Hah, I figured, it was just funny that she didn't buy a newer model because of all of the issues. Older cars are definitely easier to work on!
I meant 70s and 80s LOL
Are you sure somebody hasn't hacked your car?Picked up the car today. They don't know why the lights went bonkers. Picked it up this afternoon & parked it in the lot at home. Crazy-loud alarm went off a few minutes ago. Alarm refused to turn off for 5+ minutes. Woke up half my neighbors. Awesome. I finally got into the car (was able to start it & shut it down, tried opening & closing the doors, pushing all the buttons on my keyfob, etc.) & was just about to pop the trunk to cut the battery when the alarm magically stopped. Whaaaaaaat the crap. My car is haunted
Why sacrifice modern features entirely just because one company can't figure out how to make a reliable vehicle? The solution is to steer away from Chrysler and get a new car from almost anyone else.I'd buy an older Jeep. Mechanical issues can always be fixed. Electronics are a nightmare.
What year? Guessing 2015 or 2016.I <3 FCA
got a rental Ram Promaster City - 15k miles on the odometer. Drove it 400 miles no problem. Got gas, and then it immediately threw a CEL when I restarted the car and didn't turn over. Tried starting it a few times and it started on the 3rd go, CEL still on.
Managed to make it home, but come morning the car would not start anymore. Called the rental company and they had to do a swapout and tow the car; the guy actually was able to start the car, but immediately there was a foul smell like something was burning.
Looks like I'll be looking at Ford Transit Connects now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBnTwpEBu0&list=PLSzhQ6St-ov1b4BFvZbRMV4Xs_rZlBItj&index=1I <3 FCA
got a rental Ram Promaster City - 15k miles on the odometer. Drove it 400 miles no problem. Got gas, and then it immediately threw a CEL when I restarted the car and didn't turn over. Tried starting it a few times and it started on the 3rd go, CEL still on.
Managed to make it home, but come morning the car would not start anymore. Called the rental company and they had to do a swapout and tow the car; the guy actually was able to start the car, but immediately there was a foul smell like something was burning.
Looks like I'll be looking at Ford Transit Connects now...
I rented a Jeep Compass not too long ago for a few days and man, what a shitty little car that thing is. Ugly as sin, no power and horrible interior. You couldn’t give me one for free, well, if you did it would go straight to carmax for whatever they would give me for it. I would never buy a Jeep.
Holy shit.Apparently my car can do handstands:
http://www.carbuzz.com/news/2016/10...e-Has-Kind-Of-A-Huge-Braking-Problem-7735920/
Can't believe you are still driving that POS, thinking back on this thread I'm surprised it hasn't burned to the ground sitting in your driveway overnight. I also think I made a similar comment in this very thread, a year or so ago.
Even if chargers are available, doesn't it take a lot longer to charge an EV than it does to fill a gas tank? I suppose if you were charging while you were at work for the day or even a few hours, it would be OK. I see it as a big disadvantage for long trips though.Being both cheap & stubborn doesn't always lead to the best course of action
Part of the problem is that I haven't really found anything that I want to replace it yet. It's a bit of a unique vehicle in terms of interior space (width & boxiness) & overall compactness, while also having AWD/4WD. And they have fixed the really major issues, like the phantom power drain that would kill the battery, so it is better than it was (but not great). It still has electrical gremlins & still has transmission issues, however, and they are extremely annoying. I've test-driven a couple dozen other cars at this point, but haven't fallen in love with anything yet. Musk said they're announcing the Model Y in March of 2019, so if they ship that year, it would be cool to have a self-driving EV with a 300-mile range, as a long of my business customers have already installed electric car chargers, so range wouldn't be so much of an issue for me anymore.
Even if chargers are available, doesn't it take a lot longer to charge an EV than it does to fill a gas tank? I suppose if you were charging while you were at work for the day or even a few hours, it would be OK. I see it as a big disadvantage for long trips though.
What did you trade it in for?The nightmare is over
Traded Lurch in yesterday. RIP you pile of garbage! lol
The last straw was the other night...left a job site at night, car wouldn't recognize the fob. Nada. Used the emergency key inside the fob, which set the alarm off. Loudly blared for 15 minutes, which is an eternity when you're sitting in it. Tried calling Jeep Support from Uconnect, but the system simply put me on hold the entire time. Couldn't do anything about the horn the whole time...it's a push-button start. No override or bypass or anything. After doing a monkey dance in & out of the car, shutting the door & opening in, trying different heights, etc., the fob detection system finally came back to life & recognized the fob and let me start the car. I almost drove it into a nearby lake out of frustration, haha.
I had the beast for 1 year & almost 9 months; final thoughts:
1. Looking back on this thread, all of the red flags were there & I chose to ignore them because I fell in love with the vehicle. It was like my previous Kia Soul, but on steroids - bigger interior, better ride, AWD, etc. However, it was produced by FCA (known for poor quality control), it has a 9-speed transmission (with a known history of issues), it was a first-generation model (like every other product, pushed to market before all of the bugs were worked out), etc. I even had concerns on the test drive, yet still chose to ignore them. So the lesson here is that infatuation can easily override good, clear decision-making, if you let it (same as dating! hahaha). At the very least, I should have waited until the second-model year.
2. I really loved everything about it, except for 2 things: the transmission & the electronics, which I'll cover more in a minute. On the positive side, it was super roomy, nice & compact for city parking, etc. The car itself was really cool & a good fit for me!
3. I wish it had a standard 5 or 6-speed automatic transmission. That would have been amazing. Alternatively, I wish they hadn't cut power to the manual transmission's engine (smaller engine than the automatic got), because with sufficient horsepower, this would be a blast to drive! The engine on the 9-speed has plenty of power for the vehicle size & weight, but the automatic mis-uses the power due to the 9-speed transmission. Even in fake-manual mode, there was a significant lag in shifting, although that mode did provide far more power for good acceleration.
4. I personally had electronics issues with...everything. I have several friends with Renegades with absolutely zero issues. Luck of the draw. I got a lemon. Everything from simple stuff like the volume knob not working on a several-times-a-week basis to the touchscreen locking up during Bluetooth phone calls to the car not starting because the central computer went haywire & was telling me to replace stuff like the power steering & airbags. All I can conclude is that the car was possessed, lol.
5. I was extremely disappointed with FCA's response to my situation. At the very least, I felt that they should have replaced my car. I would have been fine with that - hey, you got a lemon, here's a replacement, thank you for being a customer. At most, I wanted them to refund me. In my state, the dealer is only on the hook for the first 30 days, then it has to go into lemon-law arbitration. I did end up pursing that with a lawyer, but did not get a good result (they would pay market value for the vehicle + I would pay off the remaining $4k owed on the loan after that), so I chose to hang on to it for longer & just deal with the issues. It has been a frustrating ownership period for the past couple of years. My wife refused to drive my car because of the issues & the car was a joke among my friends because it would randomly have stupid problems all the time. Minor things perhaps, but you know...annoying. Nobody likes a constant irritation.
6. Service did fix a few things over time, thanks to updates pushed from engineering. I didn't have to have it towed at all in 2018 due to it dying (that sounds awful lol). I stopped keeping track, but I believe my final numbers were over 3 months in the shop & half a dozen replacement BCM's, not to mention near-monthly shop visits that took away from my work & personal time having to drive to the service department, wait an hour to drop it off & do the paperwork, get a rental car (have to call in advance for those, but at least they gave me a loaner at the dealership), and get back on the road. Huge waste of time. Side note, my local Jeep dealer was excellent & helped me as best they could within their power. I had no problems with the dealer itself, and recognize that they were limited in what they could do - they couldn't replace the car themselves after 30 days, and the service department could only fix what corporate had provided them. They replaced lots of stuff for me under the warranty, which was the best they could do given the circumstances of having to deal with a poor design. Really my only beef is with Jeep corporate - I got a lemon, which hey, it happens, I understand that, but they didn't make it right, and flat-out told me that they would never, ever replace or refund my vehicle, and that I was free to bring it to the dealership as often as I wanted for service until the warranty ran out.
7. As much as I love Jeeps in general (hey, Wranglers are still cool!), I don't see myself ever owning another FCA product. I realize that I got a dud (I have several friends with Renegades with literally zero issues), but my experience with my car's problems & with their corporate team not doing enough to fix my situation has really turned me off to the whole brand, unfortunately. I would have been perfectly happy had they given me a working replacement vehicle. Instead, my reddit thread is now the first thing that pops up on google when you search for "Jeep Renegade lemon". What I should have done is stitch all of my photos, videos, and documentation into a Youtube video as a warning to others. I wish I had recorded my phone calls the corporate help team to show how ridiculous things were (I'm sure they keep copies for legal purposes & probably laugh at the recordings of my stressed-out phone calls where I plead for help, lol). One time, I literally got locked in a grocery store parking lot with my kids because the pushbutton emergency brake wouldn't disengage; they didn't see it as a major safety issue or provide any kind of resolution for it other than just "go to the dealer & see if there are any updates for it". Also, all of my ice cream melted during that time, which made me very unhappy. I got to the point where I got used to doing a 20-minute routine where I would disconnect the battery to reset the vehicle so that it would work properly again.
Boy, writing all of this out sounds ridiculous. I don't know how I put up with it so long. Economics, I guess. I am pretty stubborn about keeping strictly to my budget, despite the hassles. However, if I were to do it again, I would have just eaten the negative equity & saved myself the continuous headaches over time. I eventually got it paid down to the point where I could trade it in without killing myself financially on the trade-in & finally selected a different vehicle. I replaced it with a 2018 6MT Ecoboost Mustang. VERY happy with it so far. Fingers crossed that it has no issues, haha!