Last fall, the CEL in my 2012 Wrangler Unlimited started to come on intermittently. A low tire pressure light came on about the same time. Pressure was good in all the tires so I assumed a sensor battery was bad. The code was a misfire on cylinder 6. Since both came on at the same time, I took it to the dealership to have them check the code. They verified the code, but never mentioned the service bulletin on the cylinder head. The told me it would take 5 days to diagnose it. Since 1) it was running fine, and 2) it's my wife's vehicle and she was planning to retire soon, and 3) I WAS NEVER MADE AWARE OF THE SERVICE BULLETIN, I assumed this would be an out of pocket repair, so I decided to hold off on having them diagnose it and avoid the logistical nightmare of not having a vehicle for 5+ days.
My wife is retiring next week so I started checking into how much this was going to cost and in my research, I found the service bulletin. The jeep is now four months over the 10 year mark, with only 75k miles. The dealership, and Jeep Care assistants all repeat the same line like parrots.
"Sorry, it's past the 10 yr warranty, there's nothing we can do..."
Last year, my 2016 RAM 1500 had two broken exhaust manifold bolts causing a tick. Of course, it was also out of warranty. The dealership wanted $1300 to do one side. Local exhaust shop did both with new manifolds and upgraded bolts for $700.
So here's the rub. RAM, ultimately Chrysler, was aware the exhaust manifold bolts were breaking. They even upgraded them in 2019, but never let owners know there was an issue and never made any effort to take care of the problem for those owners who experienced the issue. Likewise, Jeep is aware of the bad cylinder heads, and to their credit did extend the warranty, but never took the time to let owners know. Had I received the service bulletin, when I first noticed the CEL, or if the dealership had at least made me aware of it when I had the code checked initially, the repair would've been under warranty, but since they didn't want customers to know there was a problem to watch out for, I had to find out the hard way. Both of these issues are due to faulty parts. Not normal wear. Not due to anything I as the owner have done, but solely due to manufacturers using faulty parts, which they are aware of. Yet, owners get stuck paying for the repairs. I guess I'll be doing the work on the Jeep myself. I've owned three Jeeps and one RAM truck. They'll be my last Chrysler products, ever...

Moral of this story, join the forums and stay up to date on issues that other owners are having because the manufacturers are not likely to make you aware of an issue they may get out of covering if the owners isn't aware of it before it's too late.

 

No offense, but if you knew you had an active misfire on a vehicle that still probably had a good bit of resale value (2012 with less than 75k miles ?) that was kind of a failure on your part as well The dealership probably had no incentive to try and "hide" the service bulletin from you, or am i missing something? if you would have let them diagnose it and they determined that to have been the issue i'd assume you would have been made aware. Maybe not, but ultimately you choose to ignore a misfire CEL on your own vehicle

 

I hear ya, and don't think I'm not kicking myself for not researching it on my own earlier, but to say I ignored the CEL is not exactly accurate.
I did take it to the dealership and had them verify the code. I did ask what might be causing that intermittent code. Their answer was,"we won't know until we diagnose it."
Again, there was no ticking, no sputtering, no loss of power. The Jeep ran perfectly. The vehicle was 9 years old and was out of factory warranty. So this "diagnosis" was, as I said, going to require me to leave the Jeep for 5 days, and was obviously, as far as I knew, NOT going to be covered under any warranty. If the Jeep had still been under factory warranty, you bet I would've had them diagnose it. So, no, I wasn't going to leave the Jeep and pay $1500 for a diagnosis, when I had no reason to believe it would be covered under warranty and it was not symptomatic in any way. Again, had the manufacturer sent owners the service bulletin, or had the dealership advised me of the service bulletin, WHEN I ASKED THEM ABOUT IT, then absolutely, I would've had the work done. It would've been nice to have know the warranty had been extended to 10yrs or 150k so I would've know there was an issue to watch out for. Maybe I'm asking too much of them?
Again, the low tire pressure light came on also, but after checking the pressures and verifying they were all good, I also didn't immediately have the sensors replaced. I will replace them when I put on new tires, which will be a while. I assume most owners would do the same.
I drove a 2005 JK with a CEL code for bad 02 sensor for nearly five years. Never ran rough, no loss of fuel mileage. I guess I'm old school. We drove and maintained our vehicles every day and as long as there were no weird noises, rough running issues, or reasons to believe something was wrong, we didn't pay to have them diagnosed.

 

These last 2 sentences shed a lot of light as to the real reason you find yourself in your current situation. Good luck with the wife's Jeep, i hope it all works out

 

This one sounds like an unfortunate series of events. I do not feel like dealership purposefully withheld some information from you and their request to proceed with diagnosis makes sense to me, at which point they probably would have had all signs pointing to the TSB. It is a service bulletin and not a safety recall so the automakers are not required to notify owners, so there is no real fault there either. If I walked into a dealership with a misfire I would not expect some service tech tell me "oh, well we have this TSB so that will be the first thing we look at, can we get started?" I'd expect pretty much the same thing you got...."we need one of the mechanics to diagnosis this and will get back to you. Can we get started?" On the flip side your logic and thinking that it was out of warranty and would be an out-of-pocket expense, combined with the idea you figured you'd address it when your wife retired in a couple months isn't the craziest thing either. Had you joined any of the forums in the last decade there is no doubt you would have randomly run across that pertinent information. It's all just unfortunate timing and circumstances.

 

The timing is unfortunate, no doubt. Although I would think a service tech would at least advise an owner of a service bulletin and extended warranty on a known issue when the owner asks, "what might be causing this code? The vehicle is running fine and doesn't seem to have a misfire." That is exactly why I don't trust dealerships. I found a law suit filed in MO due to Chrysler refusing to honor the extended warranty's on those cylinder heads in some vans. I guess dodging any liability is more important than customer service.
That being said, the Jeep is still running great, so, when I'm ready, I'll do the diagnosis on the plugs and coils myself. I have a good mechanic that can do the cylinder head if it is actually is the problem.

 

Sorry to read of your situation; manufacturers , all products, issue "limited warranties" which have specific expiration criteria. Should manufacturers provide some type of assistance after the warranty expired then that is GOOD WILL and decisions are based on that individual specific product. In this instance FCA issued a stated expiration time frame a specific component beyond the original Limited Warranty. It is unfortunate for you that your Jeep is beyond the time frame. You could reach out to JEEP:

We have advisors available by phone or chat on Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. - 11 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

877-426-5337
Jeep Customer Care
PO Box 21-8004
Auburn Hills MI 48321-8004

 

Jeep issued that information to who? If they didn't issue that information to the owners, and service techs didn't share that information with owners who were experiencing issues, exactly how would owners know their 9 year old vehicle was still covered under the warranty?

As I said in the first post, I've reached out to Jeep. Their answer was, "Sorry, it's beyond the warranty. There's nothing we can do." I guess "Good Will" was not an option after 4 months, despite me taking the Jeep to the dealership about this issue a year ago.

 

I still don’t understand why you are getting yourself twisted over a potential fix that you don’t even know would have solved your issue in the first place. You said you were “ old school” and didn’t pay for diagnostics anyway so if that’s the case how would anyone know what your issue is and whether or not it would have been covered in the first place? It sounds like that even right now you don’t know the cause of or fix for f the specific problem

 

Doesn't really matter if you understand. The post was for people who have had a similar issue. You obviously haven't. Apparently, there are quite a few, and it seems a few have had to fight with dealerships to take care of the issue. How do you think I found out about the TSB? How do you think I found out about the bad cylinder heads? How do you think I know other people have had to argue with dealerships about it? Posts like this, on this forum.