Blower motor or climate control failure on the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee
2 crashes 2 of the 76 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When blower motor or climate control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee report blower motor or climate control failure at a median of 62,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 82,500 miles, from 62 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 105,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 69,826 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35,000 miles | 50,000 miles | 62,000 miles | 83,000 miles | 104,826 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 2 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,200 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Heater blend door inoperable. My pregnant wife and I were driving in the mountains near big bear, california . It was about 30 degrees that morning and the heater didn't work. It actually blew cold air on the windshield, and it froze blocking our view when we ran off the road. We could have been killed.*ak
2002 jeep grand cherokee limited (wj), electrical wires melting at blower motor controller for heater /AC interior fan. Fire hazard as this circuit is hot even when the vehicle is off. Poor contact between the wire female spade connector and the blower motor controller male spade terminal caused excessive heat which resulted in the wires being charred and the blower motor controller housing melting. Device is located under the dashboard on the passenger side. According to dealer, daimler chrysler claims this is not a problem but I experienced it on my vehicle and became alarmed when I read about car fires resulting from this same defect on mycarstats.com. My vehicle serial number is [xxx]. I ordered and replaced the melted blower motor and crimped the female connector tighter to make a tighter connection with the male terminal after being notified by the jeep dealer that this would not be covered and that no tsb existed for this defect. While my car did not catch on fire, this is clearly a fire hazard that should be addressed by the manufacturer. *nm updated 07/17/2012 *js information redacted pursuant to the freedom of…
Failure of heating system on passenger side of vehicle. The failure of a blend door caused only cold air to be sent to all passenger side air discharges which include the windshield defroster. On cool morning the passenger side windshield would not clear completely of dew, this problem could severely compromise sight out of the right side in the winter months. Several web sites that were visited while researching cause indicated that this is a common problem and parts have been upgraded, also stated that due to labor involved that it was a very costly repair. Some people writing in to these sites indicated that repairs would no be made. Individual driving as well as the rest of the public that are on the roadways with the affected vehicles. *jb
Also reported on the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Other visibility problem
Premature brake pad or rotor wear
Radiator or coolant leak
Other body or interior problem
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 76 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does blower motor or climate control failure happen on the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee?
Across 62 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 62,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 82,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is blower motor or climate control failure on the 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee?
76 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed