WEST CHESTER, OH — The idea of a problem with Jeeps didn't occur to Nancy Hiltman until she began an internet search after a Grand Cherokee burst out of her carwash, injured an employee and lurched into a street.
"We went online looking for information and found out this has been going on for some time,'' Hiltman told Professional Car Care Online™. "We had no idea this was going on.''
On June15, a 52-year-old employee, who has worked at Thunderbird Car Wash for the past 12 years, got into a 2006 Jeep — with less than 4,000 miles on it — to drive it off the conveyor. When he put the car in "drive," it accelerated out of the tunnel, smashed the open door of a Cadillac, squeezed between two other cars, jumped a curb and was about 75 feet down a street before he brought it under control, explained Hiltman.
A Thunderbird employee who was wiping down the inside of the Cadillac was injured when the car's door sprung back onto her leg.
Two days before that incident, the Connecticut state attorney general called for a federal investigation into problems with Jeep Grand Cherokees accelerating out of control and one day before, another Jeep rammed into the side of a sports club.
Doug Newman, a former International Carwash Association board member and owner of five washes in Connecticut, said he has been keeping track of incidents with Jeep Grand Cherokees.
"So far this year, it looks like there's been an average of one every 19 days," he told PCC Online™. "There been one in Detroit, Milwaukee, a couple in upstate New York.''
Daimler Chrysler, which makes Jeep, has said publicly that several studies have concluded "driver error is the only plausible explanation for sudden acceleration."
Newman disputed that claim. "If it were operator error, we would have equal rates (of accidents) with other makes and models.''
Earlier this year, the International Carwash Association began a program to collect information on all "sudden unintended acceleration" incidents at carwashes.
Hiltman said her employee, while shaken up by the incident, has returned to work. "We're not doing any more Jeeps,'' she said. "And our new policy is for every vehicle to be put into 'park' before it gets turned on."
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