- The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has opened a probe into underwood fires on the Jeep Gladiator and Wrangler.
- More than 781,000 Jeeps built for the 2021-23 model years fall under the scope of the investigation looking at fires breaking out with the ignition switched off.
- The ODI has received one report of an injury and several more incidences of fire.
Almost 800,000 Jeeps have found themselves the focus of a safety investigation by US regulators dealing with reports of electrical fires that have left at least one person injured.
The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has opened a probe into 781,459 Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators produced for the 2021-23 model years after learning of multiple incidents of the American-built off-roaders self-immolating.
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Many of the reports received by ODI investigators say that Jeeps have caught fire when the engine wasn’t running and the ignition was switched off. Those reports relay suspicions that the fires have originated at the passenger side of the engine compartment and having talked to Stellantis engineers, ODI staff have homed in on an electrical connector at the power steering pump. Stellantis appeared to be aware of “several thermal events” that have occurred at this connector on different Wrangler and Gladiator vehicles.
This problem may later mushroom into a full-blown recall, but for now, the ODI is merely analyzing the cause of the fires and how frequently they’ve happened before making its next move.
You might think that would give Stellantis dealers some time to fix more than a million Ram trucks that need attention before they have to start crawling around under Jeep hoods. Last week it emerged that 1.2 million Ram 1500 trucks could be suffering from defective anti-lock brake software that could inadvertently switch off the stability control system.
But Wrangler and Gladiators are already the subject of another recall, this one to fix an internal short circuit in the instrument cluster. That problem affects around 33,000 Gladiators from 2020-24 and Wranglers from 2018-24. The Jeep pair was also the subject of another recall last month to remedy stalling in manual transmission models, though that issue only affected 94 units.
