Chrysler recall involves airbags in 919,000 SUVs

Chrysler recall initiated because air bags can accidentally inflate. Last year, airbags in older Jeeps, Liberty SUVs inflated 215 times, causing 81 minor injuries, and prompting the Chrysler recall.

|
Gary Cameron/Reuters/File
A wet Jeep logo and grill is shown at the Criswell Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Fiat-Ram truck dealership in Gaithersburg, Md., last month. A Chrysler recall is being initiated over faulty air bags in model year 2002-04 Jeep Grand Cherokees.

Chrysler is recalling more than 919,000 older-model Jeep Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs worldwide because the air bags can inflate while people are driving them.

The recall affects Grand Cherokees from the 2002 through 2004 model years and Libertys from model years 2002 and 2003, according to documents posted Friday on the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.

The safety agency said that a part can fail in the air bag control computer, and the front and side air bags can inflate while the SUVs are being driven. An agency investigation started last year found that the air bags went off 215 times, causing 81 minor injuries. No crashes were reported, but NHTSA said the problem could cause a wreck.

Chrysler, which makes Jeeps, will install an electrical filter free of charge to fix the problem. The company will begin notifying owners of the recall in January.

The recall includes nearly 745,000 SUVs in the U.S., 49,000 in Canada and 22,000 in Mexico. The rest are outside North America.

Dashboard warning lights normally come on before the air bags are inflated, Chrysler spokesman Eric Mayne said. If that happens, the driver should contact a Jeep dealer.

The problem happens in less than three-hundredths of a percent of the vehicles on the road, Mayne said.

RECOMMENDED: Compare data on 2011-2013 cars

NHTSA began investigating the air bags in October of last year after getting complaints about air bags inflating for no reason in Jeep Libertys. Investigators traced the cause to electrical stress on one of two circuits in the control computer. The problem also causes the seat belts to tighten as if a collision were about to happen.

The Grand Cherokees covered by the recall were built from Aug. 1, 2001 to May 16, 2003, while the Libertys were built from June 6, 2001 to March 19, 2003.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Chrysler recall involves airbags in 919,000 SUVs
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2012/1109/Chrysler-recall-involves-airbags-in-919-000-SUVs
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe