How do you start a class action lawsuit?

[BumpyTrail]

I think the best thing any of us can do right now is to talk in person to our dealship. I did that on Friday. They were unaware of the problem. And they promised to find out what they could and get back to me. Fair enough. They have a LOT more leverage with FCA than we do. The more of us that get our dealers to complain to FCA the better. Let’s see what they come up with.

A friend’s family owns a few dealerships. FCA is leaving dealerships “high-and-dry” on this. It appearantly is LEGAL because of fine print in both sales contracts (customers) and franchise agreements (dealers). I’ve cancelled my JL order due to this.

I agree. But we don’t yet know what the real problem is. There are lots of possibilties. One is that this is simply a marketing decision and there’s no technical problem at all. In which case reversing it would be trivial (technically). Another is that there’s a serious bug somewhere that they don’t know how to fix and by removing the feature entirely they’ve given themselves a year to fix it. We just don’t know. But we do deserve an explanation. And some compensation if there is no fix forthcoming.

My understanding is it is a serious bug. There will not be a future fix do to unexpected “hardware” issues that can not be updated. FCA is apparently scrambling to find a physical upgrade to be installed at factory or replacing the entire unit for next year.

Sponsored

 

[BillyHW]

Dollar wise how much of your vehicle price did the “off road pages” cost you? Did you upgrade the radio solely for this purpose or was it for the other benefits of the 8.4?

We are such a “Sue” happy society.

A friend’s family owns a few dealerships. FCA is leaving dealerships “high-and-dry” on this. It appearantly is LEGAL because of fine print in both sales contracts (customers) and franchise agreements (dealers). I’ve cancelled my JL order due to this.



My understanding is it is a serious bug. There will not be a future fix do to unexpected “hardware” issues that can not be updated. FCA is apparently scrambling to find a physical upgrade to be installed at factory or replacing the entire unit for next year.

Hardware problems can be fixed by replacing hardware under warranty. If that is the case then FCA needs to replace the 8.4 units on all 2018s.

 

[BumpyTrail]

Hardware problems can be fixed by replacing hardware under warranty. If that is the case then FCA needs to replace the 8.4 units on all 2018s.

My understanding is (and I could have been told incorrectly) that the UConnect system is basically a tablet computer. There is no way to swap out system chips without physically removing UConnect from vehicle, opening the sealed tablet, swapping system chips on motherboard, running an extensive diagnostic evaluation, loading new software and upgrading the User Interface. Easy as that sounds there are no FCA mechanics trained for anything like that. Now the bad news is when the accountants and lawyers came in and decided it would be cost prohibitive to attempt a 2018 fix.

 

[Swanny297]

A friend’s family owns a few dealerships. FCA is leaving dealerships “high-and-dry” on this. It appearantly is LEGAL because of fine print in both sales contracts (customers) and franchise agreements (dealers). I’ve cancelled my JL order due to this.

I have read through the posts and I understand everyone’s frustration with not having this feature. The fact you paid a little extra for some Jeep pictures and aren’t getting them is annoying especially since no one is getting a straight answer.

Seems a bit extreme to cancel an order, but to each his own. Hopedully if you have paid for this feature and plan to wheel you have enough experience that you aren’t depending on the ORP’s to teach you how to wheel or get you out of a jam when your in trouble.

If these pages are truly bugged and you were depending on them and a miscalculation caused a catastrophic accident than the lawsuit for false advertising would be peanuts compared to a death settlement as a result of faulty gages plus the recall requirement would be huge.

Hopefully y’all get some resolution.

 

[BillyHW]

My understanding is (and I could have been told incorrectly) that the UConnect system is basically a tablet computer. There is no way to swap out system chips without physically removing UConnect from vehicle, opening the sealed tablet, swapping system chips on motherboard, running an extensive diagnostic evaluation, loading new software and upgrading the User Interface. Easy as that sounds there are no FCA mechanics trained for anything like that. Now the bad news is when the accountants and lawyers came in and decided it would be cost prohibitive to attempt a 2018 fix.

Yup, gotta replace the whole tablet to do right by your customers because they paid for a non-defective tablet. Probably pretty easy to just swap out the full tablet.

FCA needs to sue their supplier if they received defective units. I'm sure they will, just like we will sue FCA for the same reason.

 

[BumpyTrail]

I have read through the posts and I understand everyone’s frustration with not having this feature. The fact you paid a little extra for some Jeep pictures and aren’t getting them is annoying especially since no one is getting a straight answer.

Seems a bit extreme to cancel an order, but to each his own. Hopedully if you have paid for this feature and plan to wheel you have enough experience that you aren’t depending on the ORP’s to teach you how to wheel or get you out of a jam when your in trouble.

If these pages are truly bugged and you were depending on them and a miscalculation caused a catastrophic accident than the lawsuit for false advertising would be peanuts compared to a death settlement as a result of faulty gages plus the recall requirement would be huge.

Hopefully y’all get some resolution.

I misrepresented the reason I cancelled my order. I should have clarified the Off Road Pages were the straw that broke the camels back. There have been a number of issues with the release that I don’t feel comfortable with. I keep thinking about the phrase “too big to fail” because if I ran my company in the same manner as FCA I would be out-of-business. It is the new business model: get the product to customers ASAP and then fix issues later. I wrote a paperin business school about it regarding the video game industry. Maybe I have too high of expectation for a +$65,000 purchase.

 

[TampaJL]

The point is making it more costly for FCA to do the wrong thing than it is for them to do the right thing and just issue the damn software update to the 2018s to fix the missing Off-Road Pages.

That may be the logic of common sense but that is not the way Corporation see it. They see it as opening the door to more problems and more lawsuits.

 

[Swanny297]

I misrepresented the reason I cancelled my order. I should have clarified the Off Road Pages were the straw that broke the camels back. There have been a number of issues with the release that I don’t feel comfortable with. I keep thinking about the phrase “too big to fail” because if I ran my company in the same manner as FCA I would be out-of-business. It is the new business model: get the product to customers ASAP and then fix issues later. I wrote a paperin business school about it regarding the video game industry. Maybe I have too high of expectation for a +$65,000 purchase.

If I had 65k to spend on a vehicle I wouldn’t be looking at a wrangler. I work (worked) in the auto industry for over 20yrs in reliability/quality, Vehicle launches are plagued with issues, you can’t do research and testing on a mass produced vehicle at a test track. You also rely heavily on your suppliers to be ready to perform. if you wrote a business paper about I am sure you saw trends industry wide (US and Foreign) about product launch issues. I am not sure what issues made you decide to opt out but the percentage of vehicle inoperable issues for this launch have been one of the lowest in Jeep history (I don’t have exact numbers but still have colleagues that watch these numbers).

Technology is only as good as the people using it and there is still a lot of manual labor and human interaction. Visual inspection is only 70% effective over an 8 hour period. This is why most opt out of a new vehicle launch in the first year, this is the first time I have opted to do buy in the first year.

 

[Blood Type J+]

I see mention of hardware issues but no references. Where is that information coming from?

It was also mentioned they are determined not to issue any updates but they already have - units were delivered with the functionality but an update wiped the feature.

 

[Gregodav]

Litigation is the basic legal right which guarantees every corporation its decade in court.

 

[TIDALWAVE]

Ford screwed up their very expensive 'heated/cooled' seats for the 2015 Mustang. The cooling never actually worked. We owners are still waiting to hear from Ford. By the way the 2016+ Mustangs are now advertised as having heated seats. They never spent a dime on figuring out how to fix them.

 

[Gregodav]

USE the lawsuit to force their hand. That’s how this game works. Right now they are calculating the cost benefit ratio of screwing the 18 crowd out
Of this feature. FCA is a corporation . NOT our friend .

The largest exposure to FCA is a public relations black eye not a legal battle. FCA has a lot of money and attorneys set aside for legal matters. Lawsuits are a forgone expense to every corporation. And this one would have very limited exposure.
However, corporations dislike to set aside capital for a PR nightmare which can disrupt sales far worse than just another lawsuit.
FCA wants to fix the issue for you as quickly as they can. That is in their best interest.
Having been in charge of software engineers you cannot will them to rewrite bad code into good code any faster. Having been in charge of attorneys, you can make them slow down the legal process to limit your exposure.
Having been in charge of PR and marketing you do everything you can to head off an out of control PR wildfire.

 

[Bluegoose972]

I didn't order (want to say I purchased as I'm very impatient LOL) my Rubicon because of the ORP options. Yes, it would be fun and nice, but at the end of the day, I ordered my Rubicon for the open air, fun factor that only a Jeep can provide. Love my big Ram diesel, but wanting to get back to simpler times of daily enjoyment of my Jeep.

And after sitting through three weeks of court, defending the company I work for, from Plaintiffs that simply sued us because we had the deepest pockets, and didn't sue to ones that caused the issue because they didn't have deep pockets, this type of discussion just doesn't sit well with me. If you only ordered your Jeep for the ORP and plan on getting rid of the vehicle simply for this reason, then absolutely jump on the lawsuit band wagon since you have obviously been impacted. But unfortunately, a lot of people may jump on board simply looking for a "pay day". I'm not impacted and really excited for my new Jeep and have no interest in participating. To each his/her own. Just my $0.02.

 

[That One Guy]

Ford screwed up their very expensive 'heated/cooled' seats for the 2015 Mustang. The cooling never actually worked. We owners are still waiting to hear from Ford. By the way the 2016+ Mustangs are now advertised as having heated seats. They never spent a dime on figuring out how to fix them.

Unfortunate. I can vouch that they worked on the one 2015 Mustang I rented with them!

 

[BillyHW]

I didn't order (want to say I purchased as I'm very impatient LOL) my Rubicon because of the ORP options. Yes, it would be fun and nice, but at the end of the day, I ordered my Rubicon for the open air, fun factor that only a Jeep can provide. Love my big Ram diesel, but wanting to get back to simpler times of daily enjoyment of my Jeep.

And after sitting through three weeks of court, defending the company I work for, from Plaintiffs that simply sued us because we had the deepest pockets, and didn't sue to ones that caused the issue because they didn't have deep pockets, this type of discussion just doesn't sit well with me. If you only ordered your Jeep for the ORP and plan on getting rid of the vehicle simply for this reason, then absolutely jump on the lawsuit band wagon since you have obviously been impacted. But unfortunately, a lot of people may jump on board simply looking for a "pay day". I'm not impacted and really excited for my new Jeep and have no interest in participating. To each his/her own. Just my $0.02.

You don't want Jeep to honour their ethical and legal obligations and give you a software update with the Off-Road Pages? Will you refuse to update if it becomes available, on principle?

Sponsored