Random electrical issues

[Sven55]

2023 Gladiator Willys 4,500mi. 2023 Jeep Gladiator Willy S Gas-Automatic Transmission.
Purchased new July 2023

strange electrical Issues
Over two days, these issues happened about 20% of the time. Nothing was consistent.

Start Issues: Happened 3 times in two days. Press Start(cab button), starts just fine. Cant Shift into Fwd or Reverse. Shut down, start again, everything is normal.

The second of these 3 events was after a remote start from the key fob. (yes I know I have to put my foot on the break and press start after a remote start). When I did this, the jeep just stopped. Restarting it resolved this remote start issue.

All three events were slightly different and I did not document exactly what happened as I thought the first two events were an anomaly thinking that a passenger door was ajar. The second time this happened I told my wife to open and close her door, then I restarted the jeep and everything was just fine. Ok, so maybe she was not closing her door correctly each time ?

There was actually a fourth event : I had noticed that you cannot shift into gear from Park if any door is open. The other day I intended to just move the jeep in the garage just one foot, so I did not bother to close the driver's door, I noticed that the jeep would not shift into drive with the driver's door open. This event seemed to really confuse the jeep and seems to force me to restart to continue, just closing the door did not help. Does this mean that if any door is just slightly open then the jeep wont drive ? If a door sensor is failing, does it mean that the jeep wont shift into drive ?

Yesterday 28Dec I got an automated text message from my dealer that said “Your Malfunction Indicator light is on. Call or text if you need assistance” . The jeep was in motion and working just fine at that very moment, but it had the “Fail to shift” problem hours earlier that day and I already had the first oil change scheduled the next day anyway, so I was not going to stop driving the jeep and call them. Last night I started it, seemed fine, but I noticed that the headlights were not on, it was dark and the head light switch was on but the lights were off. I shifted into reverse and noticed that I had no power steering! I had my wife recheck her passenger door, I put it back into park and restarted the jeep and drove home without any issues. So is it the door causing problem or something else?

Three months ago I was driving at night and everything seemed fine but the dome light would not go off, apparently a passenger had left a door slightly ajar and this caused the dome light to stay on. As I could not tell that the door was ajar, and could not reach the other doors from the driver's seat while moving I had to pull over and recheck every door. This seemed to solve the dome light issue. This tells me that the jeep should continue to drive and shift just fine if a door is not shut. Or maybe not ?

Update: After today's service visit, here is what I learned from the staff. Yes the jeep should stop you from shifting into drive when a door is not closed properly. But that does not always seem so. Service dept also found a bent pin inside the door connector so maybe the Jeep was getting a door open signal and not allowing me to shift from Park into drive. This was probably a factory defect since I have never removed the doors on this new vehicle and never unplugged them. Also, they ordered a new fuse box and will replace it when it arrives. So, time will tell if they got it right the first time. I did read here about loose fuses and relays and mentioned it to them which can cause all sorts of weird electrical issues. No idea if they really know whats going on or are they just throwing parts at it until it or I go away. Salesman did go to bat for me and got me bumped into their tight schedule.

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[Mr._Bill]

Do a search for Auto Park. It should also be covered somewhere in the Owners Manual. That will cover trying to drive it with the door open.

The rest of it will hopefully be solved when they replace the fuse box.

 

[Lunentucker]

There was actually a fourth event : I had noticed that you cannot shift into gear from Park if any door is open.

That's normal. Press the "P" button on the dash to override.

 

[Hootbro]

Yeah, you have something going on. The whole door lock/latch system and logic methodology is somewhat elaborate. One thing I noticed looking at the wiring diagram for it is that the drivers door latch has two door ajar sense switches, a primary and secondary. Makes me wonder if a mismatch of those two sense switches screws up the logic the BCM sees?

 

[Sven55]

That's normal. Press the "P" button on the dash to override.

I found a you tube video describing that ParkSense switch, it does not exist on my dash. In that spot is a double wide Duck button instead. Also my dash does hot have a "P" button. I ran an experiment today. I started the Jeep, put it in reverse with my foot on the break and had my wife walk behind the bumper, no errors, no messages, so maybe my Willys does not have that feature.

 

[DylanM]

ParkSense and AutoPark are two entirely different things. ParkSense is an option that is basically a collision warning system whereas AutoPark is a standard feature that automatically shifts the transmission into park under certain circumstances, mainly to prevent the vehicle from being left in gear when the driver opens the door to get out. While ParkSense can be disabled via a button, AutoPark cannot be disabled.

 

[sharpsicle]

That's normal. Press the "P" button on the dash to override.

This is not AutoPark but is ParkSense. This button turns off the parking sensors built into the rear of the truck. ParkSense will not stop the vehicle.

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