general problems of the 2013 Chrysler Town & Country

The contact owns a 2013 Chrysler Town & Country. The contact stated that while his wife was driving 55 mph, the vehicle inadvertently lost motive power. The driver was able to pull over to the shoulder of the roadway, where the vehicle was able to restart. After restarting the vehicle, the vehicle returned to normal functionality, but the failure became a regular occurrence. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who diagnosed a failure with the ignition switch. The vehicle was not repaired. After investigating the failure, the contact related the failure to NHTSA campaign number: 14v373000 (electrical system, air bags); but the VIN was not included. The manufacturer was notified of the failure, a case was opened, and the contact was referred to the NHTSA hotline for assistance. The failure mileage was 98,000.

The driver side headrest airbag deployed. No one was hurt, this was a replacement recall part from December 2023. This was supposed to be safe, what if I was driving my family and friends around and this happened? we don’t feel safe. I left a message with the dealer and am waiting to hear back. No one has inspected it this time yet. No warning signs.

I was enjoying holiday driving with family in my 2013 Chrysler Town & Country limited when suddenly a very loud pop was heard, with a forceful strike to the back of my head being felt. Alarmed & dazed for a moment, it was observed that my driver’s side active headrest had just exploded forward striking me on the back of my head. Once off the highway and stopped, I discovered that the active headrest had actually come apart. From the damage inside the exposed headrest, this catastrophic failure seemed to be mechanical in nature with root cause thought to be stress fatigue for the plastic casement. In other words, this active headrest did not just randomly “go off” from an errant srs command or an electronically manipulated trigger short. I observed the headrest’s metal latch pin to still be in the locked or reset position. Instead, the plastic assembly holding two (2) heavy coil springs ruptured unprovoked. When this happened, the front part of the headrest assembly rapidly propelled forward. Though the 2010-2016 Chrysler Town & Country active headrests are an integral part of the air bag or supplemental restraint system, this particular failure was not due to a srs control nor electrical malfunction. Rather, the plastic retainer struts surrounding the metal latch pin failed. Being that my head and neck were static in position with a small amount of clearance from the front face of the headrest, the propulsion of the headrest forward caused quite a sharp smack to the back of my head. This led to some residual neck strain for the balance of the day. I have not experienced any repercussions since that day of the incident, but I do believe this to be a safety issue for others who may be more age or physically compromised. I’ve found through mopar tech forum and dealership research that the 2010 - 2016 active headrest failure is not rare, but more and more common to the Chrysler make. Please advise. Thank you so much.

The passenger side headrest popped open without any impact. It has been inspected by a mechanic who stated that this was not normal for this to happen. The headrest contains an airbag.

The contact owns a 2013 Chrysler town and country. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed, the air bag warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer where it was diagnosed that the wiring harness underneath the seat had fractured, which could cause the air bags not to deploy during a crash. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure; however, no assistance was provided. The failure mileage was approximately 120,000.

The passenger front seat head rest deployed on its own. It looks like a plastic pin inside the headrest broke and popped open by itself!!!! this is very dangerous. I should not have to pay for this dangerous manufacture defect!!! the vehicle was never in a accident!!!!.

Passenger side headrest airbag deployed into back of passenger’s head while the vehicle was moving at a slow rate of speed, approximately 25 mph on school/residential street.

I have written an email today customerservicesinternational@fcagroup. Com; communication@stellantis. Com, investor. Relations@stellantis. Com about the following issue on my 2013 town and country touring. I am hoping they will respond to my request ASAP. Here is the note (minus the personal details): on July 27, 2021, I went to my driveway and saw that something was amiss with the driver’s headrest. It seemed to have deployed for no reason. I googled this and learned that it is a defective active head restraint (ahr) system in many Chrysler vehicles, where the plastic breaks off and the headrest deploys unexpectedly when the car is not involved in an accident. I went to have a closer look and sure enough, the plastic piece in the headrest had broken off, causing the headrest to deploy. Because the plastic is broken, I cannot get the headrest to go back into place. This is definitely a defective part in the manufacturing of the vehicle. I am lucky that I was not driving at the time as I am sure it would have given me whiplash on top of the shock of having something like that explode behind my head which could have caused an accident. I read online that there are several class action suits in process for this exact issue against fiat Chrysler automobiles. I don’t necessarily want to take part in the law suit -- I just want to get this headrest fixed so that the car is safe to drive again. How can such an important component of the car just give away like that, time and time again, and not be a recall? there have been other recall issues on this car regarding the airbag -- but not this headrest, although I believe that fiat Chrysler is well aware of the issue. In any case, since it is not a recall issue, I am asking that you kindly extend my warranty to 10 years/unlimited mileage to cover this faulty headrest, and I will get it fixed as soon as possible. I am attaching pictures to show you the headrest, VIN, and odometer. Please rectify this situation. Thank you.

While driving straight on a city street at approximately 45mph, the passenger headrest airbag deployed. There was no collision, and I was not rear ended.

Parts in the headrest break and headrest popped forward hitting driver and passenger in back of the head the vehicle was stationery one time the second time it was moving on a rural highway.

Both headrests deployed involuntarily and unexpectedly when the ignition was being been turned off after I pulled in the my driveway. The van was stationary and there was no impact or cause for the deployment/. I was in the driver's seat the headrest hit the back of my head with force. We were unable to reset the headrests as the plastic clip holding the metal rod had broken on both headrests.

We were driving down the highway didn't hit anything and the headrest airbag deployed. We were starting to slow down to turn and the headrest airbag deployed.

Passenger front head rest exploded while cleaning. Stationary in garage.

Airbag stays on. Had it checked an reset. Came back on day later. Can be in motion or parked on my carport. Not on recall list.

On 8/15/19, my 2013 Chrysler town and country front passenger seat head restraint deployed without being involved in a collision. I was in the passenger seat riding under normal conditions on the city street at approximately 25 mph when the headrest popped out and hit me in the head throwing my head forward causing my hat and sunglasses to fly into the dashboard. My neck was sore for a day or 2 but I do not have lingering physical issues that I know of. I contacted Chrysler customer service via the mopar website chat and the customer service representative referred me to my local dealer which quoted me $700 to replace the defective headrest. Upon inspection, the thin plastic mount that retains the metal release bar crumbled causing the headrest to deploy. This is apparently an issue as I have read on car forums hundreds of accounts of this same issue happening to people with this same headrest. I have also read that there is a class action suit that has been filed against Chrysler for this. This is dangerous and could cause a fatal accident if a driver is hit in the head while driving.

I was driving down the road and the passenger headrest deployed. Fortunately no-one was in the passenger seat. Dealership says it is broken and since my car is out of warranty I have to pay to fix it. This is a major safety malfunction on the headrest.

While driving on a city street, the plastic bracket that holds the retaining rod in the 'active head restraint system' broke (passenger side), prematurely releasing the headrest. The headrest cannot be reset as intended by the manufacturer due to the nature of the break. Had this happened on the driver side, it could cause an accident.

Drivers passive restraint head rest exploded on it's own, car was sitting in a garage over night and next morning head rest had deployed. It seems there was a recall on the problem in June of 2013. Dealership says no recall. Cost $1000 to fix.

A year ago the front of the headrest on the passenger seat popped out while driving on a city street. I attempted to push it back in later but it would not stay. I recently learned that the piece that holds it into place was plastic, and it broke. I am now concerned with this happening on the driver side. In addition, the headrest cannot be repaired.

While driving down the road the passenger head restraint came up and hit my son in the back of his head. Not sure if it is part of the airbag system or the anti-whiplash system. Fortunately he was not seriously hurt. Cannot get the head restraint back in place.

The tipm is junk. I have taken 3 places to be checked and the fix is $1000 for a vehicle that has 37,400 miles on it. It started after the original 36,000 miles of course. It will randomly not start in the mornings or after it sits for 8 hours. It's awful. It's become a vehicle that you can't trust.

My husband was driving down a straight road and all the air bags on the passenger side of the van deployed for no apparent reason. Police came to the scene and made an incident report which notes that there is no damage to the outside of the vehicle and did not find any reason why the air bags should have deployed.

Steering wheel controls including the horn and possibly the steering wheel air bag are intermittent. >>so far on three separate occasions while stopped & driving all electrical parts of the steering wheel have just quit for a day or two and then for no reason begin working again. Unfortunately every time it goes dead and we arrange to take it in for service it starts working and the dealer says they can't do anything unless it is completely broken and not intermittent. Since Chrysler minivans have been recalled in the past for this "clock spring" problem, Chrysler should authorize replacement of this known safety defect (no horn or airbag intermittently with out warning) without being required to do so by the government. I guess I could authorize the dealer to replace the known intermittent clock spring at my own expense and then hope that sooner or latter the recall is expanded to include the 2013 model year. Or I can hope it quits long enough to be taken to the dealer with dead electrical parts on the steering wheel before my 36 month/36,000 mile warranty runs out this June . I attempted to turn the wheel while stopped and while driving to both get it working again when not working and also to get it go go dead again at the dealer when it was working but the intermittent problem does no seem to have any pattern of be effected by steering wheel movement. The third time it quite was Saturday night 9 Jan 2016 and began working on Monday 11 Jan 2016 on the way to the dealer.

Driver and front passenger air bags(seat headrests) exploded and smacked with significant force into the back of driver and front passenger heads causing severe headaches. No accident, no braking, just driving at 50 mph. We have only 18000 miles on our vehicle. When we took it to the local Chrysler dealer, and after they did some research for approximately an 1 1/2 hours, they had no idea what had caused both headrests to explode but they could not just be relocked because they were severely damaged and we could not drive the car. They told us that we would be without our vehicle for at least three weeks. Told us we would have to get a rental car. Please confirm other incidents of this nature and let us know what repairs will be done and if the car will be safe to drive following the repairs.

Rented a minivan from avis at slc airport late July 2013. On the highway immediately after leaving the airport my knee bumped the mass of keyring objects and turned the engine off as I was just getting up to 60mph. I noticed the vehicle slowing down and determined I had accidentally shut it down. It would not start. I shifted to neutral and restarted the engine, shifted back to drive. Only one of the 5 passengers even noticed the slowdown. Under different circumstances this could have resulted in an accident. If it is the practice of rental companies to bind keys like this the problem could be widespread and may have resulted in an accident already, thus this report. Given my experience I believe the practice of binding all the keys and other plastic doo-dahs with a stiff wire cable to be an accident in the waiting. In my case the seat was a little forward and I moved it back a couple of inches to avoid having the keys dance on my knee as we drove. At a stop I cut the wire ring and put all the extras in the glove compartment and continued the trip with a single fob-key. The keys: I was given set of keys bound by a wire cable. Two fobs, two spare keys (normally inserted in the fobs) , three plastic add-ons (one held a paper slip identifying the vehicle, one avis call number and one macys loyalty card) I have no issues with the vehicle as it worked fine, nor with the rental company as their service was also fine. I do take issue with the practice of binding the keys with a wire cable that must be cut (leather-man tool in my case) to drive safely. I suspect most renters will not have a tool handy nor risk the wrath of the renter in cutting the wire cable. Note I took a few pictures of the key ring and objects should it be useful. To avis credit they were happy to have all the keys returned and were not concerned I'd cut the cable.