[Bearhawke]

Fiat Chrysler is recalling more than 1.1 million SUVs and sedans worldwide with European-style electronic shifters to prevent the vehicles from moving if a driver forgets to put the vehicles in park.

The recall, announced today, affects an estimated 811,586 2014-15 Jeep Grand Cherokees and 2012-14 Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 sedans in the United States, FCA said. It also includes 52,144 of the vehicles in Canada, 16,805 in Mexico and 248,667 outside North America.

FCA recalls 1.1 million sedans, SUVs with Euro-style shifters after injuries

Note I haven't seen a thread here on the Forum about that massive recall yet so, if one was started, either delete this thread or merge it.

 

[aldo90731]

I hope FCA goes after ZF for that stoopid shifter.

 

[EVOL]

How come nobody complains about it in their Audi?

 

[Bearhawke]

How come nobody complains about it in their Audi?

A lot of us would prefer to not see questionable 'Euro technology' on 'Detroit style' vehicles sold here in the USA/Canada.

 

[TripleT]

Its not questionable, it makes NA seem like dunces. Not my favorite but still the recall is just to make it even more annoying when one carelessly leaves it in gear....

Old lady sweet one did the same thing with a old Dakota with mechanical, ran herself over.. she made it...

But carelessness is carelessness.

 

[oharman]

I just bought a used 300S with this shifter and I have to admit that I was a little hesitant about sealing the deal due to the shifter but with all the discussion about it, it just made me pay more attention to it as far as making sure it was in park. It's not bad to get used to..just different. Reading the reason for recall sounds like nothing more than "people are too stupid to make sure the car is in park before getting out..."

I also agree with EVOL above, Audi and other "high end" manufacturers use the same type of shifter and you don't hear a peep out of their owners....

 

[LouJC]

Nothing wrong with the previous design Chrysler shifters and quite frankly I'm good and sick n tired of the assumption that anything that comes out of Germany is superior to what Detroit can come up with. They ain't all their cracked up to be. Simple is better.....

 

[TripleT]

Good grief it isn't simpler it more complicated... there wasn't any assumption of anything, now you have to make a more complicated shifter to feel like a old mechanical shifter. It was ZF and solution in many high end vehicles.. Just makes us look like idiots.

It just a switch.... LIKE I SAID people did the same darn think with the mechanical linkage .... carelessness is carelessness..

I don't even like it but to blame this on anything but people being goofy and forgetful lacks focus... it the new generation Americans that can take credit for anything they do wrong.... it has to be some else's fault it couldn't be I was just careless.

 

[Bearhawke]

Nothing wrong with the previous design Chrysler shifters and quite frankly I'm good and sick n tired of the assumption that anything that comes out of Germany is superior to what Detroit can come up with. They ain't all their cracked up to be. Simple is better.....

Especially if discussing reliability; pretty much anything automotive out of Europe I really don't trust till the vehicle in question proves itself.

 

[hemirunner426]

Unbelievable,i have this shifter in my SRT Jeep and its not perfect but anyone with a thread of intelligence can operate it safely.FCA can't afford these unwarranted recalls.Lets see what the fix is,i hope they don't make it worse.

As I have previously stated I would love everything from FCA to be engineered and built in house.Smells like another witch hunt.

 

[PCRMike]

Its not questionable, it makes NA seem like dunces. Not my favorite but still the recall is just to make it even more annoying when one carelessly leaves it in gear....

Old lady sweet one did the same thing with a old Dakota with mechanical, ran herself over.. she made it...

But carelessness is carelessness.

My grandmother did that with an 85 Ford Ranger floor shift automatic.

 

[n0oeg]

I recently purchased a used 2013 Charger SXT with the 8 speed transmission and the "problem" shifter. I also had some reservations about it, did my research, and decided it was worth the risk. In the almost 2 months I have owned this car, I like the way the shifter works. Yes, it is different from any other car with an automatic transmission I've ever driven.

What I don't want are enhanced warnings and changes to the "transmission-shift strategy" software installed if my car at some time goes to the dealership. If you pay attention, the shifter works great. Its something new and too many people don't take the time to at least glance at their owner's manual. It is not the fault of the manufacturer, but the driver not being familiar with the operation of the vehicle. As Ron White would say "You can't fix stupid."

 

[Zagnut27]

Honestly, just how does one manage to run themselves over with their own vehicle? Sounds like there should be some type of award for that...

 

[LouJC]

It smells like the Ford trans recall of about 35 years ago where if the trans linkage was not adjusted just right the trans could slip from Park to Reverse if you got out and let's say you slammed the door with it running in park. This actually happened to my uncles '70 Mercury and a parking valet had to run after it! The recall was a warning sticker!
GMs shift linkage of that era was much more positive than Fords. No doubt what gear you were in...

 

[Prabhjot]

This just shows up the fact that the American automotive market is too high-risk, high-cost and low-margin (all else being equal, of course, such as domestic manufacture): the gratuitous nhtsa fines, the gratuitous jury awards if there is a major safety or other 'scandal', the irrational energy policies/fuel-efficiency mandate (no carbon taxes....esp needed in times of low gas prices!), the wrong-headed means of financing pensions (defined benefit when the financial and political systems are conspiring to ensure that pension funds yield too little) and healthcare too, the laxity vis-a-vis providing a modicum of tariff-based immunity to domestic manufacture from currency-warring and regulatory/legal/policy/political arbitrage abused esp by the Japanese+Korean manufacturers (including GM!).

The American car industry has not been righted enough to see through the next downturn/crisis or worse unscathed enough: margin-, cost-pressure will prove extreme, AGAIN. The scale of the market and the national/domestic-brand loyalties (esp vis-a-vis Suv-s and pickups) make this boomed-out, near-peak market appear vey sound. EVEN fca has upped its NA net-margins to 7%+ and climbing.

BUT, when or by-the-time sales dip.... FCA will hopefully have done just the right thing in catching-up on sales, cash-flow and hopefully margins in rebounding europe (via Fiat, Maserati, Jeep and Alfa), in china, and globally via the new plants in brazil, turkey, mexico, china and india for Jeep+Fiat, and by investing heavily in maserati, jeep and alfa models and brands for global distribution/exports.

Given the costs, the risks and the unequal-contest facing esp FCA n america, globalizing manufacture, brands (i.e., jeep, maserati, fiat and alfa) and models "at the speed of light" (i.e., by 2018, more or less), AWAY from the dependence on the usa market/the usa-only brands is of the essence to.....FCA's n american brands' still-uneasy well-being. Not to mention plants, workers, etc.

THIS is why marchionne+elkann are banging on about the need for cost-savings via some 'big deal' or the other. How else does FCA get some risk-cover for, for eg, this entirely ridiculous, and ridiculously expensive, recall? A 100+ million$ fine for merely being slow on previous recalls? A current 5 billion$ unfunded pension liability? The billions GM got and FCA was denied? The high cost-of-capital that was forced on FCA, only recently alleviated, 7 years out, when a car-market and/or margins-slowdown may be, likely is, imminent ?

Forgive the rant, folks! But that is what it looks like from the outside. Hope the USA sales-boom continues unabated, so that all these deep structural problems in the american automotive industry and esp the domestics and esp fca can be papered-over indefinitely. Well, at least through the infamous Marchionne-dictated-cutoff of 2018 or so!

 

[ImperialCrown]

Twenty years ago I was doing shifter mechanism recalls at the Chrysler/Jeep dealer because the Park detent wasn't as 'pronounced' as it should have been.
Then a solenoid-actuated cable was installed so that you had to have your foot on the brake before shifting into or out of Park. You could not remove your ignition key without the vehicle being in Park.
Some customers didn't like the new 'feel' of the shifter after performing these recalls. Making the shifter detents more positive also made the shifter movement stiffer.
Legally I couldn't un-do a recall once it was done.
One of the most unpleasant shifter recalls was E17 for diesel Rams. If you open the drivers door and aren't in Park, the horn will start honking and the headlamps will flash. Some drivers said that they needed to open the door to look while backing up, because the mirrors were insufficient or they had a wide trailer, etc. This was awful if they had to back up this way late at night in a residential neighborhood. I couldn't un-do this recall either, it was a software flash in the PCM. Once done, it is done.
Safety Recall E17
There have been dozens of these shifter recalls and there is nothing wrong mechanically with any of these vehicles.
I have to say that it is distracted or inept or inattentive drivers that cause the concerns. The range selector PRNDL indicator is in the line-of-sight, so the driver won't forget what gear they are in.
Some people may be unfamiliar with these new 'Euro-shifters'. Introducing new shifter styles may be a learning curve for some.
The 'gated' shifter where it drops into slots for various gear ranges has been around awhile now, while conventional American shifter levers always used to move in a straight line.
The Knob® is a novelty like the push-button automatics of old.
All shifter operations need to be intuitive and fail-safe for selecting Park. If I miss a Park shift, then it is a failing on my part. If injury or property damage occurs because of one's failing to ensure that a vehicle is placed in Park, then the lawyers get involved. The same for drivers who hit the gas instead of the brake. It is a litigious society that we live in today.
The automakers have to always err on the side of caution, even when there is absolutely no mechanical fault with the vehicle. They also have to cover 'operator error' for those drivers that make mistakes.

 

[Zagnut27]

Twenty years ago I was doing shifter mechanism recalls at the Chrysler/Jeep dealer because the Park detent wasn't as 'pronounced' as it should have been.
Then a solenoid-actuated cable was installed so that you had to have your foot on the brake before shifting into or out of Park. You could not remove your ignition key without the vehicle being in Park.
Some customers didn't like the new 'feel' of the shifter after performing these recalls. Making the shifter detents more positive also made the shifter movement stiffer.
Legally I couldn't un-do a recall once it was done.
One of the most unpleasant shifter recalls was E17 for diesel Rams. If you open the drivers door and aren't in Park, the horn will start honking and the headlamps will flash. Some drivers said that they needed to open the door to look while backing up, because the mirrors were insufficient or they had a wide trailer, etc. This was awful if they had to back up this way late at night in a residential neighborhood. I couldn't un-do this recall either, it was a software flash in the PCM. Once done, it is done.
Safety Recall E17
There have been dozens of these shifter recalls and there is nothing wrong mechanically with any of these vehicles.
I have to say that it is distracted or inept or inattentive drivers that cause the concerns. The range selector PRNDL indicator is in the line-of-sight, so the driver won't forget what gear they are in.
Some people may be unfamiliar with these new 'Euro-shifters'. Introducing new shifter styles may be a learning curve for some.
The 'gated' shifter where it drops into slots for various gear ranges has been around awhile now, while conventional American shifter levers always used to move in a straight line.
The Knob® is a novelty like the push-button automatics of old.
A shifter's operation needs to be intuitive and fail-safe for selecting Park. If I miss a Park shift, then it is a failing on my part. If injury or property damage occurs because of one's failing to ensure that a vehicle is placed in Park, then the lawyers get involved. The same for drivers who hit the gas instead of the brake. It is a litigious society that we live in today.
The automakers have to always err on the side of caution, even when there is absolutely no mechanical fault with the vehicle. They also have to cover 'operator error' for those drivers that make mistakes.

Instead of annoying the people around you by having the lights flash and the horn sound, perhaps there could be a warning inside of the vehicle to sufficiently warn the driver of their error. Something like this:

This never gets old to me...lol.

I don't think my Mustang will allow me to remove the key without the vehicle being in park, but I don't know how this works for vehicles with push button start?

 

[Erik Latranyi]

These shifters were put into the rental fleets as well and caused an increase in damaged vehicles.

This is not a mythical problem. It is real and measurable.

The Knob is logical and different, so the driver will see it and understand it easily. The ZF monostable shifter is not intuitive in operation but it looks like every other shifter out there.....that is deceiving. Can it be learned? Yes.

 

[Stratuscaster]

What did Audi and BMW and others do differently with their ZF 8-speed shifters that seemingly excludes them from the same scrutiny?

(On record - I am not a fan of the ZF "monostable shifter." Can I learn it? Sure. But I also have to take a second or two and quit squirting and wiping the windshield on my PT Cruiser after I've driven my Town & Country for a week. So the less "re-learning" I have to do, the better for me.)

 

[rapidtrans]

The shifters are not intuitive/user friendly or what ever. I've had two LXs with these. They are just annoying more than faulty. The lack of feel or detents and ease of which you can pass the gear you want was iritating.
Been drive for 45 yrs and never drove a vehicle with a more annoying shifter.
My 16 Charger shifter is a big improvement.