Chrysler refuses government request to recall Jeeps

Toaster this was picked up by the national news the same day you posted it

 

^^^
It was probably true when he posted it.

 

Actually, it was OK. It was Ralph Nader that should have been recalled.

Corvair Handling and Stability

 

Government nannies want to recall 20 year old vehicles? Please...

The Jeeps passed nhtsa's fuel tank standards that were in place at the time. On the plus side, you can go to the junk yard and start buying up old jeeps in hopes of a buyback from Chrysler.

My guess is Chrysler will pull what GM did post obama bailout. The new "Chrysler Group LLC" (2009-current) has no responsibility for what "Chrysler Corporation" (1925-1998) or "DaimlerChrysler AG" (1998-2007) built. Should be pretty easy for them to "Dodge" this bullet.

Toyota, the most recalled auto manufacturer, should learn from their American counterparts so they won't have to fix their follies.

 

I had a 1996 Jeep GC prior to the Prius. I also had two other 1996 Ford vehicles, a Windstar van and a Contour, during this same general time frame. The gas tanks on the two Fords were in the same approximate location as the Jeep.

I can understand what Chrysler is saying about meeting the NHTSA safety requirements at the time. If Chrysler is being requested to recall their vehicles, why isn't Ford being requested to recall theirs?

 

Speaking of Ford, Chrysler could always do what Ford did to the P71 Crown Vic:

 

"Business Ethics is a oxymoron".

It's cheaper to litigate than correct the problem.

Chrysler nows it is a design flaw and corrected in but is unwilling to correct the older model Jeeps.

 

The cost of repairs would probably be more than what most of these jeeps are worth. If anything they would probably buy the jeeps back, like toyota did with the Tacoma.

Toyota Offers to Buy Back Rusty Tacomas - NYTimes.com

 

That's a plan. We'll see how it shakes out. The question is are people diverting from Chrysler due to this.

 

I doubt it. Jeep owners are about as fanatical as Prius ones. Nobody stops buying toyotas when they recall 5 million cars per year.

 

Makes sense.

Wonder if the Gov will stop ordering Chrysler Police Cars.

Probably not.

 

I know quite a few cops, and the ones that have chargers hate them. The universal consensus is "where's my crown vic?". I have heard good things about the Taurus cop car, but they still prefer a CV.

 

Or any older car on the road that doesn't meet today's safety regulations.

 

A 20 year old Honda Accord did not have passenger airbags. That was an obvious flaw in safety standards that Honda corrected in the 1994 and up Accords. Will Honda own up to this and do a recall?

It's absurd that the NHTSA can call out 20 year old cars for not meeting today's safety standards. I don't know where the line needs to be drawn but 20 years in my opinion is too long. If the request were limited to 10 year old cars, I think Chrysler would've complied. Even though it's likely a bad PR move, I applaud Chrysler for standing up to government bureaucracies.

 

To me, there is a question of whether or not they actually met the standard of the time. Why Jeeps Catch On Fire And Why Chrysler Doesn't Want To Fix Them which I posted earlier references FMVSS 301 and Chrysler's self-certification for that.

If it doesn't meet it, clearly a recall is in order. If it does, yeah, does seem somewhat unreasonable to make noise about this and request a recall. There are plenty of old vehicles that don't meet current safety standards and/or don't do well in much more rigorous current crash tests.

 

If that were true, I think Chrysler would have complied with the portion that is 6 to 10 years old, instead of rejecting the whole thing.

 

my brother had one around 1070. i forget what model year it was, but the thing was cool. quick, quiet, smooth and never had any problems. i used to drive it once in awhile and i loved it. it's funny, on wiki, it said there was never a recall, but when nader put it in his book, sales went in half the next year and that led gm to eventually shelve it. that, plus delorean never liked it.

 

actually, nader claimed it's handling was unsafe at high speed. but further testing proved it was as safe as most vehicles on the road at the time.

 

Ah, yes. Union Carbide springs to mind on that front too.

 

US cops buying Australian Holden Commodores (under the Chevy Caprice name, I think) was very big news here. Do any of your cop friends have them? What do they think of them?