Jeep has a fix for Wrangler 4xe battery fire risk. But some say it’s caused more headaches.
For months, more than 32,000 owners of Jeep’s popular Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid were told not to charge their vehicles or park them inside due to batteries that could potentially catch fire.
Now, a fix is available, but some owners of the vehicle say they are still running into trouble, and their repairs aren’t being done properly.
“There’s been a ton of conflict, a ton of different information — everyone’s having a different experience from their dealership, in terms of how long this recall is taking to fix, and if it’s being fixed correctly,” Mike Missak, who runs a Facebook group and YouTube channel for Wrangler 4xe enthusiasts, said in a recent video.
The confusion stems in part from owners being told their repair is finished within an hour or two, when recall documents say the job — updating the high-voltage battery pack’s software and running two “sleep cycles” — takes at least a day and a half to two days, Missak said in an interview.
Jeep parent Stellantis NV announced the recall on Nov. 22. It noted certain 2021 to 2023 Wrangler 4xe models had a Samsung battery that could fail internally and cause a fire even when turned off. Stellantis identified eight such blazes, six of them occurring while the SUVs were charging. The company advised that the vehicles shouldn’t be plugged in and owners should “park them away from structures.”
The recall spurred a federal lawsuit in early March. Nine owners alleged that FCA US LLC, the U.S. division of Stellantis NV, hadn’t done enough to resolve the battery problem and should’ve caught it earlier. Without the ability to charge, the 4xe — the top-selling plug-in hybrid in the United States — had for months been rendered “unfit for its ordinary purpose,” the suit said.
Also early last month, Stellantis began sending letters to 4xe owners telling them that the remedy was available at their local dealership. But not all of those repairs have gone smoothly in the weeks since.
“What we’ve found is that some of the garages are not doing the recall correctly,” said Chris Hall, who also runs a Wrangler 4xe Facebook group and YouTube channel that have hosted plenty of discussion about the recall recently.
Some owners have returned home from the dealer, plugged in, and later wound up with a check-engine light, he said.
“It is our process to monitor remedy repairs to ensure our customers’ vehicles are repaired appropriately,” Stellantis said in a statement sent by spokesperson Eric Mayne. “We are reaching out to those potentially affected to ensure they obtain the complete remedy. This population accounts for less than one percent of the 7,000 customers who have obtained the required service since the remedy became available last month.”
Stellantis asked customers concerned about the status of their vehicle to call the customer care line, 1 (800) 8531403.
Debasis Panda, who lives outside Philadelphia, is among the 4xe owners struggling to get their Jeeps fixed. He said he’d diligently followed the recall instructions — not charging and parking in his driveway, not the garage, for the last few months.
But Panda said after he brought the Wrangler home from the dealership a couple of weeks ago — the recall repair supposedly completed — it began stalling and lacked power. His dealer still had his vehicle as of early this week, he said, and planned to replace the battery entirely.
“It’s been a good car, no problems, up until this recall,” said Panda, who added his frustration was more with his dealership than with Jeep, whose customer service had been helpful.
The battery recall and repair problems have some owners so fed up they are ready to move on to a different vehicle, said Missak, and he believes the episode has hurt the Jeep brand.
Still, the Illinois resident noted that “no manufacturer is immune” from such recall challenges, and overall, he continues to believe it’s a great product. He said he recently traded in his leased battery recall-affected 2021 4xe for a 2024.
“It was frustrating for everybody,” added Hall, an Ohio resident who drives a 2021 4xe that was initially on the battery recall list but later removed. “Jeep has made a good product, but the Jeep dealerships are not well equipped to handle them.”
Ivan Drury, director of insights at the vehicle information website Edmunds. com, said the battery recall shouldn’t hurt the Wrangler 4xe’s reputation or sales too much. For example, it hasn’t received the same public attention as the Chevrolet Bolt EV, which had a much more high-profile recall a few years ago due to battery fire risk, he said. And Jeep didn’t exactly have a sterling reputation for reliability to begin with, he added.
“It’s one of those things where if you’re already seen as not producing the most reliable, dependable vehicles on the road, if you get dinged with something of this nature, it’s kind of a drop in the bucket,” Drury said. “And it’s a new technology, so people are a little more forgiving in that sense, too.”
The recall is one example of how Jeep and its parent Stellantis — alongside other automakers, from Tesla to Toyota — are still “working out the kinks” on the road to electrification, he said. Jeep is slated to release its new Wagoneer S and Recon EV SUVs later this year and also plans to add a 4xe version to its Gladiator pickup soon.
Perhaps the larger problems for the Toledo-made Wrangler 4xe, along with other Jeep models, are their high prices and the length of time they are sitting on dealer lots, Drury said. The 4xe starts around $50,000 and nears $70,000 for top-ofthe-line models.
Nevertheless, the Wrangler 4xe was once again the top-selling plug-in hybrid in the country last year, and was increasingly keeping overall Wrangler sales afloat, making up 43% of the total with 67,429 units sold.
Jim Walen, a Jeep dealer in Seattle, said both the high sticker price and some quality issues — including with the battery and software — have been challenges with the Wrangler 4xe.
“They cost too much,” he said. “Stellantis was slow to align prices to the market, so our Jeeps got very expensive.”