Jeep wrangler owners waiting for answers week after an update bricked their cars

https://www.thedrive.com/news/jeep-wrangler-4xe-owners-still-waiting-for-answers-a-week-after-an-update-bricked-their-cars

by pseudolus • 9 months ago

108 83 9 months ago

thedrive.com

deveac• 9 months ago

I planned on keeping my Wrangler for life when I ordered it, and so optioned it as mechanically simple as possible, including roll-down windows, manual trans, and no keyless entry. Stuff like this is, in part, why. Threw an aftermarket wireless CarPlay head unit in, and that is all the tech I need and more.

shtzvhdx• 9 months ago

What year is your wrangler?

jmann999992• 9 months ago

I bought my 2018 Wrangler with the same idea... keep it for life. That was also the last year they offered the "lifetime" warranty. Glad I went for that.

So far, the Jeep has been fairly reliable, with my issues being:

- Electric door locks and mirrors stopped working

- Radiator leaked

- CV Joints

The Lifetime Warranty has now broken even (~$2500).

Unfortunately, now my issue is rust, and the warranty doesn't cover that.

jrnng• 9 months ago

Check out woolwax or similar products for rust prevention

ssl-35• 9 months ago

Rust. I live in the north half of Ohio, so my stuff gets bathed in salty brine for several months out of the year and rust is a real problem for me.

What I've found that works (for me):

For stuff that isn't yet rusted, Fluid Film. It's easy to buy (it's on the shelf even at Wal-Mart). It's made primarily from lanolin, which is a product of the wool industry and is how sheep stay dry. If I were Very Serious about it, I'd find a shop that would cover the whole bottom of the vehicle (and anything that can be reached through holes) in the stuff and pay them to get that done. (I buy it in spray cans; some shops buy it in 55 gallon drums.)

For stuff that is definitely already rusting, Corrosion-X. It's some kind of oily chemical soup that is supposed to prevent existing rust from getting worse, and also prevent new rust. One interesting feature is that it's available in 3 different viscosities; vaguely speaking, those viscosities are thin, medium, and elephant snot.

The thin one does a fantastic job of creeping around to cover even unseen surfaces, but it washes off the fastest. The thicker ones hang around longer and creep less. (Tradeoffs, I guess.)

I prefer Fluid Film just because it's more natural than some other things are and that makes me feel good in some way that I don't care to rationalize, but Fluid Film is not very good at recovering from existing rust.

Corrosion-X, though? I can get the thin version of that worked into the joint of a completely rusted-stuck pair of box-jointed pliers and have them working very well (and looking fairly decent, though not "new") in a few minutes with a shop rag. I've heard stories of it being used to hose down whole electrical rooms in ocean-going boats. It's amazing stuff. (And it's expensive.)

The practical downside is that these products all feel greasy, and they all turn black with enough time and enough miles. They're all ugly.

For visible painted body panels, the best way I know to deal with small spots of rust from rock chips and stuff is to go full-ass on it. Get the Dremel out, pick an appropriate abrasive stone, and start grinding those little pinholes out until there's nothing but clean, shiny metal surrounded by paint. And then: Fill in with touchup paint that matches the factory paint code. (It's never perfect, but it does get easier to do a job that looks better than little rust spots do with some practice...and the little spots then don't turn into big spots.)

Rust never sleeps. Good luck.

olelele3• 9 months ago

There was a car mechanic who lived next to where my dad grew up in rural Sweden. He spent enormous amounts of time on the cars he got in to fix and took out automatic locks and all electric wiring to the point of the car being basically invincible to time and very simple to repair again. Some cars he never managed to finish fixing and they were simply left forever in his front yard... My grandma drives a 25 y o Suzuki Alto that is basically this car. It even has the old school non powered steering. Runs great still, has no issues since she only drives in summer.

There is really something to be said for old mechanics and simple electric solutions.

These days _everything_ has an embedded microcontroller and a touchscreen. I'm more on the luddite edge myself...

If anyone is interested I can try to dig up an interview with the car mech on youtube (in swedish) :)

Brett_Riverboat• 9 months ago

just another reason among many for why I refuse to own a car with an internet connection.

SteveNuts• 9 months ago

Or anything made by Stellantis, in my case at least.

gedy• 9 months ago

My dad's old joke was FIAT stands for: Fix It Again Tony

whynotmaybe• 9 months ago

How does it work in this case? The car has an esim and can connect to cellular network?

bnjms• 9 months ago

People on hn and I assume car forums will remove the radio antenna or otherwise disconnect the relevant hardware.

jqpabc123• 9 months ago

I have friends who ignored my advice and bought Jeeps.

I told them, don't expect reliability --- and this is an example.

SoftTalker• 9 months ago

However, a second update has now been pushed that reportedly reverts the software to the previous version, and Jeep Cares cautioned that customers will not be able to tell which version they currently have by looking at Uconnect, because the problematic package doesn’t make any changes to the infotainment suite itself, meaning the version numbers will appear the same.

What kind of complete amateur hour operation are they running there at Jeep/Stellantis?

vincekerrazzi• 9 months ago

After working with them for nearly a year, it’s even worse than you think.

Half the team didn’t have basic understanding of git, and exactly none of the team designing the “smart charge” scheduling had or even had driven an EV.

The complete incompetence of every vehicle OEM team I worked with outside of Tesla and Rivian is part of the reason I left that job.

jve• 9 months ago

You are just confirming my suspicion on that car manufacturers have terrible software divisions. Outside of some new EVs which have software one of major selling points.

Why don't classic manufacturers not ramp up their software quality side? I mean it's 2025, they lag behind at least a decade, but software development (infotaiment) practices seems like dark ages.

Except for MCU - from user perspective they just work.

nebula88042• 9 months ago

Who have you worked with? Any thoughts on Toyota or Mazda? I heard that while Mazda is quite conservative in car design (still use buttons, less futuristic design) they appear to have a extensive data collection operation which surprised me given their conservative nature in literally everything else.

general1465• 9 months ago

Sounds like Microsoft designers working on Windows, while using MacOS.

IT4MD• 9 months ago

What youre likely seeing is the inevitable endpoint for corporate growth.

Money over all. Safety should never impact profits, quality control is a cost not a benefit, poor design due to rushing something out the door, and lowest bidder for everything.

devn0ll• 9 months ago

It will change once they realize they are a IT company first and a car manufacturer second. Whether they agree or not this is their future.

rossdavidh• 9 months ago

The first question for any dev to ask themselves before rolling out any software update: do you know how to roll it back?

This ought to be the sort of thing that management is there to remind the developers of, but in practice it seems like the opposite is true.

gridspy• 9 months ago

Yeah, In application programming over the air is frankly terrifying because when it goes bad it goes really bad.

Gigachad• 9 months ago

I remember a firefox dev commenting that the updater code was the most dangerous part of the app to touch because if you break it, it's game over, you can't push a fix.

rkomorn3• 9 months ago

This ought to be the sort of thing that management is there to remind the developers of, but in practice it seems like the opposite is true.

In my experience, management does remind developers of this. Usually after an incident that ultimately boils down to management having incentivized everything else at the cost of good operational practices.

Too• 9 months ago

That used to be easy, until the security mafia entered the room with their anti-rollback requirements.

dmix• 9 months ago

There's no recall yet? That's strange.

Usually minor firmware recalls make headlines (at least for Tesla), this is a major issue without even a recall announcement?

wand3r• 9 months ago

Tesla isn't the best proxy for what is normal. While Tesla has had a lot of issues and the critiques and articles are valid, it definitely seems like the media coverage was much more widespread and pervasive because 1)Anti Elon sentiment sells ads and clicks 2) it was somewhat agenda based. I am not making a political statement, but I think what I said is objectively true.

RickJWagner• 9 months ago

After years of development, Jeeps can now break down faster and more efficiently.

Also: “power terrain”? For an auto mag, that’s a mistake on par with a software developer deploying to production without a backout plan.

saurik• 9 months ago

It's been a decade now, I guess, since Charlie Miller figured out how to hack into Jeep Grand Cherokees and remotely disable the brakes.

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

kotaKat• 9 months ago

The funny part is one of Chrysler's "mitigations" was adding a "security gateway module" to "protect" all the communications (read: lock out diagnostic tools).

The call still came from inside the house.

chasing0entropy4• 9 months ago

OTA firmware updates for a vehicle should not exist. A car is an appliance that should do what it does. There are up upgrades to four rolling wheels. If there are, roll them into the next model year. Let the dealers upgrade older vehicles or recall the model.

constantcrying6• 9 months ago

Customers demand Software upgrades.

Let the dealers upgrade

And every single customer will hate you for this.

smileysteve2• 9 months ago

If worked fine in the em early 2000 for cars with service plans or recalls.

But they only did like 3-4 upgrades total while the model was still being produced.

(Bmw experience)

sigseg1v• 9 months ago

Which customers? I definitely do not demand software upgrades on any of my vehicles and in fact if I could easily pin a certain version and upgrade only after seeing the changelog or diff that would be best.

chasing0entropy4• 9 months ago

Customers do NOT demand firmware updates. Customers demand reliability, they may demand FAST resolution for an issue but that doesnt translate to demand for forced OTA updates.

Actually my customers are customers BECAUSE I shun the internet.

AngryData• 9 months ago

There is no reason they couldn't offer a way to firmware upgrades through customers too if they actually cared. But most upgrades to any firmware should already be essentially "done" within the dealer service window.

IshKebab2• 9 months ago

No customers demanded this. Tesla did it because it means they don't have to verify their software to as high quality (and because they want to use their user base as beta testers).

I don't think anyone wants software upgrades to require a dealer but that's not the sane alternative.

proactivesvcs• 9 months ago

"So, if you’re a Wrangler 4xe owner, here’s your order of operations for the time being:"

Do not use the vehicle under any circumstances and have the dealer take it away and keep it until it is safe to drive again.

hulitu2• 9 months ago

Jeep wrangler owners waiting for answers week after an update bricked their cars

Don't worry. It will be fixed in a future update.

Does Microsoft entered the Automotive business ? Because this surely looks like a lot of the issues with Windows, where an update breaks something and Microsoft needs a couple of succesive updates, until they acknoledge and fix the problem.

Jeep wrangler owners waiting for answers week after an update bricked their cars

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