Safety Software Update Fails In Thousands Of Vehicles

Today’s vehicles aren’t the solid pieces of well-oiled machinery of your grandfather’s generation. They’re more like a desktop computer under the hood that happens to have a lot of heated moving parts and hoses. Unfortunately, they’ve got the same vulnerabilities and flaws that those computers are subject to. The key difference is that your laptop isn’t likely to launch itself off the desk and smack you in the head, leaving you to die of concussion on the floor.

But that’s apparently what happened to Anton Yelchin, actor in the recent Star Trek iterations, when his Jeep rolled down his driveway and pinned him, resulting in his death. The fault has been linked to faulty software that powers the gear shift in over one million Chrysler vehicles; Yelchin’s family and a number of other drivers have filed complaints that led to a recall of several different models.

However, the software update that Chrysler issued didn’t resolve the transmission issue in more than 20,000 vehicles due to what their engineers believe is a specific combination of components in those cars. The issue the update sought to resolve involves a new feature in Chrysler vehicles: if the driver opens the door, the vehicle will automatically shift into park. The complaints that led to the recall stemmed from drivers claiming they couldn’t tell their cars were actually in park, or from incidents where the vehicle was still moving. In some cases, the car was in park but the indicator light said it was not, while in other cases the “park” indicator was lit but the vehicle was not actually in park.

While Fiat Chrysler is certain that no accidents have occurred in the vehicles where the software update didn’t work, those owners are being asked to return the cars to their local dealerships for another software update to correct the issue.

At FileHippo we can’t update your car, but we can offer you the latest software and web app updates – right here.