US has determined the B9A remedy is ineffective at detecting certain abnormalities within the HV battery that may lead to a fire.
Alright, so here’s what happened: Stellantis discovered that some Jeep Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee 4xe plug-in hybrids were catching fire, so it started remedying the problem by updating the battery monitoring system. That update didn’t work as expected, so it decided to update the battery management systems again, “followed by a HV battery replacement if needed.” However, that now doesn’t seem to have worked as expected either, so Jeep is working on another fix.
So, what are you supposed to do if you own an affected 2020 to 2025 Wrangler 4xe or 2023 to 2025 Grand Cherokee 4xe? Well, in the words of the manufacturer, “To reduce the safety risk, FCA advises not to charge your vehicle, and to park it outdoors and away from other vehicles or structures until the recall repairs have been completed.”
Coming on the back of an over-the-air update that reportedly bricked several Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrids, this latest recall isn’t the sort of thing that inspires confidence, and it’s something that Jeep needs to get right. While NHTSA hasn’t published a full defect report for this latest recall, the last one revealed that multiple reports of fires came in the roughly six months after the initial B9A recall was launched. Needless to say, we’ll be keeping our eye on the situation as it evolves. Given the precedent, this isn’t the end of this story.
Top graphic image: Jeep
We owned 2(!) Wrangler Rubicon 4xes that fell under this issue. The first one would repeatedly fail to charge using level 1 and level 2 charging stations, including those at home. Somehow we decided on rolling the dice a second time on another one that, miraculously, didn’t experience the same issues, but ultimately we traded out of the Jeep family entirely. Looks like we dodged a bullet (or house fire) there.
When will STLA just roll over and die already?
A good example of the whole not being greater than the sum of its parts. No synergy here, just never ending failure.
Just wanted to shout out to anyone else who saw the article thumbnail and read, “recall recall” in the sing song voice of the poor man’s Danny Devito from the 1989 Total Recall.
I did not, but now it’s all I can hear….
I’m not really a fan of any car companies these days. But I cannot, for any reason, understand someone walking into a Jeep dealer in 2025, and buying something other than a part from the parts department.
Non-car people don’t know, don’t care, and all that matters is how it looks.
Remember Ford claimed quality is job #1. Not Stellantis.
Must be a Jeep thing.
Having had several Ford vehicles over the last few years (company vehicles) and currently driving a F150, I can assure you, not Ford either, regardless of the claim.
As a former Mercury driver, don’t I know it.
At what point is Stellantis legally required to have Xzibit announce their recalls?
I heard you like recalls. So we went ahead and issued a recall of the last recall
Stellantis knows that most-recalled vehicle in history isn’t one of the good Guinness records, right? Like, you’re not supposed to want to take it from the Chevy Citation
Ford is still telling FCA to hold their beer.
“Go Anywhere. Do anything.” is going to have to be replaced with “Go to the dealer and maybe the hospital. Do anything but drive.”
“Also, don’t park indoors or near anything you care about. And definitely don’t charge your plug-in EV.” I guess you can have fun finding a safe place to store your Jeep?
A separator sits inside a battery between the anode and the cathode, ensuring the two materials don’t contact each other.
From that description it just sounds like a piece of insulation. So, defective batteries and having to replace them (or just pull them an inspect if that’s even possible) would be expensive so they’ll just stuff some software in there to look for things overheating or cells appearing to discharge faster than normal and throw a code before the fire starts?
This is inside the individual battery cells. It’s a manufacturing error and there’s no fixing aside from replacing the affected cell with a healthy one. Whether individual cells can be replaced economically is a different question. At a DIY level it absolutely will be. At a corporate level replacing the packs is the best approach. It’s way less risk to the dealer techs, less liability for future battery errors and excellent customer relations.
My guess would be that by the third recall trip back to the dealer, this option has expired.
Interesting point about this being the third recall for the same issue. At what point do these cars become lemons and Stellantis has to buy them back? This seems like something a class action lawsuit might want to discover.
Under lemon law, two or three attempts for a serious safety defect, depending on your jurisdiction, would be the citrus limit. Probably a bunch of them just hit the buy-back point.
If the problem is contact between the battery leads I think all a code could do is activate the “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET OUT NOW!!!” alarm:
https://youtu.be/fI52h9YZ-bI
Maybe Jeep should just license the hybrid from Toyota, and let Toyota build it? 😛
just rebadge a hybrid 4runner. have it come from the factory with a few limited edition ducks and the jeepsters will flock to dealerships.
That worked for the Ford Escape hybrids used in NYC cabs, a while back.
Those rigs accumulated some legendary mileage as I remember. They were overachievers in the durability sweepstakes.
When I start thinking my ecodiesel JL has been problematic, along comes the 4xe to, uh, commiserate? prove FCA can screw up anything? clog dealer service lots and appointments? offer better chance at stranding me? start bonfires?
At least Jeep service departments absolutely suck (from service managers to many of the barely-trained bodies they call “techs” charged out at ~$200/hr). And parts shortages are still a thing. And warranty denials at dealer level increasing.
Will someone think of the ducks?!?
I don’t get the duck thing. What IS that all about?
Buy a Jeep and find out.
Meh, I don’t have any use for a Jeep. Though I have owned one, a 2002 Grand Cherokee. With no ducks on the dash.
I had a ’93 XJ, also no ducks on the dash.
Had a ’94 Jeep GC and sold it at 110K miles in Seattle and bought a new 2002 Honda CR-V to replace it. No ducks to give.
Other than a couple of O2 sensor failures, that thing was very reliable. Pretty loud on the coarse pavement on I-5 around Seattle at the time, but great in the snow and pretty much everywhere we drove it. Wow, it was so fun in the snow. Nearly as big on the inside, but smaller on the outside and agile. I kind of wish I still had it. I’d try to find some way to make it quieter. But it was a really fun car to teach my son how to avoid getting into an accident. That was 14 years ago. He hasn’t been in one.
But it probably would have not enjoyed my years in Texas with it, when my 5M TDI Jetta needed another gear.
Ex-wife/son’s mom was worried about the accumulated mileage on the CR-V.
Bought kiddo a ’15 AWD Escape before sending him off to law school in Wisconsin. And it treated him well, but now it’s the backup for a Mazda CX-5 in Milwaukee.
The Grand Cherokee was fine for me. Just typical aging vehicle stuff – it was 10yrs old and 130K when I bought it. Sold it to my bestie, she managed to kill it in relatively short order. That woman has *zero* mechanical sympathy and is incredibly hard on equipment. She has a digital driving style, one pedal or the other hard to the floor.
“Digital driving style” Lol. I always referred to it as “binary,” but the same concept. I hate riding with people who drive that way. I don’t get carsick. It just annoys me. What other terms can we use? Bipolar? Passive-Aggressive?
The ’94 GC was bought new and was scary with the infant mortality of some components, but we opted for the 3 year/36K bumper to bumper warranty, and it pretty well sorted itself out by the time the warranty was up.
The underside had a lot of rust after only one winter in Cleveland, but then we moved to Seattle where they use sand and now potassium chloride to deal with the occasional snow event. The sand is hard on the leading edge of the hood and the windshield.
I don’t remember exactly how many miles we had on the GC when we sold it. North of 100K for sure. It was starting to leak coolant from the water pump but otherwise seemingly mechanically sound. We were just tiring of it and wanted something more economical on fuel.
And I love that term “mechanical sympathy.” Watching football yesterday, I saw commercial after commercial of $70K+ pickups getting the crap beat out of them. That is the last thing I’d be doing after spending that kind of money.
It was quite nice underneath, but I bought it privately in southern NJ, so the bottom edge of the rust belt. Presumably the next generation got better rust protection. Got to taste “death wobble” on the way home with it, which was interesting. Needed tie rod ends to cure that. Otherwise, I think I replaced a crank sensor and a couple broken wires in the door bundle in the couple years I owned it. It towed the boat adequately, was comfortable enough, but basically sucked to drive.
The ’01 Range Rover that replaced it was rather nicer to be in, massively better to drive, and just about as reliable as well though it needed a bit more initial fettling (minor cosmetic stuff that the Jeep wasn’t nice enough to care about). But the Rangie gave me a nervous twitch thinking about all the expensive dilemmas it COULD have, so when the opportunity came to pick up a rare 5spd early Disco I, I sold it on. Still have the Disco 10 years on, love it but have no use for it anymore, so casually trying to sell it.
Bestie is no longer allowed to drive my cars without me in them. One failure that the Range Rover had was while she was borrowing it due the the Jeep having died. The water pump bearing went, allowing the cooling fan to wobble all over the place causing a Hell of a vibration that was IMMEDIATELY obvious. She came over because we were going out to dinner. I get in the truck, she fires it up and I immediately say SHUT IT OFF! Open hood and see the issue (how it didn’t puke out all the coolant and/or put the fan through the radiator is a miracle). Ask Bestie – how long has it been doing that? “Couple of days”. Eeeesh. So that was that, no more loaners to her, ever. Not her fault that it failed, but how could she possibly not notice that the whole damned truck was shaking and at least TELL ME?? Another time, before she finally killed the Jeep, she wore out the brakes so badly a pad fell out and jammed the wheel in the caliper – again, completely ignored all the racket the brakes were making “it still stopped fine”. She managed to take the brakes from half worn to pad falling out in less than a year… A menace behind the wheel, much as I love her…
The GC was a V8 and pulled a loaded U-Haul trailer from Cleveland to Seattle in 3.5 days, with me driving from when I woke up until I just couldn’t anymore. My (then) wife, my six-week-old son and the cat flew.
The Jeep did its job without complaint, but with a lot of fuel. And being a top trim GC, it wasn’t a penalty box.
I had to be back to work and flew back, and I got the Cleveland house sold and its contents packed up and in a moving van a few weeks later. And then drove my Toyota pickup out west but stopped an hour here and there to take in the sights I had just blown past on the first trip. And signed and faxed closing papers at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.
Wow. That was all 31 years ago. Parts of it I remember as if it was yesterday. Funny how memory works. Until it doesn’t. I don’t know how I didn’t stroke out or have a heart attack back in those days.
Time flies!
Mine was a pretty much base I6. It did have the “shift on the fly” “full-time AWD if you want” transfer case, which was about the only option on the thing. Towed a 7klb boat just fine, but I am Captain Slow when towing anyway. Farthest I ever drove it was home to Maine from NJ. Entirely adequate vehicle for what I used it for, which was snow beast in the winter and towing that boat around in the summer. For what it was, when I was driving I thought the fuel economy was fine, low 20s. Certainly rather better than either Rover. I don’t want to know what she got – 10?
Best I got with the V8 (20 mpg) was on a trip from Cleveland to London, Ontario, driven very conservatively with an ~8-month pregnant wife. Our last “for fun” weekend before my son was born. But he brought his own fun and joy into our lives. No complaints about that. He and his wife still do.
When we moved out to Seattle, pulling the U-Haul cross country, it got about 13-14 mpg across the flat mid-west. Going over the Rockies and then the Cascades, it was worse. But it could always keep up with the flow of traffic. It had no problem with that.
We cross-shopped a Ford Explorer and the Jeep handled sharper, and she noticed it as well, so that’s how we ended up with the Jeep. When we met, she drove an ’84 Mark 2 stick-shift Jetta. So, she wasn’t vehicularly ignorant.
The Eddie Bauer version Explorer had much better seats. I will have to say that. I don’t know if it had better fuel economy (probably not) or could tow as well. But the seats were amazing.
I read in the latest SAE magazine that Renault is going to have an external port on their battery cars which connects directly to the battery case and accommodates a standard fire hose connection. Supposedly allows fire suppression in a fraction of the time. So they’re apparently thinking this problem is going to be around a while.
“Owners will be offered a free fire extinguisher upon request”
As a jeep owner (5 over the years) I have kept a fire extinguisher within reach of the driver for 30 years.
The first step in the process of achieving high quality is consistency. Stellantis reached the first step years ago, but then lost the remaining instructions.
“A vehicle fire can result in increased risk of occupant injury and injury to persons outside the vehicle.”
Really? A fire is a risk to the occupants, well no shit sherlock….. Does make you think who writes these memos 🙂
Lawyers, or people who want lawyers to take it seriously.
Source: I was an engineer at an OEM and I once used the phrase “risk of flaming death” when a concern I had wasn’t taken seriously enough.
I don’t understand why they couldn’t fix it after the 1st or 2nd recall.
They’ve been trying to fix a hardware problem with software updates.
Replacement battery is a high dollar warranty item both parts and labor. I’m sure they want to avoid that if at all possible. And the other question is the replacement battery statistically better than the original?
Stellantis CFO: “what if we used the first batch of batteries we pulled out of cars to replace the second batch in the third recall?”
Because they don’t want to do the REAL fix, which is insanely expensive – replace the janky battery pack.
And yet, the quality engineers continue to be cut and cut and cut.
Is it any wonder DT jumped from that shitshow to writing?
Yea because Journalism is such a prestige and reliable occupation. Lol
Only at the Autopian.
A friend of a friend recently quit their Stellantis job in the functional safety engineering team for the Hybrids. Basically from what I have been told (anecdotally) the hybrid systems functional safety architecture (hardware and software) is a complete and utter cluster, so there was absolutely zero shock when these recalls get recalls get recalls.
Your friend of a friend is smart. I’m to passionate/gullible to self-preserve, and would have poured my heart, body and soul into fixing anything I could and then some, right up until I got laid off (this has been the case more than once).
“Recalls are often just a normal part of car ownership, but some cars see recalls more frequently than others.”
My 2001 Audi S4 has been the subject of one – 1 – recall and that was the Takata airbag recall. Some vehicles just don’t come defective from the factory…
An Audi owner saying that is some first-class irony. Though Audi defects tend to be injurious to the wallet rather than the body by most accounts.
Just got a margin call
on my recall, so
I’d better park this crawler
at the mall.
Ain’t drivin’ it
Till next fall, or
Until the snow melts
Here in St Paul.
Its FCA, that means they are dog crap quality. Then throw in terrible dealer service and you have a great shit sandwich! Of course the derps over at Allpar dont think so but oh well, its the truth.
How can you sell a PHEV you advise not to charge? I’m no Big Gov’t guy, but shouldn’t what ever incentives for these being PHEVs be cut until the manufacturer says it’s safe to use it as a PHEV?
If they make a 2 door version I’ll still buy one and still run it in electric mode 99% of the time, but if there is a fire at least the fabric doors and fabric top I’d have on the thing will be easy to bust through if necessary.
Why should the government use the people’s money to help people by cars?
Never said they should, but if there are incentives for this thing, based upon it being a PHEV (which I think there are or at least were since there’s not really any market justification for the vehicle), then they should be cut, because the PH in PHEV stands for Plug-In Hybrid and as quoted above the manufacturer is advising owners to not plug in.
That being said we all breathe air, and clean air is something we would all benefit from, however there is a great variety in how people wish to get to that goal. As far as automobiles are concerned I think the Range Extended EV path is the way to go.
“That being said we all breathe air, and clean air is something we would all benefit from”
I only breathe the finest Perri-Air. It’s Canned in Druidia you know.
Why should the government use the people’s money to help people buy houses? Or health care? Or oil-drilling equipment or anything else we subsidize directly or through tax policy?
They shouldn’t. Look at the sub prime crisis from 2007 as a great example of that. Obamacare has been and continues to be a nightmare of like and corruption. There are a VERY small amount of things that there should be tax breaks for and buying an electric car sure as hell is not one of them.
Everything the government does is a subsidy, whether the money arrives via direct payment or tax break. Why should we subsidize roads? They are a deadly obstacle to people moving under their own power, and just benefit car/truck owners. Heck, why should the government recognize LLCs? They’re just free liability insurance.
Yo, dawg, I here you like recalls…
Came here for this, was not disappointed, thank you!
Man, I just want to live in a world where the underdog of the big 3 gets their shit together.
Till then, it’s a constant rerun of a song of I.C.E. and fire.
I mean other than the 6.2, which is niche, GM’s lookin’ pretty good.
Gm bums me out so bad. It’s not just the 6.2, it’s the 1.4, the 1.5, the 3.6, and the 5.3 all being ticking timebombs, and the fact that those engines are in 75 percent of their cars. Gm is world class. They have proven again and again that they can engineer dominating powertrains and vehicles.
But they still are behaving like 1980s Gm. As long as it lasts past the warranty period they’re not doing shit to fix anything.
People rag on stelllantis but good god at least every engine they’ve made since the start of the FCA days will run past 200k with proper maintenance. At the dealership, when we went to auctions, there were certain cars that we DID NOT buy under any circumstances. Hyundai/Kia GDIs, all the aforementioned Gms, a whole pile of fords, Nissans with over 60k miles.
Any FCA product newer than 2012 was completely safe. That speaks volumes.
Complete and total bullshit. The Hemi has had MASSIVE valvetrain problems, especially on the MDS system. The Pentastar has had a recent recall over bad camshafts and the infamous plastic oil filter holder. Durango Police Hemis had faulty oil coolers that blew engines apart. THAT is speaking volumes. Want more examples?
Hemi’s by a large had valvetrain issues when oil change intervals were neglected, dodgy oil was used, and/or lots of idling was involved. I saw plenty of them, with these issues, but I promise you, it was maybe 1 out of 100 we sold came back for an issue like this. 3.6s may have been around the same. We co-owned our own warranty company, so close attention was paid to these type of things. 2014 and newer GMs? It wasn’t 1 out of 100, it was like 1 out of 20 was going to have either an engine repair or a transmission problem. I get that it’s not a fun thing to hear (and I still maintain that from 1973 all the way to 2007 there is no better truck than a GM, I’m speaking from what I saw working in the industry. It’s not always common knowledge, man. For example, people crap on ford Ecoboosts but (with the exeption of a bad run of valves) 2.7 ecoboosts are rock solid. Ford 6.2 gassers and 6.7 diesels are solid. 4.3 and 2.7 chevys are solid. 5.6 Nissan engines are hit or miss. Toyota 5.7s are straight up mythical, Ram Ecodiesels are as bad as Ford 6.0s.
I’m not saying that Chryslers are flawless (that would be insanity) but you can’t rely on brand loyalty when your paycheck depends on what trucks you stock your lot with.
Also, Hemis never should have been sold to the police. They knew damn well these engines cannot idle for 10 hours a day and not develop problems, and they sold them anyway.
If they’re idling 10 hours a day they have no business even considering anything that’s not at least a hybrid.
I’m totally guessing here, but I can tell you that if an officer is in his car on active patrol, it is running.
And since the cars idle all day, that’s a loootta hours on the engine oil. Engine oil changes don’t really get adjusted to account for this runtime, and the oil degrades. The hemi already BARELY gives its top end enough oil at idle when brand new. Add in wear, and degraded oil, and continued idle, and you have lifters and camshafts getting smoked before 100,000 miles.
And yes, hybrids are a perfect use case for patrol vehicles, but it’s just cheaper and easier to buy a gasser explorer, Tahoe, Durango, charger, etc.
My dealer-maintained EcoDiesel that fell apart at 140k says hi.
Check a couple of comments down. Ecodiesels are classic Chrysler. You have a 50/50 shot of it lasting 300k under ridiculous amounts of abuse, or it will completely fall apart before it’s paid for, and there seems to be no in between.
I predict in the near future Jeep will be putting Recall OTA Updates in a monthly subscription package that you will be charged a monthly fee to keep your Jeep from bursting in to flames maybe.
Wait, when did Stellantis HQ move to Germany?
It’s in the Netherlands, so pretty close.