Going to Arbitration for buy back

[Jeepbeep123]

I almost signed over the weekend to buy a gladiator. Was thinking of buying by the end of the month. This is making me want to stay away. So many people tell me jeeps are unreliable. Really making me want to back out. Are these issues mainly for manual transmission???

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[Rezurekt1981]

Doug - good luck on Thursday. I went through a lemon law complaint in MD with FCA on my Gladiator this past February, resulting in a vehicle swap and a 7 year extended warranty on the new Gladiator at no additional expense. It wasn't fun, but it worked out.

Comments:
1. Did you follow your state's notification requirements completely, including return-receipt confirmation on your letter? In MD, FCA has 30 days to attempt to repair the vehicle following receipt of your written notification.

2. Did you contact your states AG's office to see if they can be of assistance in supporting you? We did get contacted back by our State's Attorney General's (AG) office offering to assist us, but by that time we had negotiated on our own. We dealt directly with the dealer and FCA, we did not have an arbitrater.

3. In MD, the settlement offer from FCA includes your attorney fee reimbursement, BUT that only means that while they're obligated to pay for your attorney if you win, the most likely outcome is that it just comes out of your settlement and you have less money in your pocket. If you can't negotiate a deal that works for you, maybe it's time to get an attorney involved, but know your state's rules about the fees.

4. If sounds to me like you have met NC's criteria for a full buy-back given they've had the vehicle for more than 20 days out of the first 12 months. I don't believe at that point it matters how many times they have tried to fix a component or how many different components have broken - it's a lemon and you can require a buy-back at full value, less a nominal fee per mile driven (again, state law varies slightly, see if the AG can confirm for you). Don't get tricked into taking a low valuation as a trade-in on a new vehicle.

5. Definitely walk in with your timeline and your documentation well structured to state your case. Make it as easy as possible for them to agree with your claim and see how you've met the lemon law requirements. For example, don't make them add up the dates that the vehicle was in the shop, have that already done for them.

6. Know your minimum acceptable offer in advance. If you know that you want another Gladiator, know what you want back from FCA to be willing to trade this one in (which they want). For me, I wanted the extended 7 year warranty with no deductible, which I got.

Thanks for the info.

Ye

I hear ya, and don't blame you one bit. Good luck and keep us posted!

Just reached out to Jeep Cares, and sent an email to a manager. Lets see if this gets their attention.

 

[Rezurekt1981]

I almost signed over the weekend to buy a gladiator. Was thinking of buying by the end of the month. This is making me want to stay away. So many people tell me jeeps are unreliable. Really making me want to back out. Are these issues mainly for manual transmission???

If you look through the forums, you will find topics of problems and issues. Im not going to bash Jeep , but I will say that if you buy a jeep and start having issues, don't expect them to do the right thing.

 

[Rezurekt1981]

I almost signed over the weekend to buy a gladiator. Was thinking of buying by the end of the month. This is making me want to stay away. So many people tell me jeeps are unreliable. Really making me want to back out. Are these issues mainly for manual transmission???

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/forums/issues-repairs-warranty-tsb-recalls.30/

 

[kelkolb]

I almost signed over the weekend to buy a gladiator. Was thinking of buying by the end of the month. This is making me want to stay away. So many people tell me jeeps are unreliable. Really making me want to back out. Are these issues mainly for manual transmission???

Things like this happen and they're very unfortunate. Especially in times of economic crisis, a manufacturer isn't going to do the right thing for the customer. They're going to do what's best for them.

FWIW, I've had mine for almost a year and 11k miles without a single issue of any kind and it's been on some good trails 5-6 times.

 

[Jeepbeep123]

Things like this happen and they're very unfortunate. Especially in times of economic crisis, a manufacturer isn't going to do the right thing for the customer. They're going to do what's best for them.

FWIW, I've had mine for almost a year and 11k miles without a single issue of any kind and it's been on some good trails 5-6 times.

I guess it's just a matter of getting bad luck! I think they should make it right immediately. Can it be so hard to just trade him for another one!

 

[PyrPatriot]

4. If sounds to me like you have met NC's criteria for a full buy-back given they've had the vehicle for more than 20 days out of the first 12 months.

That's the crappy thing about KY's lemon law: it's 1 year or 12k miles, whichever comes first. I'm hit 15k miles within 6 months, but thankfully no issues yet.

 

[kelkolb]

I guess it's just a matter of getting bad luck! I think they should make it right immediately. Can it be so hard to just trade him for another one!

When a vehicle is bought back, the vehicle's title is notated that it was a manufacturer buyback. Once that's done, it's probably more difficult to sell than a salvage title. They'd much rather keep trying to fix it to save the cost of trying to sell it again later.

 

[PyrPatriot]

When a vehicle is bought back, the vehicle's title is notated that it was a manufacturer buyback. Once that's done, it's probably more difficult to sell than a salvage title. They'd much rather keep trying to fix it to save the cost of trying to sell it again later.

They could give it to an employee as a company car, problems and all?

 

[wvyankee2]

My question to anyone who has been through this process is what is the likelyhood of FCA actually buying back my truck? What was offered to you in your situation and what can I negotiate?

It's been awhile, but I had GM buy back a 1987 IROC Z-28. The arbitrator will want to see all receipts from repairs. My case was a single issue they couldn't resolve. I wanted a new replacement vehicle. The GM Rep offered to let me drive a new Z-28 in showroom until they figured out what was wrong with mine. After 7 months and 11 attempted repairs already, I declined, Arbitrator ruled they had to buy it back for what I paid for it.

 

[Casique]

That's why I like leasing, if its a turd, its theirs at the end of the lease!

 

[obrianmcc]

I almost signed over the weekend to buy a gladiator. Was thinking of buying by the end of the month. This is making me want to stay away. So many people tell me jeeps are unreliable. Really making me want to back out. Are these issues mainly for manual transmission???

Every manufacturer has similar stories ....

 

[bangolia]

I have gone through the Lemon process in NC here is my story:

• To start off, I am in no way violating any NDA as I was not required to sign anything stating I could not share my experiences.
  
  
• As stated above an NC Lemon case qualify if:
  • You are in the shop for more then 20 days in the fist 2 years in a 12 month span for any number of issues OR
  • You are in the shop at least 4 times for the same issue OR
  • You have a safety issue or an issue that significantly devalues your truck
    
• I had a series of Electronic, Mechanical and Safety issues that resulted in my truck being in the shop for anywhere form 28 -36 days depending on how you calculate days (Holidays, Saturday half days, and Closed Sundays).
  • I had a persistent leaky engine, resulted in 3 trips to the dealership - eventually fixed.
  • I had a loose steering box that resulted in 4+ trips to the dealership, the service manager said it was one of the worst he had seen however Jeep would not let him fix it.
  • My ACC and ASS disabled at speeds over 45 MPH. after 7 trips to the dealership (each time they thought they had it fixed) they blamed my larger tires. I sourced OEM takeoffs and put them on and the issue was still there. They claimed it was because they were not the exact ones that came with my JT.
    • I eventually found the solution here on the forum... There was a STAR report for it. I guess I can do more research for a truck they are supposed to be experts on than they can.
  • My infotainment system and back up camera decided when it wanted to work. Eventually my Infotainment system was replaces the issue was still present with the back up camera however it was very infrequent so I stopped bringing it up.
  • My JT stalled out on sand (Manual hit soft sand in 2 hi) and failed to restart for 10+ minutes - Unexplained and could not duplicate so there was no service on this.
  • My soft top was one of the original soft tops and flutters at thigh speeds, Replaced after 4 service visits and STAR report was found for them.
  • Several other complaints on how the JT was left after the repair, I wont get into these.
    
• All in all I qualified for each reason a Lemon Law in NC could be triggered but Jeep didn't want to work with me.
  
  
• I sourced a Lawyer here in the triangle and they explained my options:
  
  • Arbitration - 50/50 chance of the independent reviewer to take my side. Jeep is bound by federal law to listen to their ruling and they are usually only able to either require buy back minus (amount of miles driven x your states mile value). In my case this was about $1700. If I chose this case he would set me up but I would represent myself and I would owe him nothing at he end.
    
    
  • Negotiation/Request for a buy back through a lawyer. He said that this is usually a 30/70 chance of getting a buy back/getting a settlement offer. He said there is usually a 1% chance they will choose to do nothing. In the event of a buy back they still deduct the mileage but in this case you can also negotiate extras like extended warranties/upgrades/payment for mods. If this happened, I would owe him 1/3 of the settlement amount or Jeep would pay the legal fees if a full buy back was granted.
    • Note if you reach a settlement, you do not have to label the truck as a lemon and you are free to do what you want with it, Pay down a loan, college fund, or use it to buy another truck.
      
  • Legal Litigation. This is usually only done if either of the above two are not met. This is costly and can take up to 2 years. He recommended I exhaust the other two option prior to this route.
• I choose option B and we submitted our request on his letterhead. He said they usually take their time in responding they have up to 60 days to reply.
  • It was like clock work at day 60 we had our first offer to settle of $4,000 this would result in me keeping roughly $2600 which would not cover my expenses. He responded back stating that was not enough and they had an additional 20 days to come back with a better offer.
  • Again like clock work on day 20 they came back with $7,000 resulting in 5K in my pocket. I asked if we could get more and he said maybe so again we sent it back.
  • It was at this time that the service center was stating it was my fault for the ACC errors (it was not) and FCA came back stating that and 7K is all they could offer.
• Here's the math:
  • Costs
    • MSRP - $54,000
    • Purchase price - Roughly $47,500 (includes TTL)
    • Appraisal - Jeep $41,500. We Buy Any Cars $44,000
  • Arbitration - we win, $46,500-1700(mileage) = $44,800 to buy a new car.
  • Accepted Offer - $5,000 + $43,500 (we buy any cars... DUH!) = $48,500 (positive $1,000)
  • Legal Litigation - No Need, very costly unless win 100%

Needless to say, I accepted the offer and purchased a new JT. It was the fasting built JT that I have seen to date being built, shipped and delivered in just over 3 weeks. I picked it up 1 day before the shelter in place happened in my area. I have almost 5K miles on it and I have seen no issues yet and it drives like it should! All in all, I am extremely happy with the outcome. The process was a pain in the ass but in the end I was made whole.

TLDR: I had a lemon, sought after legal advice and came out $1,000 ahead.

 

[RIPLER]

I almost signed over the weekend to buy a gladiator. Was thinking of buying by the end of the month. This is making me want to stay away. So many people tell me jeeps are unreliable. Really making me want to back out. Are these issues mainly for manual transmission???

I've had my Gladiator for over a year now with 13,000 miles on it and have had zero issues. Every vehicle has issues, I had my 2nd gen Titan bought back by Nissan without any troubles, in fact I came out way ahead. Sure you will see forums with people posting problems, but rarely will you see people posting about having zero issues.

 

[bangolia]

I’m sure this post is going to stir the pot, which is expected but I do have a legitimate claim that I am dealing with and would like to hear if anyone has been through the process and the results.

History:

Ordered custom JT Rubicon in August 2019 - Manual
Took possession October 2019
December 2019 Started having issues with noise in the transmission and clutch dropping out
February 2020 Noise became more aggressive
March 2020 Trucked was parked bc of noise, clutch recall
April 2020 Truck still parked waiting on W12 resolution
May 9th Truck went into shop for W12 recall, was picked up and had to go back into the shop for rear axle shaft replacement
(This truck is stock, not so much as a sticker was added)
Since the truck has been in the shop, several times I have been told the truck is ready for pick up. Upon picking it up, something different has gone wrong with it prior to even getting to the end of the road. Ring and Pinion in rear diff has been replaced along with the left rear axle shaft. Electronic rear locker stuck engaged and wouldn't disengage, since replacing the rear ring and pinion, the noise has subsided a lot but has not went away. Mechanics did see the issue with the bearings they took out that had what they described medium scaring.

None the less, this truck has been in the shop for about a month, has a lot of issues and now I have an arbitration date set for June 11th. My question to anyone who has been through this process is what is the likelyhood of FCA actually buying back my truck? What was offered to you in your situation and what can I negotiate?

How did it go?

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