Good morning. This is Saul here at Saul’s AUTOTEK and we’re going to do a quick follow-up about these Jeeps and this death wobble problem that we’ve been facing.
Now a lot of you’ve been watching our videos and trying to learn as much as you can about the issue here and we’re trying to be able to provide the best information, the most up-to-date, front-of-the-edge so that you can be as prepared as possible.
We’re still seeing vehicles as early as 2017s coming in with death wobble issues. We’ve learned a few additional components that we’re seeing caused the failure early to help prevent from you seeing major, major failures once the wobble occurs.
The steering gearbox on these vehicles has a very poor design. The metallurgy in it uses a Chinese-made metal that eventually deteriorates and instead of the actual teeth meshing tightly, the teeth harden, become thinner and therefore spaced apart. And instead of meshing nice and smooth, physically have to travel a greater distance.
When this happens, you can hold that steering wheel tight as all get out, but the steering can still fight you and bounce against you as those teeth mesh are fighting. When this happens is what starts to allow the deterioration of ball joints, rod ends, control arm bushings, track bars, steering stabilizers and all kinds of joints in the front end.
We have found this to be the most common culprit to such an extent that FCA, who produces Jeep, has now increased the core charge on these steering gears by $300. What used to be buying a brand new gearbox from the dealer for anywhere from $400-$700, they’ve now added a $280 core charge on because they know how fast and how common these steering gears are failing.
The steering gear failure on them is so pronounced, in fact, that they don’t have any in stock. When we called today and said we needed one they said,
“That’s on national back order. No one in the country has it and we don’t have an ETA.”
Well, that’s not acceptable. You need to drive your car. We need to get you on the road.
So we partnered with an independent power steering specialist here in Denver that rebuilds our gears in-house for us, so that we can get you back on the road immediately. We use a 4340 Chrome-Moly gear set so that it will not fail the same way ever again and we guarantee the product for life.
So if you’re having a problem getting your gearbox out from the dealership or trying to do the service yourself, give us a shout. We can definitely help and help prevent the further and more expensive failures that these see.
At the same time, we’re going to be talking here shortly because we recently found out that 2012 to 2016 Grand Cherokees with independent front suspension are starting to exhibit the same conditions. These vehicles are now getting old enough, the suspensioners are wearing enough, that we’re seeing death wobbles come in from solid beam axles and independent front axles.
Give us a shout here at Saul’s AUTOTEK at (303) 919-7769 for the best fix for your Jeep Death Wobble in Denver, Colorado.
If you’ve got a Wrangler that you think might be getting loose, getting wiggle, or getting wobble or if you’ve got a newer Grand Cherokee and you think something’s out of the ordinary, we need to look at it soon. The repairs on those can be very, very costly and we definitely want to make sure we nip it in the bud.
Give us a call here at Saul’s at (303) 919-7769. Stay smooth.
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