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Jeep JL fire issue from 2.0L Turbo 4 fixed with cloth heat shield over battery

Tyrantresister

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There has been a spat of complete meltdown fires in new JLs parked all over Toledo in factory storage lots (see story from 2 months ago). My buddy who works there clued me in on what the deal is -- it is only on the 4 cyl turbo models.

There is a 45 volt circuit that has a dedicated battery (the 48 volt battery that is the primary in the mild hybrid system) in back and as the Jeeps sit on lots waiting to be delivered to dealers the batteries rupture and explode due to interior temperatures. The divider next to the battery is thin and is near the fuel cell.

They just solved the issue though. They added a "sock" cloth heat shield that gets put over the battery that owners are expected to not lose or delete....

Scene from fires in May:

Screen-Shot-2018-05-21-at-4.16.07-PM.png
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MisFiTkEv

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should put this in the Turbo section.... its been talked about---but this is a good article and your input is interesting. How did you get info about the "sock" cloth heath shield?
 

NavyVet1959

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Sounds like a braindead design. You shouldn't have to rely on a heatshield in a car to keep it from catching on fire. It's one thing to need it to keep the the cabin from gaining too much heat from the engine, but to keep the car from bursting into flames? Nawh, that's a piss-poor design. And how well is that cloth "sock" going to hold up when someone needs to clean all the mud off their engine after going in some deep mud and they decide to take a pressure washer to the engine compartment?
 

Chocolate Thunder

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Get more information from your buddy please! A third battery located in the rear near the fuel cell? Detail please! Why are inernal temperatures of this newly discovered battery increasing so greatly while sitting idle? And why did they address only the issue causing fires but not discover and correct the root cause of this third battery overheating?

This doesn’t sound good for seeing turbo Wranglers on the market anytime soon.
 

Sean L

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Get more information from your buddy please! A third battery located in the rear near the fuel cell? Detail please! Why are inernal temperatures of this newly discovered battery increasing so greatly while sitting idle? And why did they address only the issue causing fires but not discover and correct the root cause of this third battery overheating?

This doesn’t sound good for seeing turbo Wranglers on the market anytime soon.
It isn't a "Third" battery. Its the 48 volt battery that is the primary in the mild hybrid system. The 12 volt battery will then be the "second" battery and the smaller of the 12 volt batteries will not be present in this system. The reason for the 12 volt battery is that all the interior electronics will still operate on 12 volts as well as the traditional 12 volt backup/cold starter.
 

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Dynomite1371

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The shield will stop the battery from explosion???????
 

Sean L

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The shield will stop the battery from explosion???????
They're adding a heat shield to prevent them from overheating. I can see a better fix coming later in the form of a different battery design.
 

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View attachment 68443

They just solved the issue though. They added a "sock" cloth heat shield that gets put over the battery that owners are expected to not lose or delete....
After reading this article this morning it is the first time a bit of doubt has entered my mind about the Turbo.
 

Chocolate Thunder

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They're adding a heat shield to prevent them from overheating. I can see a better fix coming later in the form of a different battery design.
OP claimed that his buddy told him that “batteries rupture and explode due to interior temperatures”. A heat shield won’t help that issue at all, in fact insulating a battery undergoing an endothermic reaction would make it worse, not better, right? I understood the purpose of the shield to be more containment rather than insulation. So that when the battery ruptures it remains relatively self contained and doesn’t contact the fuel tank right next door.
 

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Sean L

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OP claimed that his buddy told him that “batteries rupture and explode due to interior temperatures”. A heat shield won’t help that issue at all, in fact insulating a battery undergoing an endothermic reaction would make it worse, not better, right? I understood the purpose of the shield to be more containment rather than insulation. So that when the battery ruptures it remains relatively self contained and doesn’t contact the fuel tank right next door.
Yeah, I read the article later and it contains no real information about the vehicles that burned. All we have is OPs secondhand information (it might even be made up) so who really knows what the issue is.

I know the 12 volt batteries on my Jeep and on the Ram 1500 I traded in have an insulated covering so I wouldn't be surprised if these 48V batteries also have one. What they're actually for I'm not sure.
 

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...and this is why Phoenix dealerships will not be stocking the 2.0L Wrangler. :)
 

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GoldenSky

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Ah these fires happened middle of may hardly a time of year where vehicle's interior heat should have caused this.
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