A software update to Jeep 4xE models caused major malfunctions over the weekend – leaving many owners stranded and some in danger after their power failed.

The culprit appears to have been a buggy "over the air" (OTA) software update to the company’s uconnect software on Friday October 10, which “bricked” vehicles if owners installed it.

A Jeep customer support representative on a 4XE forum posted Saturday: “Please exercise extreme caution this evening if you have completed the update. If you have NOT completed the update and see the pop-up, please continue deferring..."

Posting as “Kori”, they told Jeep customers on the forum that the issue was “a telematics module box update” – and later added that the software update was cancelled the same day.

But not before multiple users across the US had updated their vehicles and suffered the immediate consequences.

Jeep software update issue

Some described losing power abruptly whilst driving in the wake of the update. One Jeep owner, Kerry Hollis, who works in IT infrastructure at Wells Fargo, told The Stack: “This was a software change that obviously wasn’t tested thoroughly and was dangerous and could have had life safety implications. 

“Fortunately, for me, I lost propulsion while going at low speed in my neighborhood, so I was able to pull over, restart and limp back to my home. I’ve read stories of others that weren’t in that situation, going at highway speeds, and in traffic...

"Stellantis reacted quickly but it shouldn’t have happened..."

He added: It’s concerning... that most auto manufacturers and new vehicles even have the ability to be disabled by the manufacturer or even worse, someone with a malicious intent.”

Jeep describes unconnect as software that “gives you access to the latest available features and enhancements. Updates can be performed over any password-protected Wi-Fi network. Select vehicles with connected service capabilities are eligible for over-the-air updates,” it adds. (The software can also be found in other marques from parent company Stellantis, but it appears only Jeep brands were affected by this update.)

See also: Ford eyes $1B in software sales

Another owner, Stephen Gutowski, owner of the reload.com news site, told The Stack: “On Friday night, my 2024 Jeep Wrangler Willys 4xe asked me to run an update when I got back home. I clicked ‘yes’ without really thinking about it.

"What's the worst that could happen, right? 

He added: “Well, the next morning, I saw posts on the 4xe Facebook group I'm in that the update essentially bricked the 2024 Wranglers. I'm glad I saw that before I went out to my Jeep because I was prepared for something to maybe be wrong and did a test drive in my parking lot …”

“Sure enough, after driving maybe a half mile around my parking lot, the Jeep killed the gas and told me to put it in park. The dash lit up like a Christmas tree. The check engine light came on. Worse, it refused to go back into drive. It was just dead where it sat… I was [eventually] able to limp it back to my parking spot. I called my local dealership and they said it was a nationwide issue on at least the 2024 Wrangler 4xes…”

"Pretty scary"

Gutowski added: “On Sunday morning I saw Jeep's messages in the 4xe forum and the fix was ota’d to my Jeep. So, I let my car run for 15 minutes and did two power cycles. The check engine light went away, and everything seemed to be working normally again. Took it for a test drive around the neighborhood, and it drove like nothing ever happened.”

“It seems like it could have been extremely dangerous if I hadn't read about the problem before taking my car out on the road… imagine if it went dead on the highway. Pretty scary. Honestly, this feels like more of a modern car problem.  I doubt this will be the last car to get bricked by an ota update. At least they were able to fix it with an ota update in a day.”

Posting on 4XE Forums, another Jeep owner going by “EmiK” wrote: “I just had to have my 2024 4XE towed to the dealer because it was having problems recognizing the gears, the CEL [check engine light] came on and it wouldn't drive.

"The dealer called me and said 4 others came in this hour.”

Another angry customer posted on the 4XE forum that “your negligence could have gotten me and a thousand others killed. 

“Wranglers are stopping dead on the HIGHWAY. the highway where most of us are doing 60+mph. dealerships are charging us over $200 for this. i am a marine corps wife, and we haven’t gotten paid due to the shutdown, so i can’t even afford to have them “look” at my car—plus, why should we, as owners, pay for your mess up? i would sue if i was in the position to do so. this lazy and unfinished update is leaving thousands of us stranded with a brick instead of a car. if someone dies from this, expect a damn big lawsuit—i’d be joining that.”

The Stack could not reach a Jeep dealership for comment.We have also contacted Jeep owner Stellantis for a comment.

Don't push to production on a Friday...

The company may want to closely read CrowdStrike’s post-mortem after a buggy software update from the cybersecurity company bricked over eight million Windows computers globally in July 2024, causing cancelled flights, hospital outages and banking errors, among other issues. 

CrowdStrike promised after the incident to roll out stronger software release controls/improve quality assurance. Among other pledges, it said it would start to “implement a staggered deployment strategy… in which updates are gradually deployed to larger portions of the sensor base, starting with a canary deployment…”*

*Editor's note: This is a fairly basic control and it is striking that so many organisations no longer seem to do this in their rush to push out software updates.

Affected? Have strong views on OTA software updates in vehicles or software QA? Work on uconnect and want to chat? Pop us an email or message via Signal on @Targett.11