Watching the Jeep "Stall Bug"

As I've referenced in several previous posts, the 2007 Jeep Wrangler (JK) has a serious issue with stalling at highway speed. Basically, the vehicle cuts out (losing engine power, power steering, power brakes, radio, lights, etc) for around 2-5 seconds, and then everything comes back on as if nothing happened. Depending on one's traffic situation, this could obviously be quite dangerous.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now investigating complaints on this issue. Their press release cited 53 complaints, but it's obvious from reading the several Jeep online forums that the problem is much more widespread than that, affecting a large percentage of the JK population. It appears that many JK owners have taken the power blips in stride, without turning the occurrences in to their dealers or the NHTSA.

Some new posts to www.jk-forum.com have me hopeful that a solution has possibly at long last been found. A poster said that he called several different dealers in his area and all said the throttle control harness needs replaced. With several dealers apparently on the same page, it seems that corporate is finally engaged in fixing the issue. Hopefully we will see a resolution here in the next several weeks.

This is important to me because, while I have hopefully found my car, the Wrangler TJ market has dried up around here. My dealer in Indiana isn't finding any on the auction circuit, and I'm finding no good candidates at the local dealers or on the internet search engines (in the home of Jeep, no less). The JKs have been out for nearly a year now, and in less than a month the plant down the street will be cranking out 2008s. This means that, since the corporate auctions are typically made up of late model vehicles, I might have to get a JK in order to get the features and low mileage I desire. If this turns out to be the case, I'm optimistic that most of these annoying first-year bugs will have fixes by the time I get one.