U.S. Expands Probe of Grand Cherokees
WASHINGTON — A federal investigation into a potential safety defect in Jeep Grand Cherokees has expanded significantly in recent days, based on new reports of scores of incidents as well as three previously undisclosed deaths, records show.
The deaths occurred when Grand Cherokees idling in “park†allegedly lurched into reverse without warning, trapping and crushing bystanders and motorists.
DaimlerChrysler, maker of the popular sport-utility vehicle, has entered into confidential settlements in at least four lawsuits arising from such accidents, according to records and interviews. Three involved injuries; the fourth, a death.
Company officials say the auto maker is fully cooperating with the investigation. The company initially said the problems were most likely caused by driver error and not its transmissions. It has not acknowledged any liability in the settlements.
The fatalities and sealed settlements have heightened the urgency of the probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and raise questions of whether the auto maker should have promptly notified authorities.
An outcry over corporate secrecy last year in the Ford-Firestone tire case led Congress to pass a bill requiring the auto industry to provide early warning of potential safety defects. However, rules to carry out that law are still being drafted.
“The existence of the new law put an affirmative obligation on the company to go to the Department of Transportation with this--absolutely,†said Joan Claybrook, head of the consumer group Public Citizen. NHTSA’s investigation was prompted by consumer complaints, not an alert from DaimlerChrysler.
“I don’t think you can compare this at all to the Ford-Firestone investigation,†said DaimlerChrysler spokesman Mike Aberlich. “We don’t hesitate to alert our customers when we become alarmed over something. But you have to be careful not to overreact as well. . . . You look for patterns, and so far we haven’t seen any.â€
NHTSA has now received 144 consumer complaints of “inadvertent rollaway in reverse†involving 1995-1999 Grand Cherokees, including an estimated 100 accidents and about 40 injuries. One fatality has been reported to NHTSA; The Times has confirmed two others from police and court records, and interviews.
That represents a significant increase from the 48 complaints, 32 accidents, 14 injuries and no fatalities logged by the agency when it announced the investigation last month. As the investigation proceeds, DaimlerChrysler will have to share with NHTSA its case files, which are likely to contain more complaints.
Engineers representing plaintiffs allege that a poorly designed internal component of the transmissions is to blame. They say it can create the illusion that a Grand Cherokee is in park when the transmission is in between gears and can slip into reverse.
Other comparable mid-size SUVs do not appear to have a similar track record of park-to-reverse problems, according to NHTSA’s consumer complaint database. For example, there are no such complaints for 1995-1999 Nissan Pathfinders and Toyota 4Runners, and fewer than five for Ford Explorers.
State Farm, the nation’s largest auto insurer, also has detected a trend of Grand Cherokees taking off in reverse by themselves, according to general counsel Herman Brandau.
Consumers who bought the $30,000 vehicles, with clean lines, a distinctive grille and a storied brand name, say DaimlerChrysler should have warned them, particularly since any problems can largely be prevented by shutting off the engine and setting the emergency brake.
Birmingham, Ala., real estate agent Bunni Miller suffered two skull fractures when she was knocked down by her Grand Cherokee in September 1998.
“I was quite shocked to learn there were so many other cases,†said Miller, whose lawsuit was settled by DaimlerChrysler. “I do believe I should have been warned. I tell you what. . . . I don’t walk behind any of them anymore.â€
Miller has lost her sense of smell and taste as a result of the head injuries. Others lost their lives.
Worker Is Run Over in a Rental Lot
Lowell Greely, 66, was a retiree who got restless at home and took a part-time job with Hertz to earn a little cash for his golf fees. An empty 1998 Grand Cherokee ran him over, killing him, when his back was turned in the Hertz lot at the Detroit airport in May 1998. Greely was hit despite warning shouts from horrified co-workers.
The new SUV was considered a premium rental at the time. A manager helping a customer find a lost item had parked it and left the engine idling. Police files show that the gear shift was found partially in the park position after the accident. Detectives test-driving the vehicle were able to re-create the condition, according to police and court records.
Aberlich, the DaimlerChrysler spokesman, said the company settled a lawsuit brought by the Greely family, but he attributed the problem to a mistake at the assembly plant and not to a design flaw. A lawyer for the Greelys said the family disagrees.
Lynda Greely, Lowell’s widow, said her husband worked in the transportation industry all his life and was a stickler for safety. Had he known of the Grand Cherokee’s problems, “Lowell would have gone to Chrysler and started to rattle cages,†she said.
Linda Haller of Livingston, N.J., had set aside a career staging trade shows to stay home with her two young sons, one of whom has a neurological speech impediment.
Haller, 36, was preparing for a rare weekend getaway with her husband one Friday in August three years ago. They never made it. Her father-in-law discovered her in her garage after he went to investigate the sound of an engine running.
Haller, 5 feet, 2 inches and of medium build, had been trapped for perhaps 10 minutes between the open driver’s door of the 3,600-pound SUV and the metal frame of the garage door. The force was such that it bent the garage door track and popped the door hinges of the Grand Cherokee, according to a police report. A doctor pronounced her dead at the hospital; she was crushed to death.
“There is a void,†said her father, Morton Bunis. “There is a mother missing; there is a wife missing.†Bunis, who is a lawyer, started asking questions that eventually led the family to file a still-pending suit.
A third fatal accident took place in Altamonte Springs, Fla., toward the end of January 1999, records show. David Tharp, 74, was underneath his Dodge van changing the oil. Meanwhile, a neighbor was driving his Grand Cherokee Laredo around the subdivision looking for his missing dogs. The neighbor spotted his huskies, parked his Jeep with the engine running and got out.
About 10 seconds later, the Grand Cherokee moved back down the street under its own power. The rear of the Jeep struck the back of Tharp’s van, pinning him to the pavement. He died the next day of internal injuries.
Federal authorities would not comment on what may be causing the Grand Cherokee problems. But plaintiffs’ lawyers and engineering consultants allege the fault lies in the design of an internal transmission component.
Alabama lawyer R. Ben Hogan III, who handled the Bunni Miller case, said the part is a flat piece of steel within the transmission, shaped like--and often called--a rooster comb.
This part, which is connected to the gear shift lever, has a series of notches for each gear position, from low to park. A spring-loaded ball moves between the notches to determine the proper gear.
Some rooster combs, including the ones on the Grand Cherokee, are made with a flat spot between park and reverse. Sometimes the spring-loaded ball can come to rest on this flat spot instead of being properly secured in the notch for park.
However, most drivers probably wouldn’t realize the difference. The gear shift indicator may even display “park.â€
“In actuality, the transmission is in a form of neutral,†Hogan said. “If the motor is left running, and especially if for some reason the engine revolutions increase--for example, in summer when the car’s air-conditioning compressor kicks in--the transmission can slip back into reverse.â€
Explained Simon Tamny, a Canton, Ohio, engineer: “The driver gets out thinking it’s in park, but it’s actually in a sort of never-never land.â€
According to Tamny, who has investigated many park-to-reverse cases for plaintiffs, the problem is attributable to a 1960s design that lives on in a handful of transmissions, including the Grand Cherokee’s. It can be easily fixed by eliminating the flat spot between park and reverse, he said.
“Setting the parking brake would prevent almost all of these accidents,†Tamny added. “But to pass the buck to drivers, when the companies have the ability to design out this problem, is unreasonable. The cost of fixing this thing is irrelevant in relation to the price of the vehicle.â€
Pickups Recalled for Similar Problem
Last year, DaimlerChrysler recalled 154,000 1991-1992 Dodge Dakota pickups after complaints that they could roll away in reverse when parked. According to a NHTSA document, the Grand Cherokee’s transmission is part of the same transmission family. The company agreed to replace a valve in the transmissions, but Tamny contends there is still a problem with the “rooster comb†design. It is unclear whether NHTSA will revisit its conclusions about the pickup trucks.
In the Dakota case, the agency and the auto maker had a total of 152 incidents, with 95 accidents and five deaths. Given the much larger number of Grand Cherokees on the road, DaimlerChrysler’s Aberlich pointed out that the prevalence of complaints is lower for the SUVs than it was for the pickups. But he said a conclusion on whether there is a safety problem would not be determined by numbers of complaints alone. “If you find at all that there is a pattern, then you can start to [seek] the root cause.â€
Many consumers whose Grand Cherokees slipped into reverse had trouble convincing authorities, insurers and relatives that they did not mistakenly leave the vehicles in gear.
Alan Goltzman, a print shop owner in Minneapolis, said he was pinned to a loading dock by his 1996 Grand Cherokee while making a delivery four years ago. He managed to jump up just in time so that the vehicle trapped his legs and not his torso. A marathoner, Goltzman suffered a severe knee injury and had to undergo surgery and extensive rehabilitation.
“I remember calling the dealer and they said it was impossible, it couldn’t happen,†Goltzman said. “Everyone was thinking, ‘You just rammed your car on yourself’--even my wife. I always said, from the very moment it happened, that I put it in park.â€
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Times researchers Robin Cochran, Vicki Gallay and Janet Lundblad contributed to this story.
