[Stephen Frost]

Bought new 2015 Renegade Latitude two weeks ago at Lindsay Jeep, in Virginia. 9-speed automatic transmission—has always been really sluggish on acceleration. RPMs get up to 5,000, gears don't change...stuck around 40mph until taking foot off gas, giving it a moment, and trying three more times. I've figured it was the transmission still in “learning” mode. :|

Today on the highway the Check Engine light came on—fifteen minutes later (merging between highways into the leftmost lane), the transmission dropped, every emergency light came on (including the big red *!* one), and a message on dash screen saying that we’ll need to put the car in Park to restart it. Since I couldn't accelerate, I basically coasted at 70mph (in neutral?) across three lanes and came to a stop on the shoulder of a bridge.

The Jeep would start, but I couldn’t get it to move, and when switching into Drive or Reverse, the whole vehicle would lurch hard. While trying to call for help, all the electric in the car went out.

We purchased this precisely to be a safe, reliable vehicle in time for this Thanksgiving trip! Got it towed two hours back home, where it’s now at Pearson Jeep in Richmond, VA.

Been reading others’ transmission woes on this forum—not sure if I recognize this precise issue in what I’ve read, but a lot similar. On average, is it still taking a month or so to get these transmission issues fixed? Are these issues tending to be fixed on the first try, or should I not trust it on the other 3,000 miles I have planned for December?

Thanks!

 

[Brokenjeep]

They ended up replacing my transmission due to it was leaking fluid all over the place. It did at the time take 45 days to get it replaced but that was in July not sure if the time is any faster now. I have not had any more problems with the transmission since it was replaced but I have only put about 3000 miles on it and took the first transmission 4000 to break so still not feeling really confident in it and WILL NOT take it on long trips which is a shame that I trust my 90 ford ranger with almost 300k miles on it and still original motor and transmission on a long trip more than I do my new Jeep with 7000 miles and the second transmission.

 

[Stephen Frost]

@Brokenjeep -- looks like you've had your share of serious issues with your Renegade...I want to be optimistic.

 

[Brokenjeep]

I wish you the best of luck!

Also check your local lemon laws if it becomes a big problem. In Pennsylvania if it is returned for the same problem 3 times with the first time being under 12000 miles OR if the vehicle is in the garage for repairs longer than 30 days. I am currently waiting on FCA to settle my claim hopefully out of court.

 

[Stephen Frost]

Lemon laws--thanks! Looked for and found the info in the documentation that came with the Jeep.

Updates: spoke with service center, and the dealership that sold us the car, as well as Jeep. Everyone's been extremely helpful, although I will say it takes at least the tenacity to make inquiries. For example, service center hasn't had chance to look at our Renegade yet, and it took a few calls to determine that status. From there, I inquired about a rental that they'd cover the cost of. The service guy said he'd take care of getting one reserved for us, that we'd just have to go pick it up at Enterprise. The selling dealership told me that the cost SHOULD be covered by Jeep, and if they don't make it happen at the service dealership, he gave me the contact number for Chrysler support, and if that didn't work either, that I should get back in touch with him and they'd take care of it.

At Enterprise, we weren't sure if they'd say the cost was covered--it was. We'd have to use a Chrysler-family vehicle though...and they only had one, a sedan. I asked if they'd have any SUVs in tomorrow, and he said he didn't know. I explained we need to make sure what we have can handle mountains and snow. He remembered they had a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo getting its oil changed, so we waited 15 minutes and it showed up, clean, new, fully loaded.

Apparently, Jeep via their website is also opening a "case" on us and will have a case manager call us tomorrow to discuss. I figure this is all "squeaky wheel getting the grease" sort of stuff. Will keep updating.

What I found most interesting is that when we broke down in the middle of nowhere, neither Jeep/Chrysler's auto services nor AAA could do much in the way of creative help. Chrysler could tow us 15 miles to the nearest dealership, while AAA could tow us up to 100 miles. Nobody could help us find a rental car--AAA sent us to Hertz, whose locations were closed for the weekend since it was Saturday night; also, any shops would be closed until Monday. Uber didn't have any drivers as far as we could search. Our other options were staying at a motel indefinitely--which AAA suggested was something people do. Or, just waiting around for a few days and getting a rental car and heading home--and then coming back when it was fixed. In the end, we opted for towing the car 114 miles via AAA--they'd told us we had four options of where we could have our car towed in our city, all far from Jeep dealerships or our home. So we agreed to one at random, and once in the tow truck, asked the driver if he'd take us somewhere else--the Jeep dealership near us! All in all--I'm not sure what people do in these situations.

In the end, so far while it's been a bad situation, and there are significant, Jeep's people have been great to us so far. Now we wait to find out what's wrong with the transmission.

 

[Action_man]

Hey guys does our renegade have the same tranny as the fiat or is this a new transmission and this car is the test dummy?

Thanks for info.

 

[Stephen Frost]

Pretty sure I've seen in this forum that it has same transmission as some other Jeeps? Not sure how that all works. But there was some statement some wrote about from Jeep about the updates they'd made to the Cherokee's, and people here seemed to indicate that it meant something for Renegade owners too.

 

[rnagenetics]

Hey Stephen,
Sorry to hear the problem with your renegade...at least you are not alone. Be prepared!

We purchased our latitude at the end of September with 21 miles on it. My wife was driving home two weeks later with 421 miles on the vehicle when the check engine light came on as she was going through an intersection. Right after the light came she also got the emergency light and had to coast to a parking lot on the other side of the intersection. Similar to what you experienced it lurched into reverse when they came to tow the vehicle to the dealership. So now the real fun begins.

It took a total of 34 days before it was fixed. The valve body for the transmission and the valve body control harness had to be replaced. It also had 9 software updates that had to be performed. Why they let it off the lot with that many updates is kinda odd to me. It took over a week to get the initial parts in. Our dealership had a total lack of communication requiring us to call for any type of status update. Needless to say we had some nice conversations with the general manager and service manager. After another week to get the parts installed and another call to the dealership it was determined the part they ordered was defective. To keep this a little shorter I'll skip a bunch of our communications and leave it that they had to order the valve body, lower harness, and upper harness from Chrysler which took almost another 2 weeks again with poor communication from the service adviser. The upper harness required the entire dash to be taken apart in order to be installed. This was the first time our dealership had done this on a renegade and it took an entire week in order to replace the part and rebuild the dash. I don't want to say that we were rushing the dealership we just wanted our 2 week old vehicle back. When went to pick it up there was dirt from the mechanic who worked on the dash on seats from either his hands or where he placed parts. There was even a spot we found on the headrest on the back set. Luckily with the tan and black interior we were able to see it. We complained and the dealership had the entire car detailed. We are returning this week to have some clips that were broken in the instrument cluster and a rattle fixed. I've let our case manager know the rattles are going to be a major concern going forward.

My advice is to definitely get in touch with your case manager. They will be able to expedite parts if necessary and the communication was night and day difference compared to the dealership.

So far the car drives much better. The downshifting is much better and we are enjoying our Renegade again. Crossing my fingers we are over the hump with our Renegade.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[Stephen Frost]

What a nightmare. Thanks for signing up to make that post--definitely makes me feel better to know someone else's story matches ours exactly. Appreciate the advice on how to make use of our case manager, and what we need to do to keep communications moving along. Sounds to me like a lot or Renegades fall under lemon laws based on how long it takes to do repairs on brand new vehicles. Also don't understand why software updates aren't default, you know, when detailing the tires is.

Used key words from your post to Google the others who had this problem:
transmission valve body control harness site:www.jeeprenegadeforum.com

http://www.jeeprenegadeforum.com/fo...miles-need-new-valve-body-transmission-2.html
http://www.jeeprenegadeforum.com/fo...engine-light-brand-new-renegade-issues-4.html
http://www.jeeprenegadeforum.com/forum/434-problems-issues/24689-transmission-engine-light.html

 

[Stephen Frost]

Updates: So, our Renegade spent a few days in the shop, and they installed two software updates. They said one was released right before we bought ours, and the other was released after. Not sure why we're not informed of software updates when they relate to things as crucial as the transmission. After they test drove it 70 miles on highways, the problem seemed fixed. The Renegade no longer seemed sluggish--it's real zippy, and also the UConnect phone reception is better...

So, just to rehash, we bought this Renegade nearly a month ago mainly for an annual series of three road trips we take around the holidays. On the first road trip, the transmission failed. We left early yesterday morning on our second road trip--and we began losing power around 100 miles into the trip. Couldn't get past 40mph, 5000+ RPMs on highway. So we called our case manager at Jeep/Chrysler, who had left our case open just to see what happened. She sent us to the nearest Jeep dealership, who said they couldn't take a look at our Renegade for a week. So Chrysler went to the next nearest--30 miles away--and spent the next six hours waiting as they ran tests on it.

Bottom line: fuel pump is broken. They're ordering a new one, which will take a week to arrive. So, our Jeep is a couple hours from home, Jeep provided an upgraded rental since we're in the mountains, and they said they'd meet us halfway to pick our Renegade up once it's fixed. We're hoping they fix it in time for our third road trip right before Christmas.

So far, the only customer service we have a real complaint about is from our case manager, who acts like everything they're doing for us is a favor and can't make promises over how they can or cannot help remedy the situation. Dick Myers Jeep spent all afternoon working on our Renegade despite being very busy, and Jeep/Chrysler (and our service rep Abigail) paid extra for us to rent an SUV. And the selling dealership, Lindsay Jeep, has also been keeping up to date on the situation and offering to help any way they can. It's a month old Jeep Renegade, and I know there aren't any easy answers--so on the whole, very pleased with face-to-face customer service, not as pleased with Chrysler's phone service, and terrified to drive our fancy new Renegade through all the bridges and tunnels we have coming up soon!

 

[Action_man]

I wish I would have seen more of these post before I bought my TH. I would have waited another year for the bugs to be worked out. Anyone having the same problems with a 16?