A Jeep History Lesson, plus 2022 Grand Cherokee problems

Jeep Australia cancels existing orders; imposes price hike. Jeep USA orders urgent 'stop sale order’ on sleepy 2022 Grand Cherokee…

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The world’s largest automotive lemon aggregator, Stellantis - owner of Jeep, Fiat, Alfa, Chrysler, Peugeot, Citroen, Opel, RAM, etcetera. You can smell it from here. 

Once again, Stellantis has been caught doing exactly what they do best, with Jeep, both here and in the US. They’re nothing if not consistent.

Of all the many and varied, nuanced flavours of lemon, I find the Grand Cherokee to be the most tragically distinctive. Or perhaps Mercedes AMG. That’s a real coin toss.

See, emotionally, it’s easy to love the look and masculinity of the Grand Cherokee. It’s very ‘Jack Bauer’ and an awesome capability envelope. It’s good to drive, in between incidences of breakdowns, faults or recalls. And the price is right.

But at its core it remains an unreliable, poorly-built lemon administered by a corporation that views you as little more than a bottomless ATM, every time you approach a dealership with a problem. They truly are cocks, in my view.

I’m sure it’s quite shocking for owners who were happy with their Jeeps right up to the point the company attempted to extract money from you. 

There are two illustrative dimensions to the character of this colourful organisation. The first dimension is local and the other is in the US. Both are in the news right now. But first, let us contextualise the Australian Jeep history, which is an important backstory.

Once upon a time, before word got around on just how bad Jeep ownership is (or was going to be), in Australia, as recently as 2018 Jeep sales here plateaued at a stratospheric 30,000 units. Sincere apologies to you if you were part of that traumatic period. Nobody deserved any of that, nor saw it coming, really.

Since then, the truth has leaked out and sales have tanked. Last year, they sold just over 7500 units, so that’s roughly a 75 per cent sales decline in about three years.

Perhaps the rapid sales decline was a result of Jeep buyers, like ‘the Robinsons’, never returning in their Patriot, Compass, Grand Cherokee or Wrangler:

There were so many ways to misinterpret the message in Fiat Chrysler Australia’s ads.

In the lead-up to this train wreck there was also an impossibly hilarious and hugely entertaining cavalcade of alleged scandal and impropriety in 2015 when the North American Jeep mothership detected what were probably contextualised as ‘anomalies’ in the Australian Fiat Chrysler accounts.

This was detailed on the 6th of June, 2015 in The Age newspaper (back when it was still ‘Independent. Always.’). The reporter was Mark Hawthorne and it’s one of the funniest and most entertaining automotive news reports you’re ever likely to read. It’s better, even, than the US Department of Justice’s news release detailing Volkswagen’s abject criminality. That was a deadset side-splitter.

The Age’s report includes alleged expenses like $800k on a Fiat Abarth racing team for senior Australian Fiat Chrysler executives, a plane, flights to New Orleans and Rio, senior executives spending 5000-pounds per night at the Hotel de Paris for the Monaco Grand Prix.

Plus, allegedly, a golf and spa holiday in New Zealand, and quarter-million-dollar Victorian Racing Club membership. All laid out in hilarious court documents viewed by Fairfax Media, back before it was a division of Peter Costello’s Nine media organisation (the Coalition PR agency).

These alleged anomalies in the local Jeep accounts catalysed a comprehensive tantrum back in Detroit. Out with the old bosses, in with the new. A plane-full of typically humourless forensic accountants flew in. The Australian office went very quiet, apparently. Allegedly, the new boss had internal whistleblowers queued up over the horizon on his first day behind the big desk.

These are all just allegations, but for ordinary consumers lacking endless financial access to corporate AmEx accounts, it’s been a couple of years of abject political and corporate incompetence - so we might as well enjoy the oxygenation of these claims.

One such allegation involves a $550,000 for “mobile outdoor floating billboard” which was actually (allegedly) a big $400k Chris Craft luxury yacht, allegedly owned by a company linked to relatives of senior executives. And this is just the alleged tip of the alleged iceberg.

In total, the Stellantis/FCA mothership alleged that there were, “More than $30 million of contracts signed with companies allegedly related to either [the former boss], his wife, former business partners or other senior executives in the company.”

One of the executives even, allegedly, put the home renovations on the corporate expenses. The company Christmas party, allegedly, cost more than $1 million per year, and then there were the Louis Vuitton handbags, allegedly.

Sadly, the lawsuit settled quietly, because the (potentially quite juicy) details never got made public. Nothing was ever proved or disproved, at least not to my knowledge. And frankly I don’t care if they did it or not. It’s hilarious, either way.

I suspect Detroit formed the somewhat painful view that even if they won, they’d look, in my view, like a substantially incompetent company unable to control its own subsidiaries, which is paradoxically pyrrhic.

In my view, it sounds like a fantastic place to work. Who’s got time for customers and sales when you’re, allegedly, busy doing all that? Here’s the link to Mark Hawthorne’s outstanding report which has been live for several years now, so I’m assuming it’s not legally actionable. It’s worth a five-minute read.

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JEEP AUSTRALIA: A WELCOMED CANCEL CULTURE

Apparently, not that much has changed, allegedly, at least in terms of customer-focussed culture. 

Auto Expert understands that senior Jeep corporate executives have just cancelled all established but unbuilt customer orders in the pending tray for Jeep Grand Cherokee and Wrangler, down under. Just like that. Cancelled. 

Bear in mind, some of these people had already been waiting up to 10 months for the Jeep of their dreams/nightmares.

Now they’ve been slugged with a 10 per cent (ish) price hike if they want to proceed with equivalent MY22 Jeep acquisition. In my view, this is a neat new trick for Stellantis Australia, violating customers before they even take delivery.

Before you say it, I am aware most car sale contracts have a standard ‘subject to list price increase’ clause in them. But I would say, frankly, that this is an excellent way to make an otherwise patient customer feel properly special - only, not in a good way.

If you are one of these affected people, holding the ashes of your formerly rock-solid contract like a wilted, dead flower, I’d suggest this is a warning sign. It’s like Cerberus getting all worked up, outside the gates of Hell, not trying to keep you out - he’s trying to prevent a Grand Cherokee from escaping and parking itself in your driveway. Heed the warning. 

I would urge you, take this gift, secure the refund of your deposit, and run, while you still can. 

Don’t look back.

Now, in North American Jeep-related news, in recent weeks, Jeep Australia teased us with this tantalising press release:

Where do I sign? Meanwhile, in the US, that new shitbox is already on sale, and (paragon of consistency) is already showing signs of what’s to come. After just days. I don’t know how they do it.

Jalopnik and The Drive both reporting Auburn Hills has issued an urgent stop-sale order on the latest Grand Cherokee, after owners found themselves trying to awaken their new pride and joy, only to discover that the vehicles were dead. It’s like a Grand Cherokee zombie apocalypse. Only good.

Here’s the original Grand Cherokee article in The Drive >>

Basically, the new Grand Cherokee’s key fob just stops talking to the car. The vehicle erroneously presumes your attempt to drive it is theft, so it enters a profound state of unconsciousness bordering on brain death. It goes into full ‘ScoMo crisis mode’.

For most owners, their Jeeps’ long sleep is permanent, but for some, their possessed seven-slotters come alive again - briefly - only to die again. Offering a glimmer of hope in the heart of the owner.

It’s just Jeep’s way of saying ‘thanks’.

A firsthand owner’s experience right there, quoted in The Drive on February 24, 2022, corroborated by Jalopnik here >>. I’m glad it was just downtown Chicago in summer and not North Dakota, mid-winter. Jeep says it’s expediting a fix, and no safety recall is necessary.

If you believe that, perhaps I can interest you in a Sydney Harbour Bridge time-share, or the latest crypto-currency no-brainer, an unknown and sadly passed Nigerian relative whose inheritance you need to claim urgently.

Perhaps you’ll believe a Coalition government for the next few years will bring prosperity and dignity back to our once-great nation (2007-2013).

Should you buy a Jeep in 2022? Roll the loaded dice, if you dare.

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