Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over the weekend

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/software-update-bricks-some-jeep-4xe-hybrids-over-the-weekend/

by gloxkiqcza • 9 months ago

466 322 9 months ago

arstechnica.com

omneity• 9 months ago

So how long until software in cars is treated with the same seriousness and rigor as the software in airplanes?

onei• 9 months ago

That's what MISRA C [1] is sort of meant to be.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C

sosodev• 9 months ago

I suspect that we will see it when an OTA update very rapidly causes hundreds of deaths.

dyingkneepad• 9 months ago

When it kills one of the Oligarchs' daughters.

CivBase2• 9 months ago

You mean DO178? What a joke that is.

aduty• 9 months ago

Mopar and dead car.

thayne2• 9 months ago

Why does an OtA update even have the ability to brick the entire vehicle?

The infotainment system should be completely isolated from the driving system.

_ea1k2• 9 months ago

I'm guessing that it has features like "remote start" and that these features weren't designed particularly well.

SoftTalker• 9 months ago

What does it mean to "start" an EV?

SilverElfin• 9 months ago

I’ve noticed that newer cars seem to get updates that affect performance. Things like how they shift gears.

varjag2• 9 months ago

As long as it exchanges information (mundane things like muting the music when parking sensors have to be heard, requesting battery/fuel status for advising the next fill stop etc) the isolation can't be entirely complete.

dotancohen3• 9 months ago

How about read only over an optic cable?

Consultant32452• 9 months ago

The infotainment system on my car can make changes to the suspension. Can change from street to track mode and even has a launch mode I can initiate for starting a timed 0-60, etc.

I can also put the car into valet mode so it won’t go fast. If I forget the valet mode password I am told I have to buy a very expensive replacement because it can’t be unlocked by a dealer.

Someone12343• 9 months ago

You're starting out with an assumption, that this is an OTA update for the infotainment system, and then conclude this incident shouldn't be possible. The problem is the assumption.

This is a OTA vehicle update. It has the ability to update the infotainment, ECU, ECM, TCM, and BCM. Multiple manufacturers have been able to release recalls that fix major vehicle defects (safety, reliability, and performance). That wouldn't be possible without OTA updates that update core vehicle computer systems.

Unclear where this idea that OTA = Infotainment came from. I'd go as far as to say that most manufacturers can do this in 2025.

SirFatty• 9 months ago

"I'd go as far as to say that most manufacturers can do this in 2025."

What does that have to do with OP's comment? And their point is still valid, and OTA update should not be able to brick a vehicle, regardless of the system receiving the update. And regardless if "they all can do it".

goda90• 9 months ago

Unclear where this idea that OTA = Infotainment came from.

Because to some people, the idea of an OTA update being allowed to change mission critical parts of a machine automatically without a solid rollback system is absurd, and the best way to do that is to never do OTA updates of mission critical parts at all.

photochemsyn• 9 months ago

Why didn't the vehicle manufacturers robustly test their software systems on their vehicle's hardware before releasing the product to the public?

nilamo• 9 months ago

...because the very first paragraph of the article says it was an infotainment update? Thanks for the info, tho.

rjsw• 9 months ago

The infotainment system can be the gateway to the rest of the vehicle network. It makes sense to attach a 4G modem to the display head to do mapping, hands free calling or emergency response, you may as well use it to download ECU updates too.

cameldrv• 9 months ago

This should be made illegal. It’s a massive national security threat. Imagine on the eve of a war, instead of Jeep 4xes, it’s every recent Ford or Toyota or GM car, and instead of a software update that can be rolled back, it wipes the flash completely, or reprograms the ECU to damage the engine or disable the brakes on the highway or something else to cause accidents.

tetraodonpuffer• 9 months ago

most cars these days have GPS and return location and so on, why can't manufacturer run these updates only at night and when the car is parked at home? There should be no reason for any OTA update to happen while the vehicle is running (or on a trip etc.), downloading the OTA update, sure, but definitely not applying it. Also there should be a documented procedure to restore the previous in case an OTA update fails.

thayne2• 9 months ago

The first paragraph of OP said

The automaker pushed out a telematics update for the Uconnect infotainment system that evidently wasn't ready

teeray• 9 months ago

Multiple manufacturers have been able to release recalls that fix major vehicle defects (safety, reliability, and performance). That wouldn't be possible without OTA updates that update core vehicle computer systems.

Just like dosage can be the difference between medicine and poison, OTA updates that can fix major safety, reliability, and performance problems can also cause them. The power is too great, and simply shouldn’t be allowed.

rovr138• 9 months ago

This is a OTA vehicle update. It has the ability to update the infotainment, ECU, ECM, TCM, and BCM. Multiple manufacturers have been able to release recalls that fix major vehicle defects (safety, reliability, and performance). *That wouldn't be possible without OTA updates that update core vehicle computer systems.*

Why wouldn't it be possible without OTA? It would just require someone to go somewhere, or do something, to get this installed.

While their assumption is incorrect, your conclusion is incorrect.

ActorNightly• 9 months ago

Because cost. Same reason why dash clusters and infotainment systems are now all monitors - its actually way cheaper to use those than analog gauges. The software is built on a famous bullshit paradigm of "never rewrite, always reuse", and as a result shit gets patched together without any concern of how everything cooperates.

Now with hybrid or electrical drives, a motor controller is basically a package that runs its own software, which then interfaces with the rest of the car. And OTA updates can overwrite its firmware.

The only manufacturer that has avoided most issues is Toyota, since they have been doing hybrids for quite some time. Other companies are just starting on this path and to catch up, they can't be bothered to do software deep dives and figure shit out.

0cf8612b2e1e• 9 months ago

Why does the update even happen while in motion?

antiloper3• 9 months ago

The article doesn't go into a lot of details, but it only says that the bug happens while in motion, not that the software update itself happened while in motion:

The buggy update doesn't appear to brick the car immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving—a far more serious problem.

PKop3• 9 months ago

The problem is worse than "just don't update on the fly while driving". The update happened while not driving; the bug causing the failure mode of shutting down power and engine happened later while driving. There's nowhere to hide from these types of problems it seems.

joezydeco2• 9 months ago

They're not isolated anymore, Tesla set this precedent and now everyone is trying to copy them. Volvo is having the same set of problems.

uptown• 9 months ago

I had an OTA update brick my Tahoe infotainment system. Now that backup cameras are standard requirements, those were all unusable. Also affected things like the clicking sound you hear when you use your turn signal. That was completely silent. Cost me ~$2k to get it fixed and wasn't covered under warranty. Good stuff. I've disable future "updates".

quesera• 9 months ago

This is a lawsuit, to recover repair costs and any loss of use.

It's not worth it, but it's necessary.

AlotOfReading3• 9 months ago

An FYI for the future, but backup cameras are considered a safety system and manufacturers are required to repair issues they've caused in safety systems regardless of warranty status. The appropriate escalation if the manufacturer doesn't recognize this is to get NHTSA involved with a safety complaint [0]. That's the main way recalls happen.

[0] https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem

stevenhubertron3• 9 months ago

it was a telematics update

ncr1003• 9 months ago

It looks like there are two updates - the infotainment AND the other one .. firmware of some thingies. And the infotainment is a PREREQUISITE to the other one.

That is what I surmised from listening to the "don't do this until we fix it please" notice from Stellantis from this weekend.

sailfast• 9 months ago

And… Stellantis is up 3.5% right now in public trading. Nothing makes sense anymore haha

nemomarx• 9 months ago

"no such thing as bad publicity" maybe?

Someone12343• 9 months ago

It is likely an unrelated correction. They are still down -7.92% over five days; this is just making it so they aren't -11.42%.

dehrmann• 9 months ago

It's getting priced like an easy-to-fix recall that affects some cars of a specific model for one of their brands.

antiloper3• 9 months ago

It's a bug. Why should a software bug have an effect on a manufacturer's stock price? It's not like the update caused brake failures or something.

zettabomb• 9 months ago

Well, given that the article says it caused powertrain failures on the highway, I'd say it's severe enough that it should absolutely cause the manufacturer's stock to drop.

PKop3• 9 months ago

Learning that Stellantis pushes bugs that cause power and engine failure while driving should decrease demand for their cars.

or something

Maybe do some research into the problem you're confidently asserting was trivial / read the article you're commenting on:

"...others claim to have experienced a powertrain failure at highway speeds."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jeep/comments/1o47064/jeep_4xe_shut...

deadbabe• 9 months ago

Truly can’t believe the shit coming out of these automakers now that AI assisted coding has become so commonplace in the industry.

pavel_lishin2• 9 months ago

Do we have any actual evidence that AI-assisted coding has anything to do with this?

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2025/octob...

ungreased0675• 9 months ago

So many layers of failure here. It points to very suspect architecture and development practices, the bad update is just sprinkles on top.

netsharc• 9 months ago

The cars needs a partition for the running OS, and a second as backup, and "reboot to recovery partition" to fall back to in case the update breaks.

Hah, curious to think that cars now have bootloaders...

antiloper3• 9 months ago

Cars probably have multiple bootloaders even. Surely there are at least two, one for the ECU and one for the infotainment system. Perhaps there are even more depending on how complex components like parking cameras etc. are.

stuff4ben• 9 months ago

I suppose some version of CTRL-ALT-DELETE is needed to reset the car's OS.

marssaxman2• 9 months ago

The first layer of failure was the decision to make the car computer-controlled.

dotancohen3• 9 months ago

That came after the decisions to reduce both costs and tailpipe emissions - both obvious worthy goals. Is the implementation that is flawed, not the idea.

sleepybrett3• 9 months ago

Why would cars be the only thing we wouldn't manage with computers?

constantcrying3• 9 months ago

Computer controlled cars are obviously good. They have improved reliability, drivability and safety by enormous margins. Getting rid of them is like demanding back analog planes, because of the Boeing max crashes.

EvanAnderson• 9 months ago

Discussion from over the weekend: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558318

dec0dedab0de• 9 months ago

I've had a Jeep for a few months, and it bothers me so much that the entire community is about modifying the vehicle as much as possible, but they still come with this locked down OS.

If any car could be the champion of OpenSource, it is a Jeep Wrangler, but they're using an OS made by SiriusXM for some reason.

inahga• 9 months ago

I don't think the software hacking side of Wrangler mods is barren. e.g. https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/jeep-hacking-..., which IIUC has been commercialized into https://www.zautomotive.com/products/z_tzr_jlm.

I don't know that anyone has broken the head unit firmware though.

jonbiggums22• 9 months ago

Isn't Jeep the company that introduced infotainment pop-up ads that play at the stop light? I doubt they'd want you loading an open source OS replacement to avoid that.

rglover• 9 months ago

I can't for the life of me understand why infotainment systems knock so many engineers for a loop. Is there a particular reason (industry/domain-specific) beyond just low-quality software development?

My Mazda 3 (2018) just had a class action lawsuit for its infotainment system which, completely at random after years of normal operation, starts clicking on menu items and scrolling about the settings (only to stop and not do it again for a couple of months). It can get so bad you just have to disconnect any devices and drive in silence/with the AM/FM radio.

catigula• 9 months ago

You get a new device every year and teams of professionals are constantly churning updates for it.

With cars, you don't get to get a new device, it has to be consistent and keep working and you had better make it all work with a skeleton crew.

sleepybrett3• 9 months ago

I worked at a company that did software for these connected infotainment system. They cost cut those things to the bone, minimal ram, minimal cpu, shit screens. Even in the high end models.

Gotta remember that the car radio has always been a cheap gimme.

CamperBob22• 9 months ago

Gotta remember that the car radio has always been a cheap gimme.

Not really. Some of the hardware that you could get in the 1950s-1970s timeframe was great. Heavy chrome knobs and bezels, permeability-tuned front ends with separate RF stages... electromechanical mechanisms that seemed like witchcraft when I took them apart as a kid, and would still be cool to play with today.

jlokier4• 9 months ago

I recently did some testing of Bluetooth connecting an Android phone to a reasonably new Mercedes. Being a "luxury" brand, you'd think the Mercedes would have good infotainment software, but I found at least 5 bugs in the GUI in about 1 hour of testing, and I wasn't particularly looking for bugs, just testing what I thought would be the happy paths for Bluetooth connection. The Android phone, on the other hand, did its job flawlessly.

I know software and embedded systems well enough to know all of the issues I found were preventable, if anyone cared.

The car seems well built in many other respects. It doesn't look like the problem is engineering ability.

(See also: Set-top box GUIs that are painfully slow to render menus, scroll, search etc. on hardware that I know can render 10-100x faster when programmed to.)

ryandrake2• 9 months ago

As you alluded to, the answer is they don't care. Car companies look at software like it's any other line item on the BOM. Like a bolt or a gasket: Source it as cheaply as possible and spoon it onto the product somewhere on the assembly line. I see fit-and-polish mistakes all the time in car infotainment. Text that can't handle unicode, icons that are misaligned by 1 or more pixels, connections dropping and coming back, audio mixing problems, things drawing outside their "windows." Nobody cares--they get to the drop dead date when the software needs to be on the assembly line, hand it over, and start flashing devices.

rangestransform2• 9 months ago

it's the consequence of not vertically integrating, having 20000 different ECUs each for a specific purpose and trying to nickel-and-dime suppliers on all of them, and the lack of urgency that traditional manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers have for adopting modern software development practices

horns4lyfe2• 9 months ago

They’re being cheap. None of it is vertically integrated and it’s all outsourced to the cheapest third world contractor they can find.

constantcrying3• 9 months ago

Hardware companies outsource these things to the lowest bidder in "best cost countries". At home you have a couple "engineers" who track requirements, but are software illiterate. In the "best cost country" you have dozens/hundreds of people who have absolutely no investment in the product and are not particularly skilled, and who get paid so that that engineer can make a checkmark after some requirement in the shortest amount of time. Nobody in that entire pipeline cares that the system feels awful to use, that it glitches sometimes or that the CPU is totally over utilized.

Tesla was revolutionary because they actually had inhouse software developers, who could build software.

pankalog• 9 months ago

I recently worked at a big home lighting company, working on the OS of the router device that communicates with the light bulbs themselves and the internet/user.

Our OTAU architecture uses A/B system updates [1]. Core idea is that both the kernel and the rootfs (read-only) partitions had 2 different bootslots in storage, and the OTAU would only write to the bootslot that is unused. Hence, if something went wrong, the system would automatically fallback to the previous version by just switching the bootslot used. Over the numerous years that that architecture was used, I couldn't find a single post-mortem that resulted in devices being bricked. Something to note is that the rootfs partition was overlaid with a writable partition for persisting state data etc.

Now that was a $two-figure USD device, not a $5/6-figure USD electric SUV. Is this a cost-cutting measure? At those price levels, doubling your NAND size is not even half of a percent of the total cost of the vehicle.

Unless there was a serious issue that the used bootslot corrupted the unused bootslot, then I don't see how this could have happened.

It's saddening that car manufacturers are so unserious about the code they're deploying.

[1] https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/ab

apex_sloth• 9 months ago

We used to do that with device that where in difficult to reach places with harsh uptime requirement! Think industrial routers and protocol converters. I think it pays for itself very quickly. Sending someone for such a device can get expensive.

CoastalCoder• 9 months ago

That's a good point.

I'm curious if failing to do that opens Jeep up to legitimate lawsuits.

ThatMedicIsASpy• 9 months ago

I've had a bunch of updates break some stuff but since moving to Fedora Atomics/ublue I've never had a system I could not get back into.

kijin• 9 months ago

I once managed to brick a PC motherboard that advertised "dual BIOS". It didn't fallback to the previous version after a botched BIOS update.

It's totally possible that the update corrupted the other bootslot as well. If those blocks aren't off-limits to the updater program, it's just an off-by-one error waiting to happen. Slot 0 or slot 1?

Another possibility is that the updated version booted up just enough not to trigger the automatic fallback, and then got stuck in a loop.

Telaneo• 9 months ago

It's not even that long ago that dual-BIOS boards had a physical switch to toggle between them. Guess that got cost-cut out of existence.

palmotea• 9 months ago

Now that was a $two-figure USD device, not a $5/6-figure USD electric SUV. Is this a cost-cutting measure? At those price levels, doubling your NAND size is not even half of a percent of the total cost of the vehicle.

Could just be a competence and priorities problem. If it's cost cutting, it feels way more likely that some PM cut some story from a sprint to hit a deadline (and objections were either not raised or ignored), than they did some engineering analysis and explicitly decided to save $3 per vehicle by cutting the NAND size.

Edit: Actually, I don't think that technique would have helped, the problem wasn't a botched update, but a seriously buggy one. From the OP:

The buggy update doesn't appear to brick the car immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving—a far more serious problem.

general14653• 9 months ago

Edit: Actually, I don't think that technique would have helped, the problem wasn't a botched update, but a seriously buggy one. From the OP:

That and combined with general refusal of new automotive bootloaders to downgrade. You can go only up in versioning. So even that you could have working version on second partition, it will never get loaded because it has lower version than currently one you are running.

monero-xmr• 9 months ago

All those words you are saying, it's quite possible the sub-contractor to the sub-contractor to the sub-contractor in a foreign low-cost country that actually did the work has absolutely no idea what any of that means, and they are doing the bare minimum to deliver

zoeysmithe4• 9 months ago

Why wouldnt a foreigner know what this means? This seems very xenophobic. And if US/Euro management is hiring these groups and not giving them requirements for redundancy then guess who is at fault? Not the contractor.

herbturbo2• 9 months ago

Problem with that statement is some of these “foreign low-cost” countries are building great cars while American vehicles have a global reputation for being garbage.

The only American-made vehicle that sold in any volume outside the US was Tesla and that is already over.

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

Well, on the positive side, at least they were stationary unlike these vehicles. Don't get me started on botched OTA updates, there are so many ways companies get those wrong it's not even funny.

avidiax• 9 months ago

I have heard anecdotally that auto manufacturers are sensitive to a price change less than $5/vehicle. This is better than some industries that are sensitive to $1.

What could easily have happened is that the negotiators didn't include A/B updates in their spec, or they only specced A/B updates at 1GB OTA size.

They do their usual hammering on price, and the head unit or ECU manufacturer gave them some savings by cutting storage space to the bone.

Maybe it was still enough for A/B updates, until the usual software bloat took the updates past the critical limit.

They could still do a safe update by doing an A/B/A update (where B is a shrunken, update-only OS), but that requires development time, and the engineers should already be working on the next vehicle.

thunfischbrot• 9 months ago

Worked for them. Corporations with many brands in their portfolio might discuss for weeks over price differences of components of 0.20 Euro. That‘s twenty Euro cents difference for e.g. a USB connector. If you expect that a vehicle platform sells in the 10s of millions over its lifetime, you‘re talking real money very quick!

stefan_2• 9 months ago

Nothing was bricked at all. Thats just how clickbait journalists describe things that stop working in some way after an update nowadays.

(Most computers in a car don't need duplicate partitioning because they can be bootstrapped from a central computer)

stevenhubertron3• 9 months ago

I’m sorry, but you’re incorrect the vehicle completely shutting down while driving and not working again until you put it into park and then it’s shutting down five minutes later is effectively bricked and extremely dangerous. Myself and my family almost died just trying to get home from dinner. It was a complete loss of propulsion and power steering.

upboundspiral• 9 months ago

I for one am always grateful when things are engineered thoughtfully and with redundancy as it is symbolic of respect for the people who are your customers. Especially in something as important as a car, "can be bootstrapped from a central computer" - when? how easily? how reliably? - is not good enough because things will inevitably go wrong for some portion of the user base.

zoeysmithe4• 9 months ago

Brick is now slang for a lot of fail conditions that aren't classically 'bricked.' This has become really common I've noticed. Honestly, this ship has sailed and isn't even worth fighting anymore. Its like Xerox asking people to stop calling copies Xeroxes.

We just never bothered to develop a new term. Maybe 'soft-bricked?' 'Semi-bricked?' I would like journalists at least to start using more accurate terms, but 'bricked' I imagine gets a lot more engagement and ad impressions, so here we are.

AlotOfReading3• 9 months ago

I've worked in both IoT lighting and automotive, so I'm comfortable comparing the two. This also isn't offered as a defense.

The big auto OEMs are just as sensitive to absolute BOM cost optimization, regardless of the percentage increases. I don't think this was a bootslot issue though, regardless of the word "bricked". Even as backwards and ill-advised as auto software can be, generally accepted practice is that updates are impossible while the vehicle is in motion. This is usually enforced by systems shared across multiple OEMs through the tier system.

The situation sounds more like a disastrously buggy new firmware.

I wouldn't put either past stellantis though. The auto industry already scrapes the bottom of the proverbial barrel sometimes, and stellantis isn't exactly known for their top of market compensation.

Rebelgecko2• 9 months ago

Until this year, my Hyundai let me install updates while driving. Apparently the nhtsa or someone made them stop because they weren't meeting the standard of being able to activate the backup cam within 2 seconds

shadowpho2• 9 months ago

Two points to add:

1) Total cost of the vehicle does not matter. What does matter is the operating margin. Half a percent of the total cost of the vehicle will move them from 2% margin to 1.5% margin. (Ford has operating margin of 2% as an example)

In other words an increase in 0.5% cost of total vehicle will reduce their profits by 25%.

That’s a huge number now! Note also that car manufacturers are in a bad spot because their volumes are fairly low (smartphone = 1M/yr, car = 40k/yr) and have harsher requirements for chips, driving the cost way up.

2)AB updates are great, but they can still fail or get soft locked. Especially important around code when you configure the slot to be good and when bad.

maxerickson• 9 months ago

You are conflating gross and operating margin.

It's also more dynamic than your presentation. They have a little bit of pricing power, so a small increase doesn't all come out of the margin.

potatolicious• 9 months ago

This is generally how other devices work as well - for example all Android devices and Android-derivatives (which many of these cars are!) use a similar A/B partition to prevent bricking.

It definitely reduces the risk of updates, but it absolutely doesn't eliminate it.

The A/B updater itself is a surface area - especially if the logic is complex and there are other child devices that are updated at the same time (likely for cars). In that case you're not just coordinating between two independent partitions, you're coordinating between 2 * N partitions, half of which have dependencies on each other.

Also, the key bit of the mechanism is that upon successful boot the new partition is flagged as "good", which causes flags to be set to assert that the update was successful and the backup partition is no longer needed. That logic can (and does) fail - if your failure point occurs after this checkpoint you're hosed still because you're past the point of no return.

Making that worse is that in most systems you want the "it's all good" checkpoint to occur early - you don't want to, for example, wait multiple minutes for all user services to come up. But that also means that if a critical failure happens in said services, you're past the checkpoint.

jcalvinowens• 9 months ago

the system would automatically fallback to the previous version by just switching the bootslot used.

That's the hard part though.

It's shockingly common in my experience to have an A/B boot setup, but no actual logic in the userspace application to switch back to the other partition if something goes wrong. It's just a defense against somebody pulling the plug during the OTA, it doesn't protect against software bugs at all.

devy• 9 months ago

Someone correct me if I am wrong, we've haven't heard that Tesla OTA updates bricking people's cars.

They implemented a dual redundant system similar like the dual BIOS for motherboard since 1999.

op00to2• 9 months ago

Literally the first umpteen hits on Google says this happens with Tesla:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-software-updat...

chroma• 9 months ago

That's one person claiming an update bricked their car, but it's unclear if that was due to a bad software update or a hardware failure that coincided with the update. Tesla usually explains what they fixed, so it's odd that the poster never replied with more details.

Even if every software update was perfect, you would see individual stories like the one you linked to. There are millions of Teslas in the world, and they all get updates frequently, so a hardware failure will sometimes coincide with a software update. If a bad update were shipped to customers, it would be a story similar to this Jeep issue: thousands of cars affected at once, lots of furious customers, and news articles about the failure.

dmix• 9 months ago

I can't find any news stories about Tesla's OTAs bricking cars? Especially nothing mid-drive like we're seeing with Jeep. That'd be a pretty major story considering how every Tesla story makes headlines.

henvic• 9 months ago

I never heard of this and follow Tesla groups/communities/forums/etc. for over 10 years. At most you'll hear one or another person complaining about having initiated the update process and suddenly getting annoyed because they find out they need to go somewhere (it might take an hour).

rangestransform2• 9 months ago

They also do a fuckton of HIL testing for onboard software and in general approach testing like a software company instead of a bean counter company

artemonster• 9 months ago

leadership problem, as everywhere. old grampas that used to manually draw gears on paper now have to "strategically align" a huge corporation that has to deal with new shiny and complicated things like software and they all have zero fucking clue. at least with cars you can always try to safely stop, with planes - not so possible. this will also soon creep up there.

macNchz2• 9 months ago

I rented a Jeep Wagoneer recently and found it to have such comically glitchy electronics that this comes as no surprise. The second day we had it, the liftgate stopped latching entirely, it beeped and popped some error messages on the dashboard and simply wouldn't latch shut at all, no matter what we did. Searching the internet produced lots of people with the same problem, reporting that it required a software update to fix. There was no manual override to the electronic latching mechanism.

Luckily we were near a location of the rental car company—rather than deep in the middle of nowhere where we were headed—and exchanged it for another of the same model, which was all they had available. The next 1000-something miles we drove were filled with endless weird glitches:

- When a passenger plugged in their Steam Deck in the back, the entire infotainment system cut out and went black, including the instrument panel, and then started glitching in and out until they unplugged it.

- When parking, the driver's seat would retract slightly to make it easier to get out, but it never moved forward again, so the seat would get further back at each stop until it was manually repositioned.

- The entire drive the system flashed an un-dismissable error about a rear seat latch, which seemed completely functional.

- The TPMS light went on and off periodically as it seemingly lost and then regained signal from one wheel or another.

- The system flashed errors related to the automated cruise control being unavailable/broken at random times.

- The electronic parking brake kept applying itself while briefly paused in parking lots.

- There was something inscrutably wrong with the climate control that we never really figured out where sometimes it'd just get hot inside the car despite no change to the AC settings.

When we got back I found tons of people online talking about similar (often worse) issues. Incredibly terrible for any new vehicle, never mind one that costs $80k.

tristor2• 9 months ago

Honestly, unsurprising. Jeep and Stellantis/Dodge in general has horrible quality control and extremely poor electrical designs. They have a huge enthusiast community that will be happily apologize away the copious amounts of flaws. Frankly, nobody should ever buy their vehicles, it's just robbing yourself.

jmcqk6• 9 months ago

I own a Jeep Wrangler, and you're right the electronics are terrible. The rest of the vehicle is really solid though. The only problems I've had with it in three years are electronic in nature. And I've really pushed it to the limits: Colorado Passes, Utah Dessert, Montana backroads. I drove it to the Arctic Ocean and back on the Dempster.

Still there is no excuse for how terrible the electronics are in Jeep / Dodge (I'm assuming all Chrysler) vehicles. And it's been that way for decades.

nwienert• 9 months ago

It’s too bad because the wagoneer is the best designed car in the segment, inside and out for the most part.

I have a somewhat bad back and want something that I can occasionally work from, so a big space, comfy middle seats, a wide center console. Car makers for some reason refuse to make essentially a Tahoe but shorter wheelbase / 2 row which would be ideal. Instead you have to go with the full size to get full-width.

But out of those, only American brands seem to understand the utility of blocky interiors. Armada and all the Japanese and Korean large SUVs always use swooping rounded edges which really reduce utility.

But the American brands are all less reliable and struggle with consistent quality.

trollbridge• 9 months ago

I own a 2002 Grand Cherokee which sometimes will have a 10A+ power drain for no apparent reason. Of course it doesn’t do it when I’ve got my voltmeter on it, except once (when the 10A fuse in my Fluke blew). I resigned myself to unplugging the battery or leaving it plugged in to a high current battery charger at home, and leave it running if I drive it somewhere.

I rented a Jeep Liberty or Compass circa 2018 whose headlights were permanently in DRL mode: couldn’t turn them off or on. Fortunately I didn’t need to drive at night.

In 2017, rented a 300 with 500 miles on it; the infotainment was completely broken, which hosted the controls for the seat heaters and temperature setting. It was well below zero in Minneapolis but we had to drive around with our windows down because the fancy climate system defaulted to max heat blast + max heated seats based on ambient temperature.

Long ago I had a 1996 Neon where the wiring harness started to fail, and the speedometer would stop working. Later on the oil light would come on despite oil pressure being fine. Eventually the entire car just quit running at all at random - nothing but a dim oil light. I sold the car for scrap for $65 since I got tired of being randomly stranded.

So what I’m saying is that it sounds like Chrysler has managed to actually keep doing the same thing for 29 years: electrically unreliable vehicles.

op00to2• 9 months ago

On a recent one week trip with my family, we went through FOUR Grand Wagoneers, each one with another show-stopping problem.

ncr1003• 9 months ago

- When parking, the driver's seat would retract slightly to make it easier to get out, but it never moved forward again, so the seat would get further back at each stop until it was manually repositioned.

This is AWESOME.

October is SPOOKY month for Stellantis software, apparently.

Overall it sounds like changes were applied, internally, and not reverted - as if they changed something in the Transaction handling for multi-step car systems updates.

You mention something about it continuously getting hotter ..

it'd just get hot inside the car despite no change to the AC settings

.. which is also f'in nuts.

macNchz2• 9 months ago

I felt a little bad but laughed out loud reading some of the other stories of peoples' problems with the Wagoneer—one person reported that the first night they brought it home brand new from the dealer, one of the headlights wouldn't turn off no matter what they did and just stayed on the whole night shining against the house. Spooky!

pants2• 9 months ago

My friends and I rented a Wagoneer and found that the electronic feature to flip the rear seats down worked while there were people in those seats, while the vehicle was in motion!

So of course every hour when the boys weren't paying attention POP the driver would unlatch their seats and headrests lmao

Horrible safety guardrails but a good time was had by all.

kswzzl3• 9 months ago

My 4xe died in my driveway on Saturday after the update. Let me explain, from the perspective of a 4xe owner, how bad the response has been from Jeep/Stellantis:

- As of Monday 8am ET, zero legitimate communication from any Jeep-related accounts on any social media platform, or any other form of acknowledgement from the company (unless I've missed something?)

- I only found out about the issue after finally searching a few Jeep groups on Facebook (of all places) to see if anyone else was experiencing the weird failure mode I was after the update.

- The only remotely-official info was from a 'JeepCares' account (which is ran by Jeep) on some random off-roading forum? We were seriously all living off of screenshots from this forum, and the advice coming from the JeepCares accounts was contradictory: they claimed that the Uconnect update was separate from the telematics update, and that there was no way to stop the telematics update if the vehicle received it. Later they gave advice to defer the Uconnect update, making it sound like they were coupled.

- Due to the lack of info from Jeep, people were coming up with all kinds of "if you reboot Uconnect while the Jeep's in ACC mode, it clears the check engine light". This probably did clear the CEL but didn't fix the fault.

- There is no way to tell if you received the bad update.

- There is no way to tell if you received the 'fix' either.

- Dealerships have literally no idea what is going on.

- You're basically at risk of your Jeep going limp (power loss, unable to safely make it to the shoulder) and being stranded on the highway, even as I write this.

SigmundA2• 9 months ago

I really want a 4XE Wrangler to replace my aging JK at some point, on paper its amazing, lots of torque and power, decent economy for a brick with large tires, and can actually run a pure electric enough to get around town, plus still takes all the standard Wrangler parts.

However in classic Jeep style they just can't get reliability down, and the PHEV part seems too complicated for them.

If it was just reliable it would still be the best selling PHEV in America, they let that go.

There is no sign of the 2026 Wrangler 4XE it might be canceled like the Gladiator version...

kswzzl3• 9 months ago

Agreed, it's an expensive but great vehicle. Closing the last mile of the reliability gap is always tough, but they need to figure it out.

20after4• 9 months ago

It's probably canceled, not only for reliability reasons. EVs and plugin hybrids are probably doomed, at least in the US: The EV tax credit subsidy is gone, fuel economy requirements will be or already have been eliminated, electricity prices climbing (my rate increased almost 50% on my most recent bill) and the Trump administration is extremely hostile towards anything related to renewable energy.

frumplestlatz3• 9 months ago

I’ve always been surprised that people even buy jeeps given the notorious reliability issues and frankly strange design choices.

The times that I have been given a jeep rental while on vacation or work trips have always left me disappointed with the vehicle.

carlito02• 9 months ago

My Wife just got one last year, the electric engine will give you about 17 miles on a full charge that takes about 7 hrs, its pretty much useless on full electric mode, pretty good with the milage on hybrid which is what this really is. And yes do not expect reliability, first day out of the dealership we got a check engine light, apparently one of the workers at the dealership forgot to attach a wire or hose, at least thats the explanation that we got, i told my wife to insist on getting it documented somehow or get a log from the dealer but of course they played it off as human error (total BS). Few months later and her screen started to turn off and on, or just die completely when air play was connected. Stay away from these cars.

schaefer• 9 months ago

My condolences. I wonder if you qualify for a loss-of-use rental under the warranty.

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

Personally, I would return the vehicle as defective after an issue like this. No way I'm going to trust the lives of family, friends and myself to a company like this.

d_sem2• 9 months ago

How did you verify that a software update can 1. Occur during driving operation of the vehicle and 2. results in vehicle power loss?

I worked in an auto supplier years ago and there where several protections in place to prevent the risk of update corruption on safety related components. One of the simplest one the UDS programming session having entry protections related to vehicle speed, vehicle driving mode, etc.

kswzzl3• 9 months ago

My update occurred while parked. I hit the failure mode 1-2 hours later pulling out of my driveway.

zoeysmithe4• 9 months ago

imho the occasional mixup is going to happen, and eventually it'll be big like this or like Crowdstrike, but pushing these out on Fridays means the critical staff isn't there to help. The people who could have communicated this stuff to customers and dealerships were in bed when people got into their jeeps at 6am on Saturday after an overnight update.

I believe crowdstrike's update was on a Friday night as well.

Unless its a serious security bug, it can wait for not only for better QA testing but also for next Tuesday. Read-on Fridays need to be an industry-wide thing.

radicaldreamer• 9 months ago

Honestly the only thing that's going to change this is criminal liability for safety related software bugs. Otherwise, it's just business as usual and the business for the last 15 years has been cutting QA and asking developers to do testing themselves, which is literally impossible for a lot of software due to lack of proper staging environments and large permutations of configurations.

jms703• 9 months ago

To me the bigger issue is that the infotainment system can affect the core function of the vehicle. That seems completely unacceptable, regardless of when an update is pushed out. The two systems should be separate with the infotainment system as the lesser important and unable to actually effect the core system.

jlokier4• 9 months ago

- You're basically at risk of your Jeep going limp (power loss, unable to safely make it to the shoulder) and being stranded on the highway, even as I write this.

This seems extraordinary.

I was going to ask: Are you really saying they kill the vehicle's power system, effictively the engine, while the vehicle is being driven on the highway?

But no need to ask, the article says yes, that's what is reported:

Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving—a far more serious problem. For some, this happened close to home and at low speed, but others claim to have experienced a powertrain failure at highway speeds.

Wow.

pinkmuffinere• 9 months ago

Ya, that is shockingly scary. It makes me think we need some new standards about software updates to vehicles in general (or perhaps these already exist but were missed for some reason?). I can totally imagine that software used to be this ancillary selling point that didn't need such tight regulation, but as it becomes core infrastructure for the vehicle this is less of an IoT toy, and deserves stricter standards.

worik• 9 months ago

> - You're basically at risk of your Jeep going limp

This has happened to me twice with a Nissan Leaf. I paid money to get a read out from the computer system, and there were no timestamps on the screens of data.

Modern cars "computers on wheels" are dreadful.

Is it possible to disconnect the power from the radios used for "over the air" nonsense? Then at least they would be stable.

casenmgreen2• 9 months ago

Incredible that Jeep did not think to have updates only go out to cars which are stationary with engine off.

trenchpilgrim• 9 months ago

Relevant: "Hackers Remotely Kill A Jeep On the Highway With Me In It" (2015)

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...

klooney• 9 months ago

You know, if Stellantis and other manufacturers can't behave responsibly, OTA updates will be illegal. They really should get their act together.

araes• 9 months ago

From a GPS software update... [1] "This is a telematics box module update" Telematics is primarily GPS and on-board diagnostics for location, speed, and fuel usage.

A GPS update kills your entire powertrain. Appears to also engage parking for some users, super dangerous. Catbones, "Almost died on the thruway today ... with an 18-wheeler behind me. ... Jeep died, locked its hand brake and jolted so hard my face almost ended up in the steering wheel at 70mph." [1]

[1] Wrangler 4xe forum, JeepCares and Catbones accounts: https://www.4xeforums.com/threads/wrangler-4xe-ota-update-10...

Personal bet: Jeep accidentally enabled the remote kill switch for repossessing automobiles. [2] Possibly the "impaired driver" kill switch. [3]

[2] Stateline, Late Payment Kill Switch: https://stateline.org/2018/11/27/late-payment-a-kill-switch-...

[3] Trackhawk, Federal Kill Switch Law: https://trackhawkgps.com/blog/kill-switch-law

jacquesm11• 9 months ago

It is completely insane that this is happening. I did DD on a company in the automotive space a couple of years ago and flagged that they did not check if the vehicle was stationary, motor disabled before updating. They were all surprised at how I thought that this could possibly ever lead to issues.

coldpie2• 9 months ago

Given the state of the software industry, it's honestly more surprising that this doesn't happen more often. Our industry is a complete joke, and somehow we've been given responsibility over people's lives.

hinkley6• 9 months ago

I have Java code running on commercial aircraft. You can’t actually run Java code on commercial aircraft because the FAA doesn’t (or at least not at the time) know how to certify it.

The entire box it’s on isn’t powered while the plane is in motion (“wheels on ground”). It’s shut off before preflight and doesn’t turn back on until the plane is on the ground. The service my code is part of is responsible for queuing updates and downlinking telemetry. Updates are manual and obviously you can’t run them while in motion if the box they are on doesn’t even have power.

Cars probably don’t have to go this far, but there’s a continuum and they’re clearly in the wrong part.

reaperducer3• 9 months ago

they did not check if the vehicle was stationary, motor disabled before updating. They were all surprised at how I thought that this could possibly ever lead to issues.

My anecdata is that my car won't update its software without the owner explicitly requesting it. And then, it will only do it if the car has something like 50% charge, hasn't been used for an hour, and nobody is inside.

I once tried to do the update while I was inside, and it refused.

tremon2• 9 months ago

According to the article, that's not what is happening. The update itself completes fine; it's the updated firmware that is buggy, and seems to cause/require a reset of the ECU while in operation. Not that that makes it any less insane, but the update process does not seem to be implicated here.

skywhopper3• 9 months ago

That’s not how this problem occurred. The update happened hours before, but the bug only manifested once the driver was on the road.

hinkley6• 9 months ago

This sounds like the sort of thing that happens when a team has a deliverable that slips multiple times but everyone had vacations planned for a responsible amount of time after the deadline.

Under time pressure and confirmation bias they signed off on code that was giving off signs of being broken, pushed it, and now key staff are either on airplanes, out of coverage on their phones, or cannot work entirely from memory and don’t have their computers with them because vacation.

ryandrake2• 9 months ago

I bet they already have communications ready, but everyone Director and above needs to "wordsmith" it to deflect blame and make sure nobody looks bad, and all the lawyers need to bless it so that it's not admitting anything. I bet you there's a Word doc being frantically E-mailed around all day, needing to be approved by 25 people before it reaches the light of day.

SkiFire13• 9 months ago

If a software update can affect the basic functionality of the car to such a degree then the whole car should be recertified after every update, change my mind.

hilbert42• 9 months ago

Why do you let your vehicle update without supervision and knowing exactly what the update entails (what it does)?

If you knew upates were occurring why didn't you stop them by not allowing internet access and or disabling the web/net hardware?

I find it very odd, I never allow any hardware unfettered internet access let alone update its firmware. Experience has taught me that that's a recipe for trouble.

defraudbah• 9 months ago

lol, i love jeeps, but you have to buy japanese cars with software from 60s, hopefully this does not change for another 80 years

ChrisArchitect• 9 months ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558318

mrbonner• 9 months ago

A side note: is it just me or not but I prefer my new car to still providing tactile buttons to control things? I get that smart cars like Tesla wants to push touch-screen on everything but the control mechanism just feels clunky for me. When I sit on a car with physical buttons, I know exactly where they are and what they do when I press & turn them.

AyyEye2• 9 months ago

Not even two weeks after Stellantis mandates vibe coding engineering workflows. Has to be a new record.

https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/press-releases/2025/octob...

piker2• 9 months ago

Wow! But seriously this would have to be code written before two weeks ago to be pushed to production OTA to a fleet of vehicles, right?

AyyEye2• 9 months ago

All bets are off for any org willing to push fleetwide updates on a Friday afternoon.

catlover76• 9 months ago

I would love to be able to buy new cars without this level of software in them.

duskdozer2• 9 months ago

well, without this much software, how would they be able to monitor rich user metrics and provide seamless integrated user experiences across platforms?

elcapithanos• 9 months ago

A few bad updates borked my Linux install and cost me hours of potential work and left me with a deep fear of installing updates. No idea what I'd do if I had a car that needs updates

rob• 9 months ago

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.

I own a Land Rover and their system software also ("Pivi") seems to have tons of little quirks and issues.

Sometimes the cameras won't work unless you restart Pivi. One time, the entire car wouldn't respond to locking (via the app, keyfob, in-car buttons) unless you disconnected the battery and waited ~30 mins. Many people complain that they can't even successfully upgrade between Pivi releases. It'll error out a lot of times and they have to restart the process.

(Would be interested to know the kind of tech they're using if anybody's familiar with it!)

jasonwatkinspdx• 9 months ago

I interviewed with the infotainment group office they have here a dozen or so years ago.

My recollection is the hardware was intel, as they had some sort of partnership there, linux for the OS, some distribution specific to the auto industry, and the infotainment itself was just a Qt app.

Animats• 9 months ago

I have a Jeep Wrangler JK. I considered buying a 4XE. Now I'm glad I didn't.

piker2• 9 months ago

Just wrote about my battles with software updates[1]. Without getting into what should or shouldn’t happen, I’ll express my sympathy for the Jeep team and the owners. Software updates are hard.

[Edit: a commenter notes that Jeep’s parent has recently mandated LLM usage in development. Let’s hope these two are unrelated and that we aren’t going to start seeing more catastrophic failures like this over the next few months as people work out the limitations of this sorcery.]

[1] https://tritium.legal/blog/update

dabockster3• 9 months ago

Software updates for cars should be rare, with the infotainment systems physically isolated from the rest of the car (aside from constant/switched power). And if it needs updates for whatever reason (eg a recall), they should be done at a dealership - not over the air.

Bricking a car with an over-the-air software update is stupid and unacceptable behavior. Stuff like this is why I'm actually kind of happy to be driving a 20 year old car still.

vivalahn• 9 months ago

I looked at the Jeep awhile back but their safety ratings were absolutely terrible. I’ve been in car accidents aplenty so that was a deal breaker for me. Just about the only real electronic thing in my Lexus is an ECU which rarely goes and can be replaced relatively easily . Forget updating the maps and other nonsense. Just drive the damn thing and do mechanical maintenance and a little grease.

temporallobe• 9 months ago

This is disturbing. There is absolutely no valid reason to make OTA updates to your ECU or other essential components. Never. Ever. If there ever was a need to do such an update, it should be made in the dealership by a professional who can roll it back if there’s a problem. Automakers have become far too complacent while at the same time over-automating everything and profiteering by turning things into a subscription model. This is why so many car enthusiasts (myself included) prefer older cars.

cozzyd2• 9 months ago

I bet it won't let a passenger connect a Bluetooth device while it's running though

mrcwinn• 9 months ago

I miss the days of Jeep UConnect Snow Leopard.

WalterBright7• 9 months ago

It is not possible to write bug-free software. The way to deal with inevitable software (and hardware) failures is to have an independent backup system. This is how airplanes are designed, and the safety record speaks volumes that this works.

The way to deal with a bad update is to have another image of the software in ROM (so it cannot be altered) that can be switched to. This backup program may have reduced capability, but it should be able to get you home or to the dealer.

constantcrying3• 9 months ago

Airplanes do not receive OtA updates, nor does every system have a backup. Airplane software is developed to a very high safety standards, which mostly, but not always works. But this is not applicable here. A key part of airplane safety is constant monitoring and maintenance. If a component needs a software update, some technician will manually perform the update and do the required tests. This simply can not work in automotive.

WalterBright7• 9 months ago

The concept is the same, though.

nor does every system have a backup.

Every flight critical component and system on an airliner has an independent backup.

h4kunamata• 9 months ago

Problems like this is why I got a 2025 Suzuki Jimny XL. I don't need a computer on wheels, it has all the ingredients for disasters but people keep ignoring it. XL:

1. No firmware update,

2. No OTA updates, you get what you paid for;

3. No internet access;

The most important thing:

* Standard key (AU version), no keyless ignition!

As it stands now, any car that is keyless ignition can be stolen by OBD devices sold at eBay and AliExpress.

The newer the car, the worst. Toyota new cars in Australia are being stolen by drilling its passenger door which grants you access to the OBD located on the passenger side, hook the OBD device that cost less than AUD50 and you are driving an over AUD100k car away like you own it.

I am not even getting into cars systems have zero security, I remember watching in early 2000s, a hacker taking control of the reporter's car while on a highway and made the car stop. The reported had to change his underwear!! Things got a lot worse 25 years later.

Back to Jeep 4XE Hybrid cars, they are 2025 models and people bought it even after everything that is going on around Jeep. It is hard to blame only the company on this.

ncr1003• 9 months ago

Sounds & looks AWESOME.

Me being in FREEDOM USA FREEDOM I cannot drive one of these as Suzuki isn't doing business here anymore .. since 2010.

Enjoy yours, though !!

stevage2• 9 months ago

A nitpick, but this isn't the normal definition of "to brick", which requires that the update be irreversible.

agigao• 9 months ago

Has it been inquired if vibe-coding was involved in the process?

pfortuny• 9 months ago

I really cannot understand why software updates to car are not required to be made in the dealership after a statement from the owner that he wants it done if it is not mandatory. Yes, it is a hassle but at least if you have a working car, you can keep it so.

tracker1• 9 months ago

This would be significantly better.

freetonik• 9 months ago

I had an Opel hybrid, produced by Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep, Opel and many other brands. It's a great car completely ruined by software. It had a "engine failure" notice 2 days after delivery.

Apart from frequent glitches and failures, the last straw was the incomprehensible logic of the seat lumbar support mechanism. It's a pneumatic bladder that you can inflate/deflate to your liking. When you stop the car, driver's lumbar support just starts deflating to 0. If you open any door or trunk, it starts inflating back again, and not to the original level, but to a seemingly random value. The front passenger's lumbar support stays as is and does not behave this way.

I bought the car with this optional extra "back doctor association approved ergonimic chairs", ironically.

The hybrid system was also glitchy as hell, turning on and off randomly. Opel claimed this is normal and there is no way around it. I had other PHEV hybrid cars after that, from different brands, and none of them behaved like that.

I will never buy any Stellantis product again.

throw-10-132• 9 months ago

Didn't an analog jeep jump into drive and kill a member of the star trek cast by pinning them against a wall for several hours?

Seems like a car company that should be avoided.

bevaroo• 9 months ago

OMG! I just stumbled upon this terrifying info on a Google News feed! I conducted the update on my'24 4XE as the screen had haunted me 3x to do so. I never made the connection to nearly being killed on Saturday 10/10/25, immediately after updating Uconnect & driving, when the Jeep engine died suddenly 3x on a 4 mile drive home. It took a couple of times to unfreeze and restart, but I needed to get out of traffic ASAP. Check engine light is currently on. Wow, this sounds like a dangerous mess. My 3rd Jeep... dealership is not anything like it used to be - thanks Stellantis - now what? Not an Alarmist but this sounds super dangerous, & I realize that I could have been killed. What to do?

lunias• 9 months ago

My car is 13 years old now... I'm going to need a new one eventually. I hope the industry changes direction, and fast, because if my car dies tomorrow I'm not sure there is a single new car on the market that I'd feel happy buying.

Software update bricks some Jeep 4xe hybrids over the weekend

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