I took my dad to a Chevy dealership that a friend works at to look for a used car. We ended up picking a 2016 Cherokee Latitude that only has 22k miles on it. Test drove it and everything seemed great, did all the paperwork and bought it.

After we left, just 5 miles later, we were getting on the interstate and at 55 or 60 mph the service transmission came on. I'm sure you all know that once it happened the car was basically undriveable. Limped back to the dealer and left the car with them. They took it to the Jeep dealership and they did the TCU flash. It's ready to go now but we haven't picked it up.

So the opinion we need is, is it worth keeping now or should we move on? With only 22k miles it should still be under factory warranty, but we are concerned that there will still be transmission issues. Especially if anything was damaged due to the limp mode (We could smell burning once we stopped).

From what we saw on the Carfax, it was a lease and had every oil change at a dealer on time. It's in very good shape otherwise.

Thanks for the help

 

If it were me, I would have stayed away. Some of the Jeep's seem to have no problems, some seem to be a major headache. If you get a good one, they are a pretty good crossover / SUV.

Can you describe more about the burning smell? If all it took was a TCU flash to clear the code, there must be another underlying issue.

 

We are walking away.

The smell was similar to a burnt clutch. We drove the car in limp mode and it would rev to 3k and barely move. So whatever was causing it to feel like slipping, was burning.

 

If you can get your money back, absolutely do it. That is truly unacceptable to have a 4 year old car with that little mileage break down immediately after purchasing.

 

Ever since Chrysler merged with Fiat their quality has been going downhill quickly, it was already on the downhill before that.

 

Actually the exact opposite is now true, you must be getting your information from a Chevy or Ford forum.

https://www.quadratec.com/c/blog/fca...jd-power-study
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/bu...ds/4178549002/
https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...ts/3292743002/
https://www.autonews.com/video/auton...ability-survey
https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/3...-manufacturing

 

Surveys and awards mean nothing, ask any independent mechanic who actually works on these vehicles, and you will get a different answer.

 

Sure, because anecdotal evidence from a handful of independents is so much better than actual science based on thousands of owners’ experiences....


.

 

I'd rather take advice from people who work on these vehicles than someone who doesn't even know how to change their own oil.

 

Go for it dude......

 

Part of the problem is overly complicated design. As an example, a rear drive shaft with 4 CV joints and two hanger bearings exposed to the road spray for example. No aftermarket parts available, so it's $600 plus labor to replace the entire shaft because none of the bearings are serviceable ($400 if you haggle with the parts counter). The Fiat 2.4 engines are not that reliable, with a higher failure rate than most. The transmissions in the 2014s had a high rate of catastrophic failure due to assembly errors - enough that they modified the firmware to avoid downshifting from 3-2 (or was it 2-1?).

Now we can still debate, whether that an improvement over the historically bad Chrysler reliability....