NHTSA asks for Liberty, Grand Cherokee recall. Jeep says 'no.'

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked Jeep to recall 2.7 million vehicles due to a potentially dangerous design issue in some Grand Cherokee and Liberty models. But Jeep pushed back saying the risk of an incident was too small. That isn't sitting well with consumers, according to a new survey.

|
Gene J. Puskar/AP/File
A Jeep logo on the grill of a Jeep Wrangler is shown at the 2013 Pittsburgh Auto Show in Pittsburgh.

Last week, Jeep did something very, very unusual: when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked the automaker to recall 2.7 million vehicles due to a potentially dangerous design issue, Jeep said "No".

According to one market research firm, that refusal isn't playing too well in Peoria -- or anywhere else that Jeep customers live. 

GAS TANK TROUBLE

NHTSA claims that the 1993-2004 Grand Cherokee and 2002-2007 Liberty are unsafe because their fuel tanks are located behind the rear axle -- a serious problem that has resulted in fuel leaks and fires in other vehicles like the Ford Pinto. The Grand Cherokee might be particularly at risk due to its ride height, which makes it easier for small cars and other vehicles to reach and rupture the tank during collisions.

According to NHSTA, the design flaw could be responsible for up to 44 deaths in the Grand Cherokee and another seven in the Liberty. 

Jeep doesn't necessarily dispute the death claims, but insists that the reported fires aren't unusual. In a statement, Jeep said, "Our analysis shows the incidents, which are the focus of [NHTSA's] request, occur less than once for every million years of vehicle operation.... This rate is similar to comparable vehicles produced and sold during the time in question." 

And so, Jeep stood its ground. In fact, the company said quite clearly that "The company does not agree with NHTSA’s conclusions and does not intend to recall the vehicles cited in the investigation".

The pushback was so rare that it became front-page news across the U.S. And as it turns out, consumers were paying attention.

PUBLIC PERCEPTION

YouGov is a marketing firm that interviews 5,000 people in the U.S. every weekday. Through those interviews, the company follows customer perception on a range of brands, assigning scores on its own "BrandIndex" scale that run from -100 (extremely negative) to 100 (extremely positive).

Jeep wasn't faring too well on the BrandIndex scale before the recall debacle -- at least not as well as other automakers. Still, its score of 10 bested that of its parent, Chrysler, which earned a 7.

As you'll see from the graph above, things changed dramatically after Jeep publicly announced that it wouldn't recall the Grand Cherokee or the Liberty. As the story hit the headlines, consumers' opinion of Jeep plummeted from positive to negative territory, going from 10 to -6 on the BrandIndex chart. That's the lowest score Jeep has received since June of 2009. Chrysler took a lighter hit, falling to just around 1. 

How long will it be before Jeep recovers? It's hard to say in cases like these -- though the graph seems to indicate that things could get worse before they get better.

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 NHTSA asks for Liberty, Grand Cherokee recall. Jeep says 'no.'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2013/0614/NHTSA-asks-for-Liberty-Grand-Cherokee-recall.-Jeep-says-no.
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe