I lease a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 2019, have had it since new and it has now done 50,000km. On December 28, I was driving it with my 10-year-old son on the Calder Freeway, towing our caravan. While travelling at 100km/h the car, without notice, switched itself off. I had limited brakes and steering but was able to get it to the side of the road. The car did not turn back on.
After some mucking around the car and van were towed to Ballan. I contacted Berwick Jeep and spoke to the service manager (I just want to say he has been amazing to deal with) and got it towed to his dealership.
After a couple of weeks, I was advised that the engine had seized and would need to be replaced under warranty. I was advised today that unfortunately one seal that they need was not in Australia and was on order from the USA. They expect the part to arrive in mid-March. This will mean we have not had the car for almost four months. I still pay the lease every fortnight and can't stop it.
It has been really hard with the hire car as we have had to borrow friends’ vehicles to tow the caravan when we went away for holidays. My wife is the main driver of the car and we have an 11-week-old baby. My wife is really scared that the car will turn off while she is driving and she will lose steering and braking also. She does not want to drive it now. What rights do we have?
Can I ask Jeep to be compensated for the lease payment? Can I ask to return the vehicle and have them payout the lease? Can we ask for it to be replaced? Should we be concerned it will break again; either the engine or something else? As I said Berwick Jeep have been really good, I just don't know what my rights are and if I can ask these things based on any legal basis?
There are two issues here. The first is that you’re paying a lease on a vehicle that isn’t functioning right now. There’s not much that anybody can do about that and it’s not really anybody’s fault. The disaster that is current global supply chains has meant that freight out of the United States is either moving at snail’s pace or not moving at all. Many Australians are waiting for bits and pieces from North America, all of which seem to be stranded on the dock in the US. Perhaps you could talk to your finance company about some interest-rate relief, but based on past experience, I wouldn’t be holding my breath there. And since it’s not Jeep’s fault that global trade is in such a state right now, I don’t think you’d do much good there, either. Nor is this a Jeep-specific problem; many car brands are having trouble sourcing repair and service parts.
As for the vehicle being replaced, on the face of it, I doubt that you have much of a case. If Jeep refuses to or cannot repair the vehicle, then you’d have grounds for a refund or replacement, but if Jeep believes that replacing the engine will fix the problem, then consumer law allows for that to happen.
The chances of the same vehicle having two engine failures seems pretty slim, so I wouldn’t be worried about it happening again. Don’t forget that there are any number of reasons (fuel pump, sensor, electrical problem, fuse, relay and a thousand more) for an engine to stop virtually in its tracks. Again, this is not a Jeep thing; all car-makers have experienced engines that for whatever reason have simple spluttered to a stop, often at speed on the highway.
When that happens, of course, you can lose the assistance to the power-steering and the braking system which is what your wife is concerned about. But it’s probably worth explaining that even though she would have to wrench the steering wheel with lots of muscle and really stomp on the brake pedal, even if the engine stops, she would still have brakes and steering. They just won’t be power-assisted. And even if she doesn’t think she’d be able to turn the wheel if that happened, adrenalin is a very powerful force on its own in such situations. And, again, the same thing could happen in any make or model of car.
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