Cruise control failure on the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee
1 crash 1 of the 10 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 cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee report cruise control failure at a median of 130,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 170,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 31st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 25,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 180,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 152,241 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
20% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25,952 miles | 60,495 miles | 129,479 miles | 170,743 miles | 178,193 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, 1 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 $200–$1,400 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 1,800 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 44; the 2005 has 10. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
The automatic transmission of my 2005 jeep grand cherokee ,began acting unusual in mid november 2005. The transmission would clunk when put into drive , the vehicle seemed to hesitate before moving, also on 2 occasions the vehicle would down shift to first gear and then back to drive on its own while in motion. On december 18, 2005 I told the jeep dealer service manger of the problem when I took the vehicle in , I had received from daimler-chrysler a recall notice concerning the transmission , as far as I know the dealership performed the recall repair. The vehicle seemed fine until december 30, 2005 when while traveling on the expressway at 55 miles per hour with the cruise control engaged the vehicle again downshifted to first gear momentarily , all the warning lights came on then shifted back to drive the engine revved up and speed up unexpectedly . I then lost control of the vehicle spinning out and hitting the concrete divider wall of the expressway. The vehicle sustained over $10,000 in damage, luckily there were no injuries to me or my passenger. I have notified chrysler and my insurance company of problem, at this point I…
We have a safety issue with the adjustable gas pedal in our company car a 2005 jeep. The problem is that the pedal adjustment has no indicator that lets you know that the pedal has been moved by another employee. Recently we had an event were an employee drove the car a long distance and did not know that the jeep had an adjustable pedal. The employee complained that his foot cramped during the 300 mile trip and he did not know why. He was not aware of the adjustable pedal feature of the jeep since there was no indicator light or gauge to let him know that the pedal had been set for a much shorter person. The employee also complained that during this trip he found himself driving faster than the speed limit and had to use cruise control to maintain his speed...again he was not aware that the pedal had been moved closer to the driver and his normal position of his foot pushed the pedal down more then normal. *nm
In my 2005 jeep grand cherokee, while traveling on a congested road, approx. 25 MPH, I took my foot off the gas to slow down. All of a sudden, the vehicle accelerated on its own. Luckily, foot was on the brake hard. I attempted to tap gas pedal with other foot several times while trying to fight through traffic without crashing. I attempted to ease up on brake pedal while trying to pull car over, tapping on cruise control button, making sure that was off. In a state of shock, I actually turned the ignition key off, but the vehicle remained going. Soon after, I was able to reach the side of the road with the vehicle still wanting to accelerate and foot still on brake. This terrorizing episode lasted for under a minute before it ended as suddenly as it started. Due to the shock, I didn't realize I should have put the car in neutral. After a few minutes, I drove the car home very slow and cautiously, still shaking. I did not notice gauges on dashboard at time of the incident. The next morning, the car was towed to dealership. Diagnostic testing, test driving. No codes, no incident replicated. Throttle system checked and cleaned. No…
Also reported on the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Other electrical problem
Other body or interior problem
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 10 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 cruise control failure happen on the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee?
Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 130,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 170,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee?
10 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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