2011 Jeep Patriot Latitude X Sport Utility 4-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

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Chrysler recalling hundreds of thousands of Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander SUVs

The public might associated ignition switch recalls with General Motors - and with good cause - but that's not the only automaker calling its vehicles back in to fix that sort of issue.
Last month we reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was investigating an array of Chrysler Group vehicles for electrical-related safety issues. The administration and Chrysler subsequently issued a recall for 700,000 Dodge Journey crossovers, Dodge Grand Caravan minivans and Chrysler Town & Country minivans. But while the Jeeps that were also under investigation were not covered in that recall, they are being addressed in a separate one now.
Although Chrysler reports that it is only aware of a single accident stemming from this issue, it is "committing now to conduct a recall out of an abundance of caution." The recall affects the 2006-2007 Jeep Commander and 2005-2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee, of which it reports there are 792,300 on the road: 649,900 in the United States, 28,800 in Canada, 12,800 in Mexico and a further 100,800 outside of North America.

Jeep Cherokee faces on-sale delay

A report in The Wall Street Journal looks at some of the obstacles to the 2014 Jeep Cherokee that go beyond its mootable yet "very contemporary" looks, almost all of them based on Fiat's financial position. Starting with that sheetmetal, in defense of it SRT president Ralph Gilles and Jeep design head Mark Allen said they wanted to "make sure the design still looks modern five years from now."
The WSJ piece doesn't cite longevity as a factor, instead saying that its features originated in a design for an Alfa Romeo, the transformation into a Jeep design meant allowing Chrysler get it to market more quickly and save "hundreds of millions of dollars" in engineering.
The need for Fiat to save money while it weathers the European situation has cut budgets for development, engineering and the pace of retooling the Toledo, Ohio plant to build the Cherokee. In a familiar case of snowballing at work, among the effects will be pushing back the Cherokee's volume sales date and delaying updates to some of Chrysler's other products.

Watch this Jeep Willys return to its birthplace after 70 years

Earlier this month, a very significant Jeep was celebrated at the Toledo North Assembly plant. No, it wasn't the upcoming reincarnation of the Jeep Cherokee, but instead it was a 1943 Willys MB that visited the Toledo grounds where it had been built exactly 70 years ago to the day.
Of course, the actual building where the MBs rolled off the assembly line before heading to Europe for World War II no longer exists, but that didn't stop Italian owner Vittorio Argento from having the vehicle shipped to the US to make its trek back to its birth place. According to Chrysler, Argento's MB is still 95-percent original and it drove 1,000 miles from New Jersey to Toledo.
The whole adventure was chronicled on a blog aptly named A Jeep Comes Home. Scroll down for a brief video from Chrysler and for some photos of the Toledo visit and be sure to read more at Argento's blog.