Vehicle Safety News

"The design is so bad that Chrysler frequently settles lawsuits without extensive discovery and subject to confidentiality agreements," the letter said.

A consumer group has lodged a petition urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to recall a decade's worth of Jeep Grand Cherokees, saying versions of the vehicle that have the fuel tank located behind the rear axle pose a serious danger to drivers. In a letter dated Friday, the Center for Auto Safety asked the NHTSA to initiate a defect investigation and recall all of Chrysler's 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees with fuel tanks behind the rear axle.

According to CAS, Grand Cherokees made between 1993 and 2004 are particularly hazardous because the fuel tanks in those models are made of plastic and extend below the rear bumper, so there is nothing to protect the tank in the case of a direct hit in a rollover or by a vehicle with a low front profile.

The fuel system in the models in question "is defectively designed in that it contains a plastic fuel tank subject to rupture, degrades in performance over time, [has] a fuel filler neck that tears off in a range of crashes, [creates] a hostile environment with sharp objects such as suspension bolts that can puncture the tank, extends below the bumper and is unshielded," the letter said, although it added that Chrysler does offer optional off-road "skid plates." According to the group, NHTSA's files indicated that there were 172 fatal fire crashes with 254 fatalities for the Grand Cherokee models in question between 1992 and 2008. In comparison, after a total redesign of the fuel system following the merger of DaimlerChrysler and Mercedes in 2005, there was only one fatal fire crash in a Grand Cherokee, CAS contends.