Fiat Chrysler Recalls 800,000 Vehicles for Confusing Shifter Design

they should fire a few engineers.....and hire a few morons to test drive their cars. they'd find out what the problems are a lot quicker.
 
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This is just bad design. Something as important as the shifter should provide redundant feedback. People drive cars full of kids and dogs and use the phone while they do it. I can believe that a designer is too obsessed with simplicity to know better, but a designer like that shouldn’t be working on complex stuff like cars. What really scares me is that multiple manufacturers use this design.
 
Yeah, people are idiots. I would have guessed FCA would have anticipated that and designed an automatic e-brake application to the shifter. I know Audi has a similar layout and incorporates the e-brake to the system.

Mercedes had some issues with the position of P D and N on the new E class cars a few years ago.
 
I'm guessing, after reading the article, that you push the lever up or back and when the gear you want lights up you push the button to select it then wait for it to engage?
 
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I rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee when I went to see my son in January. It had this same electronic shift mechanism , and although it was different, it didn't really take me long to understand and get used to it. Oh, and I never had it drive off as I existed the vehicle, either. I did sit in the rental parking lot for a few minutes while I figured out why it was different, but once I understood it, it was actually pretty cool.
 
My wife has a Grand Cherokee with that shifter. She is fine with it. It's not always obvious what gear you are in. I find it annoying along with the push button start as I only drive her Jeep on rare occasion. It's odd but I never really thought it was dangerous.
 
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I had never seen that particular shiver before now but it really doesn't seem very different from what has been used for several decades now...
Park at the top followed by reverse, neutral, and drive....it ain't that hard....
 
You wanna talk about a bad shifter design, look at the one in the Chevy Cruze. I had one as a rental last summer in Maui, and it was so irritating. The manual mode is located where you would normally expect "drive" to be so I kept putting it into manual shift mode without realizing it and revving the crap out of the engine when it didn't upshift.
 
I had a buddy in high school that drove an older F150 with a "three on the tree" shifter. Gebus that was ridiculous. I never got it. It was just stupid.

The first time I got into a brand new BMW 7 series with the iDrive system, it took me about ten minutes to figure out just backing up of the parking space. It took looking at the owners manual to finally get there. I don't remember exactly what the procedure was, but it was ludicrously complicated (selecting reverse and disengaging the parking brake) and there were no visual cues to guide you. There also wasn't an actual hardware device of ANY kind for the e-brake. No handle, no pedal... nothing. Whoever came up with that shit needs a kick in the taint.

Paddle shifter cars (especially early examples are just as bad. Trying to park some of them is nearly impossible.

I'm a known FIAT fanboi, but this too is just a bad idea, or at least a failed execution of a potentially good idea. It may work great, but if it confounds the driver in any way, it isn't a benefit at all. People don't like "change" when it comes to a lot of things. Even when it's a change for the better, there will be resistance. Lesson to car makers here should be a reminder of that fact and a call to make the adjustment from old to new as painless and easy to understand as possible. Just throwing it out there is a bad practice.

This comes down to a combination of many factors... yeah, people are morons, yeah, it's a shitty design, yeah, we are slow to embrace change. Pretty much a perfect storm of stupid.
 
OGG said:
I had a buddy in high school that drove an older F150 with a "three on the tree" shifter. Gebus that was ridiculous. I never got it. It was just stupid.
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I'm sorry, but it doesn't get much more simple than an old F150 with 3 on the tree.

I learned to drive in a '78 Chevy Custom Deluxe with 3 on the tree.

I was 12 years old.
 
Prages said:
I'm sorry, but it doesn't get much more simple than an old F150 with 3 on the tree.

I learned to drive in a '78 Chevy Custom Deluxe with 3 on the tree.

I was 12 years old.
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Me too! My dad's 70 Blazer, straight 6, 3 on the tree.

I'd love to pull it into a Big O and see if anyone there even knows how to shift one now.
 
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