2019 JEEP WRANGLER — Complaint #2176130
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:STEERING WHEEL /HANDLE BAR:HAND HEATER/COOLER filed February 12, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2176130 (ODI reference 11717516) concerns a 2019 JEEP WRANGLER and was filed on February 12, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 5, 2026. The vehicle had 82,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Indiana based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:steering wheel /handle bar:hand heater/cooler, 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 WRANGLER cohort independently describe similar steering:steering wheel /handle bar:hand heater/cooler 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 2019 JEEP WRANGLER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2019 Jeep Wrangler. While the contactâs wife was driving with the heated steering wheel activated, the driver attempted to adjust the steering wheel position, and suddenly an electrical short occurred, causing white smoke to come from the center of the steering wheel. The vehicle was immediately stopped, and the heated steering wheel and heated seats were deactivated. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The manufacturer and local dealer were notified of the failure, but no assistance was offered. The failure mileage was 82,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2176130 |
| ODI Number | 11717516 |
| Date Filed | February 12, 2026 |
| Failure Date | February 5, 2026 |
| VIN | 1C4HJXDG5KW |
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.