Fiat Chrysler Breaks UConnect with Software Update

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Fiat Chrysler has apparently pushed out a UConnect update (the software that runs the center stack infotainment system) that is breaking the unit's functionality on 2017 and 2018 vehicles. Rear view cameras, navigation, and the radio are being made useless through a series of constant reboots by many. To make things worse, it seems that some users cannot even turn the system off while driving as it constantly reboots. Some have suggested that the update was pushed without their approval last Friday. If you see a prompt however, we highly suggest you decline the update. Have no fear however, UConnect support is saying they will the issue fixed by the end of February. On the downside, that is a couple weeks away. On the upside, February is the shortest month of the calendar year, and it is not a leap year.

Check out the video.

I called the support number on the UConnect website and they said the rebooting is due to the update they pushed out on Friday and is affecting all 2018 models. He said they are working on a fix but it won't be available until the end of February! That's a 2+ week lead time!
 
So they can push the non-updated version and restore lost functionality while waiting on a "thoroughly tested" updated version, right?
 
I think their pushes are still through Sprints satellite access. This is kind of the same push/change they did to thwart the hacking vulnerability.
 
Can't they roll back the update? at least they're not trying to do engine control module updates over the air :p
 
Can't they roll back the update? at least they're not trying to do engine control module updates over the air :p
Well, if the service that's supposed to look for the updates from the client side is part of the application that keeps rebooting...
 
It's amazing car companies can be so incompetent when it comes to software updates.

This is not a new concept, and there are plenty of actors in the software world they could learn and recruit from.

When it comes to cars you can't be less diligent than something silly like a phone, tablet or even a PC. It's not even enough to be on the same level. You have to have an incredibly rigorous test regimen before these things go out.

People depend on their cars, and issues like these can be safety problems.
 
This all stems from them being cheap fucks....up until about 6 months ago we used to do all the radio updates at the dealer with a thumb drive whenever the vehicles came in for service...now they do them OTA so they can save money......well...looks like that backfired.
 
This all stems from them being cheap fucks....up until about 6 months ago we used to do all the radio updates at the dealer with a thumb drive whenever the vehicles came in for service...now they do them OTA so they can save money......well...looks like that backfired.
I never really understood this. How can an internet connection be cheaper that flash drives? Hell, give the updates to the users and let them do it for even cheaper cost. I don't think dealers would mind asking people to come in for radio updates and then trying to add extra services for maintenance.
 
I never really understood this. How can an internet connection be cheaper that flash drives? Hell, give the updates to the users and let them do it for even cheaper cost. I don't think dealers would mind asking people to come in for radio updates and then trying to add extra services for maintenance.

Customers have always been able to do it themselves by getting the software at the U connect website and putting it on a flash drive.... but as you can imagine, some customers are less than savvy so we would just do it at the dealer and get reimbursed through warranty.

Most updates would take between 25 and 40 minutes....but thats 25 to 40 minutes at $125.00 an hour that Fiat had to pay the dealer... so they went the cheap route since all cars have cell service built in....what they forgot is what happens when shit goes wrong.....which as we see here it sometimes does..

Its easy to fix a boot loop when you have physical access, I've done it dozens of times...but its damn near impossible to do it remotely....I guess we will find out how good their software developers are in the next week or so.....because if they cant fix this with another OTA update, dealers are going to be real busy
 
What's the matter about hiring software testers? We wouldn't like this if our BANKs did this !!!!
 
Customers have always been able to do it themselves by getting the software at the U connect website and putting it on a flash drive.... but as you can imagine, some customers are less than savvy so we would just do it at the dealer and get reimbursed through warranty.

Most updates would take between 25 and 40 minutes....but thats 25 to 40 minutes at $125.00 an hour that Fiat had to pay the dealer... so they went the cheap route since all cars have cell service built in....what they forgot is what happens when shit goes wrong.....which as we see here it sometimes does..

Its easy to fix a boot loop when you have physical access, I've done it dozens of times...but its damn near impossible to do it remotely....I guess we will find out how good their software developers are in the next week or so.....because if they cant fix this with another OTA update, dealers are going to be real busy
I guess they're retarded then? Just put a built in recovery mode on the bootloop like every phone or bios has. Then when the unexpected reboots hit a certain level auto roll back to the previous version.
 
I'll be that guy...

If you buy a Chrysler product you kinda deserve it. Their products are well known for having all types of quality issues, why would the entertainment system be any different?


http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2016/10/top-10-least-reliable-car-brands.html

1. Ram
2. Fiat
3. Chrysler
4. Dodge
5. Tesla

"What? Jeep isn't on that list?" *clicks link* "oh, they managed to work their way to #7... lol."

I think it was about a year ago on some top reliability ratings by manufacturer chart, that only had 25 brands listed and FCA rated below "all others combined" which generally includes things like low volume brands(maserati) and some relatively little known cheap companies(I think ssangyang was one of them). They have some cool ideas among some of their product lines... but I'd prefer to put my odds of being stuck on the side of the road as being a slightly more important purchasing decision since I can't afford an $80,000 "fun" car that only gets driven on weekends.
 
I will say my 2007 4 door Jeep Rubicon has been though hell and back and no issues! I don't have U-Connect though.

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Jeep is owned by Chrysler and the new Jeeps are made with Fiat parts. That being said, you will see more Jeeps new and old on the roughest trails. They out perform anything off road in the price range offered.
 
I'll be that guy...

If you buy a Chrysler product you kinda deserve it. Their products are well known for having all types of quality issues, why would the entertainment system be any different?


http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2016/10/top-10-least-reliable-car-brands.html

1. Ram
2. Fiat
3. Chrysler
4. Dodge
5. Tesla


I'm not doubting your point about Chrysler products having reliability issues, but I'm not a big fan of that study. It is based off of subjective user questionnaires, and we know that the world is full of people who will - for instance - judge an entire company based off of a sample size of one.

Also, I never really cared about reliability while under warranty. The whole "Initial Quality" concept was rather pointless to me. If it fails under warranty, it's an inconvenience for sure, but I'm not out any money.

I care how reliable a vehicle is in the 4 years AFTER the warranty expires, when it costs me money when things break.
 
I'm not doubting your point about Chrysler products having reliability issues, but I'm not a big fan of that study. It is based off of subjective user questionnaires, and we know that the world is full of people who will - for instance - judge an entire company based off of a sample size of one.

Also, I never really cared about reliability while under warranty. The whole "Initial Quality" concept was rather pointless to me. If it fails under warranty, it's an inconvenience for sure, but I'm not out any money.

I care how reliable a vehicle is in the 4 years AFTER the warranty expires, when it costs me money when things break.
Unfortunately, it really does still matter.

Ever had to argue with a dealership about whether or not something should be covered under warranty? Yeah, it sucks. We're also talking about Fiat, Ram, Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge, not exactly luxury brands that include courtesy vehicles when your car is in the shop. Factor in that a lot of people only have one or two vehicles, downtime means putting up with the dealership(that most folks can't stand) and possibly during "normal business hours" on a weekday and while you may not be out any money you've still got yourself a headache and a massive inconvenience that may actually still cost money even if that doesn't mean paying for parts/labor in the vehicle itself.
 
This is why I still drive my 94 Honda Accord. I don't want a tech savvy car with gizmos and Internet radio and GPS. I have a cell phone for all that. I just want my car to work and be easy to maintain, which given its 20+ years of service I would say it has done a fine job.
 
I'm not doubting your point about Chrysler products having reliability issues, but I'm not a big fan of that study. It is based off of subjective user questionnaires, and we know that the world is full of people who will - for instance - judge an entire company based off of a sample size of one.

Also, I never really cared about reliability while under warranty. The whole "Initial Quality" concept was rather pointless to me. If it fails under warranty, it's an inconvenience for sure, but I'm not out any money.

I care how reliable a vehicle is in the 4 years AFTER the warranty expires, when it costs me money when things break.

if you care how a car is out of warranty you won't ever look at a FCA vehicle.
 
Unfortunately, it really does still matter.

Unfortunately, it really does still matter.

Ever had to argue with a dealership about whether or not something should be covered under warranty? Yeah, it sucks. We're also talking about Fiat, Ram, Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge, not exactly luxury brands that include courtesy vehicles when your car is in the shop. Factor in that a lot of people only have one or two vehicles, downtime means putting up with the dealership(that most folks can't stand) and possibly during "normal business hours" on a weekday and while you may not be out any money you've still got yourself a headache and a massive inconvenience that may actually still cost money even if that doesn't mean paying for parts/labor in the vehicle itself.

I've heard that the quality of the infotament systems drives a lot of these ratings because it gets people back to the dealer to complain. Nothing is mechanically wrong but it makes people complain so it dings the rating. Being one of the people that could care less about the infotatment systems I can't really put a lot of stock in the ratings.
 
You'd think software like that has an auto-fallback. When it updates, keep the old image. If the new image does not boot to a certain point where it can be guaranteed that it could update with new patches, reboot and roll back to the old image. This is really not rocket surgery.
 
You'd think software like that has an auto-fallback. When it updates, keep the old image. If the new image does not boot to a certain point where it can be guaranteed that it could update with new patches, reboot and roll back to the old image. This is really not rocket surgery.
Especially when you consider that of all the things that an infotainment system actually has to run, this is crap a cellphone from 5 years ago could have run without breaking a sweat. Handling a voice call over bluetooth... a $5 device can do that, the rest is running the radio/crappy gps, maybe a CD player, MP3s off of a flash drive/phone, displaying some basic info from the ECM, climate control isn't exactly complicated, yet car companies are still sometimes releasing crap that has an unresponsive interface.
 
Its the parts suppliers. I work in carhaul and have handled all big 3's vehicles and now work out of the Grand Cherokee Jefferson North Plant. Chrysler is the bastard child of Ford and GM period. I bought a 2016 Renegade Dawn of Justice version. Kona suspension and manual mode are a blast hauling ass out of the city. Gas has been getting better as I go, at 25mpg. It rips through this 12 inches of snow we got lately like nothing and quite fun to drive without the low gas mileage, rough ride, and sitting with your face against the windshield of the Wrangler.

ol1bit, that's how they are suppose to be used! Most around here are expensive grocery getters! Hats of to you sir!

With that said, the point, my Rene has two loose fog lamps/flickering, right turn indicator is out, and just yesterday the deck lid light went out! This is FIAT'S cheap ass parts suppliers. Car hasn't reached two years. My 2006 Saturn Vue I bought in 05 never had a light go out or the exhaust replaced in 11 years. No shit.
My daughter's New Jeep Compass (mini Grand Cherokee) is again a very fun car to drive and also got her through all this snow and home safely. BUT! Here we go with random shut off's and restarts, while freakin driving??? WHAT?

I love the Jeep brand, but watching Fiat bring it down is tearing out the hearts of Jeep lovers everywhere.



 
Unfortunately, it really does still matter.

Ever had to argue with a dealership about whether or not something should be covered under warranty? Yeah, it sucks. We're also talking about Fiat, Ram, Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge, not exactly luxury brands that include courtesy vehicles when your car is in the shop. Factor in that a lot of people only have one or two vehicles, downtime means putting up with the dealership(that most folks can't stand) and possibly during "normal business hours" on a weekday and while you may not be out any money you've still got yourself a headache and a massive inconvenience that may actually still cost money even if that doesn't mean paying for parts/labor in the vehicle itself.

Huh. Really?

I've never owned luxury vehicles, only Saabs and Volvo's. While they were under warranty I always hot hot free loaners. Heck, even today when I go to my independent Volvo specialist he has a fleet of loaners and gives me one.

I've never had to argue with a dealership regarding if something was covered or not. It just was automatic. If anything what so ever went wrong before the milage/date of the warranty (except common wear items like tires, brakes, shocks etc. Or obvious damage from an incident) it was taken care of, no questions asked.

Are American brands really this bad?
 
Huh. Really?

I've never owned luxury vehicles, only Saabs and Volvo's. While they were under warranty I always hot hot free loaners. Heck, even today when I go to my independent Volvo specialist he has a fleet of loaners and gives me one.

I've never had to argue with a dealership regarding if something was covered or not. It just was automatic. If anything what so ever went wrong before the milage/date of the warranty (except common wear items like tires, brakes, shocks etc. Or obvious damage from an incident) it was taken care of, no questions asked.

Are American brands really this bad?
lol

Saab I don't know about considering they've been non-existent for a bit, but most of Volvo's lineup for the past few years and their general pricing puts them in the luxury bracket in the US. The starting prices for the volvo xc40, s60, and v60 base models are in the mid to upper 30k range with a large portion of the lot starting at 45 last I shopped around seriously(about 2 years ago), compare that to Ford, Nissan, Chevrolet, Dodge, Subaru, Toyota, etc. that all have models starting in the high tens with their average lot being priced at 25-30k. Yeah(also simply part of a big push in the past few years by Volvo to elevate what market segment it sits in). But that's just the thing, it's not just the US manufacturers, it's really most of the "common" brands you see on the road that aren't going to do that.

As far as ending up arguing with a dealership over warranty, that really boils down to the dealership and more importantly the competency of their service department since from my understanding they make minimum rates for warranty repairs but it gets reimbursed, so if replacing a headlight assembly is supposed to take 1 hour, they get paid for that 1 hour but if they drag their ass for 2 hours they're SOL for the rest of the labor cost. I've seen warranty horror stories from low end brand dealerships and higher end brand dealerships so that's basically a crapshoot.
 
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