Fiat Chrysler Facing Class Action Over Faulty Electronic Gearshifts

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FCA US LLC, known popularly as Fiat Chrysler, has been hit with a class action stemming from the installation of more than 800,000 allegedly defective monostable electronic gearshift systems in its vehicles. According to the 43-page complaint, the faulty shifter, dubbed the ZF Shifter after its supplier ZF Friedrichshaffen AG, fails to consistently shift the transmission into the desired gear, which poses a serious risk of accident and injury. The suit claims the ZF Shifter could cause a driver to mistakenly believe that a vehicle’s transmission is in park. If the driver were to exit the vehicle when the car was not actually in park, the suit says, he or she could be seriously injured or killed if the car began to roll away uncontrollably. The plaintiff claims he experienced multiple instances where he was about to exit or had exited his vehicle, assuming his car was in park, only to realize it was still in drive or reverse.

The lawsuit includes two proposed classes: a nationwide class of consumers who purchased or leased one of the defendant’s vehicles equipped with the ZF shift; and a New York subclass of individuals who reside in the state who purchased or leased an FCA vehicle that has the ZF Shifter.