Chrysler denying rear differential claim
 

I have a 2014 JKU with 70K miles. I changed the rear-diff fluid this weekend and found metal in the fluid. The rear bearings came apart and caused the gears to fail.
I have a full powertrain warranty through FCA. The inspector came out and is denying the claim due to "missuse and abuse of the vehicle."

Any suggestions on how to get them to fix this?

are there signs of misuse and abuse? big tires and/or lift? most be something to the story.

I have 33's from a 2019 JLU on it, and a 2.5 inch leveling kit.

That's it.

I would call jeep customer care and become a squeeky wheel. It should be covered based on that. 2014's have 5/100000 drive train warranty.

They are denying under the powertrain. All they said was "miss use and abuse of the vehicle" The tech said it should be covered, and the service manager agreed in principle. He is going to call them and ask for proof and justification. Their estimate $3,300.00.

how often and and by whom was the differential serviced?

Not pertinent to this thread, but when I see your posts "Ellicott" always catches my eye. My dad was a pastor at the Methodist church in your town a few years back.

It's just amazing how times change!
I hope people are paying attention to how bad FCA treats it's loyal customers.
With the crazy increase in prices and the terrible customer support, people need to start buying other vehicles.

Flash back to the early '80's. I took a job in a Jeep/AMC dealer as a service writer. Part of my job was to handle the warranty claims. In my initial meeting for the job, the service manager and the owner of the dealership spoke. The owners instructions were, to make sure every valuable customers warranty claims were handled with speed and authority, and unless there were indications of blatant abuse, make sure every claim was approved. Imagine that! The local 4 wheeling club also met at the dealership on Wednesday nights, and the owner of the dealership, wheeled with us in his own CJ.
Times sure have changed, haven't they!!!

Thats insane, $3300 for gears and bearings. You could do all plus a arb for less.

I think they are required to specify how they determined that the failure was caused by abuse, i.e. low lubricant level, bent housing, external damage from strikes, etc. Merely having a 2" lift and 33's isn't enough just by itself. Unless of course they automatically consider any deviation from stock as automatic 'abuse', but I've never heard of that being a policy.

I broke a rear shaft and drive it home 4 hours I was in a very remote location. Totally destroyed everything from the diff over. My dealer covered it with no questions.

That was fortunate for you. Is there a reason you didn't pull the driveshaft and drive home in 4WD (effectively front wheel drive)?

Take it to a different dealer.... Call fca customer support. Ask for a district rep to come look at it..

Problem with that is they flag your jeep in their system so the other dealer would have to get approval before doing warranty work from what i understand.

I had a similar experience to the OP. Jeep was a few months old and the rear locker broke. Has it towed to the nearest dealer. Before they even knew what was wrong they said the warranty doesn't cover it because it was modified and had been offroaded. It had 35s and i had just been on Slick Rock trail in Northern California. Hardly an extreme trail. It took a lot of arguing but they finally covered it. They had the Jeep for almost a month. They also flagged my jeep pretty much wasting my lifetime warranty.

Like @jdinny had said FCA has terrible customer service. I get the dealers aren't FCA but from my point of view they are in the same boat. It bugs me that they advertise the vehicle as being the ultimate off-road vehicle capable of doing the rubicon but claim you abuse the vehicle if you do. The Mopar parts website used to have a page that said something like "everything is easier on 37s" and sell you a 4 inch lift to run 37s. They didn't mention any other supporting mods to do it though.

I have two JKs. A 4dr and 2dr. But I don't think I'd buy anymore FCA stuff. I was in the market for a new car late last year. I thought about a hellcat but quickly decided against it. Didn't even bother to test drive. Went with a ZL1 instead. I'm sure that doesn't matter one bit to them but if they keep on doing business the way they do it'll catch up with them. I'm surprised they sell as many vehicles as they do with their reliability ratings but I'm guessing most people don't look at that when shopping.

Well the dealer is the one that contacted chrysler about your jeep. Chrysler did not just happen to see your jeep and say "no warranty".. Then again you really need to be honest with yourself and know that if you mod your vehicle beyond factory set-up then why should they cover a failure. Warranty is for factory defects only, not parts that are stressed beyond there factory limits. This goes for any car company, if you mod your zl1, add slicks, nos, etc and blow the transmission should it be warranty? If you put 37s, 4 inch lift, add a bunch of weight to a jeep that was not designed for it and go in the rocks should the diff, trans, suspension be warranty? The fact is the dealer called fca on your jeep, next time find a jeep friendly dealer, talk to the tech before you bring in your car, then make a decision on if you want them to service your vehicle. Although your mods should not of had any effect on warranty if all you have is rubicon wheels and tires unless there are signs of obvious abuse.

What if you live in a small town with only one dealer? or if you break down and have it towed to the nearest dealer? And neither are mod-friendly? I think there should be consistency. And I still don't like that they'll encourage you to off road and modify the Jeep but use that as a means to deny your warranty. They sell the very things you're saying are stressing the vehicles parts with no mention of any possible complications. https://store.mopar.com/accessories/...7072353AC.html

I get what you're saying, that there is some responsibility for the owner to do their homework first, but I still find it shady that FCA operates like this.

Maybe the price is for the whole axle assembly?

Not all that long ago, I took my jeep in for its second 5-year inspection for the lifetime warranty. After driving away, I received a call from warranty guy at the dealership saying that, even though it passed the inspection, the warranty was voided due to the lift.

Now that same dealership is running a new sales promotion on TV: they'll install a free lift and bigger tires with any wrangler purchase. I think it's a pretty good bet that the salespeople are not informing prospective customers about the warranty issues...

if the parts installed are made, sold and installed by a certified mopar dealer then mopar or the dealer are responsible for the warranty to stay valid. Get a statement saying the mods will not void your warranty on dealer letterhead and file it away for your records.. This is not that hard people, cya!

And dealer letterhead means something to the corporate bean-counters? The issue is that most new customers won't know about what's been going on. So if they get into that situation, they'll have the dealership making a warranty claim to corporate, corporate denying that claim, and the dealership being on the hook for costs that they certainly won't want to pay. It will turn into a huge time-waste with both sides looking for ways out and the customer sitting around for weeks waiting to see what happens. As was mentioned earlier, there need to be much clearer guidelines on how these issues are handled, not case-by-case and dealership-by-dealership and the whims of regional guy on that particular day..