NHTSA Complaint #11557811 — 2011 JEEP WRANGLER

The check-valve nipple on the gas tank of my 2011 Jeep Wrangler is broken. You can see it and smell the gas vapors leaking from this nipple. The vehicle has 86K miles. The Jeep failed our Delaware state inspection because the check engine light came on. The Jeep smells like gas and in addition to harmful vapors, it is a serious safety issue and an explosion danger. Two service stations attempted to fix this without success. The error code is P0455 for an emissions leak. The most recent service station ordered several previously-owned Jeep gas tanks but they all had this same failure. They next ordered a new gas tank from Jeep which was out of stock for several months, indicating they can not keep up with the demand for these failing nipples. When the new gas tank finally came in, this same nipple was broken and this was a brand new gas tank. If you go on line, you will see this is a common problem and a safety issue. As a former engineer for Ford Motor Company, it is clear Jeep has a design flaw that will break and cause a safety risk to customers. The material is wrong for this application, and there is not enough strain relief where this nipple is located. It will inevitably break on all Jeeps at some point in time causing this safety risk. I told the service station that there is no reason to replace the gas tank because this nipple will simply fail again. They have other Jeeps they are working on with this same problem so had no problem canceling my service request. Please address this problem with Jeep before someone is injured or killed.