DETROIT — U.S. transportation safety regulators will not call for a recall after a seven-year investigation into complaints that Dodge and Ram vehicles can move forward when the gear selector is shifted into park.
The problem was similar to the one blamed for the death of Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin, although the company was in the process of repairing the problem in his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The investigation, opened in December 2016, covered nearly 1.3 million Ram 1500 trucks from model years 2013 to 2017, as well as Dodge Durango trucks from 2014 to 2017.
It was an electronic rotary gear selector, new at that time and different from previous mechanical controls that used a lever to select speeds. The controls are turned left or right and have detents that click to enter the speed.
No evidence of design defect found
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted on its website that it and Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, had received about 1,500 complaints that vehicles would move after drivers shifted the selector into park.
But the agency said it found no evidence that a design or manufacturing defect caused the incidents. Additionally, Fiat Chrysler did a “customer satisfaction campaign” to update the software so that vehicles automatically shift into park if the driver’s door is opened.
The agency said it was monitoring vehicles that received the update and found that the campaign was “effective in reducing the frequency of vehicle moving incidents.”
Investigators also analyzed reports that vehicles were moving even after the software update, but found no “actionable defect” causing the problems. The agency also said that after the service campaign, customer complaints decreased significantly.
“Given the absence of a security defect identified based on the available information and FCA’s customer satisfaction campaign addressing the failure mode, no further action is justified at this time,” the agency wrote.
Source: AP
