Center for Auto Safety Petitions NHSTA to Begin Probe in Grand Cherokee Models
The Center for Auto Safety requested the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to begin a probe in the Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV models dated 1993 up to the year 2004 on Friday. The investigation would involve around hundreds of thousands of Cherokee SUVs.
This was followed by the recall of Toyota’s 3.8 million vehicles after one of them had met with a fiery crash killing four people on the spot in southern California of the USA.
The plastic fuel tank installed in the SUV is considered quite harmful and hazardous for both the vehicle and the passengers.
These previous versions of the Grand Cherokee contain a plastic fuel tank that stretches below the rear bumper of the car. It makes it an easy target for the vehicles that feature a low front profile of the vehicle that gets affected by pre-impact braking. It gets easily punctured in a rollover or rear-ends accident.
The reason behind this is that the rear sway bar link bolt is positioned just an inch away from the plastic fuel tank that makes the tank more vulnerable to get punctured in the crash. Thus, it gets hugely affected in case of an accident and the guaranty of the security of the person sitting inside cannot be ensured anytime at all.
The petition stated that, “the design is so bad that Chrysler frequently settles lawsuits without extensive discovery and subject to confidentiality agreements.” It also included 172 fire crashes that occurred largely due to the defected gas tanks of the vehicle. These crashes had resulted in 254 fatalities and range from the period of 1992 to 2008.
According to the Automotive News, these were the highest number of fatalities encountered by any other SUV. They are four times higher in terms of fiery crashes reported by other SUV models. The 1993 to 2004 models reported six times higher death rates in comparison with other models of the Grand Cherokee only.
In the year 2005, the fuel tank of the Grand Cherokee was installed with an additional shielding to protect the vehicle from punctures. Since that time, there have been no deaths reported due to the fire crashes in the Cherokee models.
An immediate recall has been requested by the Center for Auto Safety to safeguard the public from such risks and accidents. This recall would definitely encourage NHTSA to start the probe earlier as it had done in previous times for the Ford Pinto and GM.
