All Investigations » Investigation EA02029

  Defect Investigation of Hood Latch Failure

Investigation of Hood Latch Failure

Subject: Hood latch failure
Components covered:
  • Latches/locks/linkages
  • Hood latch
  • Structure
Investigations Summary: This investigation was opened on Oct. 16, 2002. It was closed on Feb. 10, 2004. Odi opened ea02-029 to determine whether a safety-related defect trend existed in the my 1997 Jeep grand cherokee hood latch assemblies. During ea02-029, there was no specific failure mechanism identified that could differentiate the my 1997 vehicles from other vehicles containing this same hood latch assembly or could account for their higher complaint rate. As a result, odi expanded the scope of this investigation to include all grand cherokee vehicles equipped with the subject hood latch assemblies. In performing ea02-029, it was determined that some of the secondary hood latches in the subject vehicles may exhibit increased operating frictional resistance; however, since none of the primary hood latches showed any evidence of mechanical or operational deficiency and the complaint rate of hood fly-ups measured over an extended exposure time was low, a safety-related defect trend has not been identified at this time.
Vehicles Affected by this investigation:
  • 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee
  • 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee
  • 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee
  • 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee
  • 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee
  • 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee

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