2012 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE — Complaint #1557972
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING filed April 15, 2019
NHTSA complaint #1557972 (ODI reference 11197430) concerns a 2012 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE and was filed on April 15, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 29, 2018. The vehicle had 89,130 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Colorado based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE cohort independently describe similar steering failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2012 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
WE LOADED UP TO GO TO THE DESERT (CLEAR SUMMER DAY WITH TEMPERATURES NEAR 80 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT), STOPPED TO GET GAS AND ICE (JEEP WAS RUNNING THE ENTIRE TIME) AND ONCE WE GOT ON THE WAY THERE, THE BATTERY LIGHT CAME ON, THEN AN ODD SOUND WAS HEARD THEN WHITISH ELECTRICAL SMELLING SMOKE STARTED POURING OUT OF THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT, THIS HAPPENED WITHIN 8 - 10 SECONDS TOTAL). I GRABBED MY EXTINGUISHER AND POPPED THE HOOD AND SAW THAT THE SMOKE APPEARED TO BE COMING FROM AROUND THE ALTERNATOR AND STEAM WAS EVERYWHERE. I ALSO NOTICED THAT THE MOTOR WAS OVERHEATED (BUT NO TEMPERATURE LIGHT AND NO FANS WERE TURNING). WE TURNED AROUND AND MADE IT THE 3 BLOCKS BACK TO THE HOUSE WHEN THE JEEP DIED AND WITHOUT POWER STEERING AND BRAKES WE ALMOST COLLIDED WITH A PARKED CAR. WE PARKED IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET TO COOL OFF AND TO OBTAIN ASSISTANCE TO PUSH IT INTO MY GARAGE. IT WAS FOUND THAT MY ALTERNATOR HAD A DIODE THAT SHORTED TO GROUND. PLEASE ACTUALLY READ THE FOLLOWING: THERE A
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1557972 |
| ODI Number | 11197430 |
| Date Filed | April 15, 2019 |
| Failure Date | April 29, 2018 |
| VIN | 1C4RJFCT6CC |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.