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NHTSA closes book on Jeep 'trailer hitch' recall after all

After much debating and hand-wringing, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration now says it has "no reservations" with Chrysler's plan to recall certain Jeep Liberty and Grand Cherokee models over concerns that their fuel tanks, which are located behind the rear axle, could rupture or leak in the event of a rear impact. The longstanding argument between the two entities saw Chrysler openly defy the Feds after a request to recall 2.7 million units back in June.
Chrysler's "voluntary campaign" will instead see it recall 1.56-million 1993-2004 model year Grand Cherokee SUVs, along with 2002-2007 Liberty models. Affected vehicles will get a trailer hitch installed free of charge, which Chrysler says will provide an additional degree of protection for the fuel tanks in the event of a crash. Jeeps with Mopar-branded hitches or hitches that were installed at the factory aren't affected by this recall.
Chrysler's argument throughout this battle has been that the Jeeps in question are no more susceptible to fires than comparable vehicles from the same time period, a position that NHTSA has seemingly arrived at as well. "Those vehicles performed at a rate similar to their peers. That is the keystone analysis as to whether something poses an unreasonable risk to safety," said outgoing NHTSA boss David Strickland during an interview with the The Associated Press.

Chrysler recalls 468,700 Jeep Grand Cherokees, Commanders over rollaway risk

Chrysler has issued a recall covering a combined 469,000 units of the 2005-2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2006-2010 Jeep Commander (inset). Of that number, 295,000 are in the US, roughly 33,000 in Canada and Mexico and the remainder in other markets. It seems an electrical fault in the transfer case can allow the affected SUVs to shift into neutral on their own, while an Associated Press report says that Chrysler had "found cracks in a circuit board that turns the four-wheel-drive system on and off." The issue was discovered when an owner started his car remotely and it rolled away.
Chrysler is expected to begin notifying owners in June 2013, who can then take their cars to dealers. The dealer will reflash the final drive controller free of charge. There's a bulletin from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration below with more information.

Chinese Jeep production confirmed with Fiat, Guangzhou agreement

Fiat has just finalized a deal originally set up in January between it and China's Guangzhou Automotive Group to bring Jeep production to China. It remains unclear which models will be built, although we're wagering that it'll be the 2014 Cherokee. What we do know, now, is where production will take place.
According to Automotive News, Guangzhou originally wanted production to take place in its home assembly plant in its namesake city. Fiat has battled to send production to a joint venture facility established between Guangzhou and Fiat in the town of Changsha. The joint facility won out, and now the factory, originally built in 2010 with a 140,000-unit capacity, will see Jeeps rolling out of it.
Currently, the GAC-Fiat factory produces the Fiat Viaggio, a jointly developed product that is closely related to America's Dodge Dart. And while it remains unclear as to which model will join the Viaggio on the assembly line, that model is understood to ride on Fiat's Compact platform. The only Jeep to share those underpinnings is the new Cherokee, so there's not much connecting of dots needed to see why this scenario would make sense.