Fiat Chrysler’s ‘Confusing’ Gear Shifter Has Caused Over 100 Crashes
USA’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has significantly expanded its investigation into the apparently ‘confusing’ gear shifter found in around 400,000 Grand Cherokees. The organisation is now looking at 856,000 vehicles in total, covering 3.6-litre V6 Grand Cherokees from 2014 and 2015, Dodge Chargers from 2012-2014 and Chrysler 300s from the same period.
The issue is that the electronic shifter - a part made by German firm ZF - returns to the middle position after each selection. It doesn’t feature a park button either, and according to the NHTSA, these two factors have resulted in numerous owners inadvertently exiting their vehicles with the car is still in drive.
The organisation reckons that 306 roll-away incidents involving Grand Cherokees can be attributed to confusion over the selector, allegedly leading to 117 crashes and 28 injuries in the USA. The NHTSA stated that their testing revealed “poor tactile and visual feedback to the driver, increasing the potential for unintended gear selection.”
It’s worth mentioning that the cars in question do have an audible and visual warning that appears if the driver’s door is opened while the vehicle is not in park.
A recall has not yet been issued, but Fiat Chrysler Automobiles says that it’s cooperating with the NHTSA’s investigations.
Source: Detroit News
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPwfXsU58KA
This guy describes it on Youtube
LOL, not “inspired by Fiat” the Fiats you buy actually have a shifter that moves.
FCK
it’s
a
Trap
There is a simple solution. Get a manual.
What is so hard about taking a half second to confirm that you’re in park before you leave your vehicle? And same goes for vehicle seatbelts getting stuck in doors and customers complain that the belts don’t roll up fast enough. Like holy crap take some responsibility for once in your life and double check to make sure everything is where it should be before you even open your door.
The Audi A8 has a near identical shifter, and certain BMW’s have a self centering shifter. There has been no problem with those so I can only think fiat Chrysler owners are not as intelligent as German car owners
My charger uses this shifter. Theres literally no way to screw this up.
You can’t even turn your car off unless its in park if it’s push button, wich most with this shifter are.
Not to mention the lights on both the shifter itself, in the cluster, and on the little lcd saying “CAN’T TURN OFF CAR, VEHICLE NOT IN PARK”
Murica, where most people don’t know how to drive manual and now is proven that they don’t even know how to drive an automatic either.
Many cars in Europe are like that and there is no acidents about it. Dashboard is there for something.
So it’s only effecting Americans? ;) plus all vehicles come with a user manual and if people are too stupid not to read or look at it.
I got quite a few of these cars in my time as a valet and I’ve always had trouble with the shifter. When I would go to put it into reverse it would instead put the car in neutral or drive instead. Good to see I’m not the only one who had an issue with it. I don’t think it’s confusing as much as extremely vague when putting the car into gear.
Being American I think this might be more of a problem with the average American consumer than the car itself
Many people are so accustomed to automatics, that the thought of having to set a parking brake is the furthest thing from their mind as well.