Stranded deep in Canyonlands NP, had to call Matt's Off-road Recovery (24 hour rescue)

[shooters1380]

Unfortunately, my Jeep was the subject of Matt's latest video. You can learn the details of my reoccurring starter issues here on this thread.


Matt's video:




This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip with my father that turned into a worst-case-scenario event in one of the most remote places in the lower 48.

I had initiated a buyback process after this trip that went more poorly than my actual Jeep excursion. It was 10 days before my first call back which I was told would happen in 2-3 days. Then another 10-days before my next call back. I called, called, called, called, sent certified mail, emailed, emailed, and even contracted @JeepCares here. Not to get a resolution, but to just get ANYONE to talk to me to begin the case process. They wore me down and I was so defeated I sold this jeep back to the dealership at a huge loss just to be able to go on with my life. I extrapolated out the pain of the buyback process based on what I had experienced so far and I knew that I just could not absorb that into my already stressful life. I could tell that the process was designed to just wear me down.

In case you're wondering Jeep (Chrysler customer service) did not care one bit that my Jeep would be featured on MORR. I thought that they might take me a bit more serious due to the pending publicity but no, they simply did not care. I begged to be connected to corporate communications, social media team, PR, or anyone else except the very junior folks who would not return my calls. They didn't care that my jeep was literally catching on fire repeatedly and that I would soon have a platform to tell my story after the video vent live.

I was a life-long Jeep fanboy until this experience and owned 3 Jeeps at the time of this video. My goal is to get that number to 0 very soon. I'm way less upset about the repeated mechanical failures than I am with the customer care. I was stranded twice, if you catch my drift. I'm still pleading with Jeep to help me recoup the remaining out-of-pocket money for the tow but the odds are slim now that I have lost my buyback leverage. I won't be discussing those amounts publicly. I was really looking forward to a 3.0 Gladiator someday but I just can't drop that much coin with Jeep again until the trauma from this one wears off.

Here is a Second Video of the recovery that is actually better than Matt's Version.

Wow. I just watched that episode on your Jeep and I remember thinking I wonder who the poor folks were that got stranded out that far. That’s always my biggest worry, what you just experienced. I’m not sure what state your in but did you try an attorney that specializes in lemon law and buy back? I’ve been thru the process 3 times myself but I’m in California so may your state is harder to work these issues out. Sorry to hear you got such a screwing by Jeep. Really says something for them as a company.

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[Concrete King]

...but imagine the real-life situation:

You've got the Jeep,
You've made the trip arrangements,
The Jeep *usually* starts.

Imagine cancelling a big trip for a problem that might happen that you can't actually reproduce.

I can't get on board with rolling the dice like that.

Recently I took a trip deep into the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. I had a mechanic go over my vehicle to make sure it was prepared. Money well spent to help ensure I didn't meet Matt and his crew. Don't go until you're prepared, it's that simple.

 

[UtahDirt]

“When the gavel landed, Wetzel pleaded no-contest to a class A misdemeanor to avoid prison time. To repay for his wrongdoing, Wetzel will be on probation for 18 months and will pay back $15,328 to AAA along with a fine of $1,745 to Utah’s insurance fraud arm. For a public persona who has made his name on serving those who need assistance, this is a small price to pay for the accusations at hand”

Simply amazing how people think they know people from the created and scripted personas on YT, Instagram and other social media. The comments defending his actions locally show many drink the whole glass of koolaid.

 

[bjm00se]

Recently I took a trip deep into the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. I had a mechanic go over my vehicle to make sure it was prepared. Money well spent to help ensure I didn't meet Matt and his crew. Don't go until you're prepared, it's that simple.

I'm sure-as-heck not going to get suckered into arguing *against* being prepared as possible.

 

[sherpaJL]

@ratherbskiing

did you get your tee shirt from MORR?

 

[bcupton]

I’m a huge Matt’s Off-Road Recovery fan! I hate to hear you have had these issues. I agree with other comments regarding getting way out there with reoccurring issues. Good luck!

 

[SteadyC]

Is this accurate and in the end was the culprit? “Best part of the story is dealer fixed your Jeep with a new starter relay.” Relay replaced and all is working now?

 

[gato]

Hey OP. I'm sorry you had this problem with your Jeep, but looking on the bright side, 10, 20, 30 years from now, you will have one heck of a cool story to tell kids and grandkids.

On a practical note, I've had exactly 2 vehicles with intermittent problems that were rendering the vehicle undrivable. One a Ford many years ago. By the third time, I decided to trade it in to the dealer I bought it from and who could not fix it, with fingers crossed that it would not die as the deal was being done. It's simply not worth it to deal with the lemon law/buyback s^%$ if you can just unloaded to the offending dealer. Make it their problem.

The other was my current JLUR. Had a nastily hard issue of multiple error messages popping up and no confidence. Gave the dealer 2 shots. Second time, luckily I did a ton of research, pulled the logs as the problem happened and drove to the dealer and the tech an I went through it together on the parking lot. Found a chafing wire harness which was backorder and hard to replace. So we agreed on a repair of the chaffed wires. Jeep has been perfect for 8K miles now.

But I tell you, even though I normally offroad often, it put a damper on my confidence. I started going only to rides with my Jeep club where there is a ton of recovery skills and many gigs on trailers, even then I self limited to wheeling no more than 2 and 1/2 hrs away.

It really sucks once you loose confidence in the reliability of your vehicle. I'm venture more out again, but I can never fully relax and just enjoy. Always keep thinking I'll be stranded.

Oh well.

 

[gato]

On a separate note, though, our sport really needs an off-road recovery insurance provider. Someone that will recover your vehicle from anywhere for like a $500 or $1000 deductible.

Similar to how I get track insurance when I drive my sports cars on track.

That would go a long way to mitigating breakdown anxieties.

 

[miklm]

It’s what he was charged with, and pled guilty to. AAA is a form of insurance and he defrauded them. I love the show, and he is a cool guy. However he’s a criminal now and I’m amazed they let him plead out to less than a felony charge.

He pled No Contest, not Guilty. There's a difference.

Does anyone know if he was convicted? Most first offense, non violent charges will get a deferred adjudication, which means don’t screw up in the next few years and it all goes away. It is not a conviction. Don’t know what he got, but DA would usually be the norm.

Don’t know him, never met him. He seems to provide a service few others will and has a clean, fun to watch show. Don’t know why so many want to bring him down.

He wasn't convicted. He pled No Contest to a reduced charge.

They were doing SXS/Razr and other trail/off-road recoveries and filing it back with AAA as a normal covered on-road automobile tow for reimbursement.

Just as people earlier in this thread were complaining about what AAA/Roadside assistance "won't" cover due to their fine print... MORR was trying to help their customers by working around the restrictions, and AAA/insurance auditors didn't like it. Hardly "criminal" behavior.

 

[Deleted member 74991]

He pled No Contest, not Guilty. There's a difference.



He wasn't convicted. He pled No Contest to a reduced charge.

They were doing SXS/Razr and other trail/off-road recoveries and filing it back with AAA as a normal covered on-road automobile tow for reimbursement.

Just as people earlier in this thread were complaining about what AAA/Roadside assistance "won't" cover due to their fine print... MORR was trying to help their customers by working around the restrictions, and AAA/insurance auditors didn't like it. Hardly "criminal" behavior.

People like to tear others down without knowing all the details. No contest was his way of moving on. He even admitted it was a learning experience and the ones who were “hurt” were the insurance companies not the customer. MORR has done a lot more for people than the ones trying to say he’s a bad dude. The Handy capable park in Hurricane is an example of this.

 

[Jim1964]

It really sucks once you loose confidence in the reliability of your vehicle. I'm venture more out again, but I can never fully relax and just enjoy. Always keep thinking I'll be stranded.

Oh well.

This sums up to me the single most important requirement for my vehicles, reliability. More than capability. I’d rather deal with getting unstuck or turn back from an obstacle than be sitting in a failed vehicle in a remote area. If the vehicle doesn’t inspire confidence, I won’t own it.

 

[jbcrane]

He pled No Contest, not Guilty. There's a difference.
He wasn't convicted. He pled No Contest to a reduced charge.
They were doing SXS/Razr and other trail/off-road recoveries and filing it back with AAA as a normal covered on-road automobile tow for reimbursement.
Just as people earlier in this thread were complaining about what AAA/Roadside assistance "won't" cover due to their fine print... MORR was trying to help their customers by working around the restrictions, and AAA/insurance auditors didn't like it. Hardly "criminal" behavior.

Totally agree. I'd have more confidence in MORR than AAA/Roadside Assistance. A guy committed to driving 24 hours rt in his own rigs to show up in the middle of nowhere and help a fella out... now that's commitment. Yes, money changed hands, but it's money I'd feel better about handing over than being charged for nothing annually not knowing if you'd really be able to count on an organization if you needed it. I get there have to be limits and lines drawn somewhere, but Red Tape and Fine Print BS don't help companies sell confidence.

 

[Gregger]

If it was me I would have let’er burn to the ground right on the spot. But I’ve been known to have a wee bit of the redhead temper to go with my ginger hair.

We were traveling with a Land Rover who bailed us out, although most of our personal belongings had to stay with the jeep. Miraculously, we had service at the exact spot of the breakdown but not service anywhere else. I did have a Garman in reach that I used to communicate with my brother back in Pennsylvania who spent time coordinating with Chrysler and all of the off-road recovery companies. It was my brother who was able to get an escalation to a manager at Chrysler who understood the gravity of the situation and understood the specialization required. My brother contacted Matt and Rory and gave them a heads up that Chrysler might be calling. He kept in touch with me on the inreach. We wrenched on the jeep for quite a while before abandoning ship, we tried every trick in the book to get her started. The issue was that the starter would not stop starting. I thought the whole thing might burn to the ground so we started pulling wires and fuses and relays, and almost nothing would stop the starter from engaging and then finally we pulled a fuse that shut down both the starter and the engine and then it never restarted because the starter was fried at that point.

 

[IdahoJOAT]

So about MORR and the insurance fraud... So Matt was on the hook for people that knowingly used someone else's insurance to file a claim?

I'm sure there's more details, but that seems shitty for a towing company to be on the hook for. Enlighten me?

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