Why would a camshaft sensor try to kill my wife?

NCAJ04TJ

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Going to try to be brief...

A couple days ago, wife is traveling 65mph in our 2014 Grand Cherokee 3.6 on the interstate and attempts to accelerate into the left-hand lane. Vehicle suddenly goes into limp mode - basically the most dangerous way an engine can fail. The GC restarted after some time resting in the hazard lane, but went into limp again once more before she was able to get to work.

Code = camshaft sensor problem, with which many of you are familiar. Dealer is replacing, after some haggling, under our certified warranty. We have only about 600 miles of the warranty left, and this is the first time we've used it.

Now I look at the vehicle as something of a ticking bomb. There is another sensor. Will I/she be able to avoid an accident when that one decides to flake out? And how stupid is it that all the occupants of the vehicle are subjected to possibly mortal danger when a freaking sensor fails?

So my question, to anyone who may know - is this a Grand Cherokee problem? A Jeep problem? Or just a "cars these days are too dependent on technology" problem? I'm honestly considering trading in this vehicle over this. I trust this thing with my wife and kids every single morning.

Thanks in advance for any input!
 
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Check the oil filter housing/oil cooler for leaks. Common issue. Not the end of the world, but worth a warranty claim if need be. The 3.6 is a good engine.
 
Limp mode = mortal danger? I'm pretty sure there are more catastrophic ways an engine can "fail". The computer was just trying to protect the engine from damage when it didn't have all the info it needed to continue running.

Car parts can fail at any time, she could have a front tire blow out, transmission fail, etc. It's just something you need to be mentally prepared for. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes definitely, but it's part of life.
 
I parted ways with my 5.2 ZJ with 120K after the NSS and CPS failed on two seperate occasions leaving me stranded for both, once with my children. After the second failure I lost all faith in it. and sold it after I fixed it. Miss the thing sometimes, but we move on.

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When you road test a customer vehicle and their stupid oversized floor mat pins the throttle wide open. When the brake pedal goes to the floor when the master cylinder fails. When a front ball joint lets go around a curve. When the factory put in the wrong pads and it goes into brake fade down a hill. Just some of the situations I've personally experienced.

My wife's Fusion went into limp mode on the hwy last month for a throttle position correlation error. It happens.
 
Absolutely. When you immediately slow from 70mph to 40mph on a busy interstate highway, you could be the cause of an accident that takes your life, someone else's, or both.
In the overall scheme, that is a minor annoyance. Consider what would have happened on a different vehicle where instead of going into limp mode, the engine just dies. Now you have little brakes to almost no brakes, almost no steering or very difficult steering and it slows down much faster. I'd much rather it went into limp mode.
 
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Amazes me every time I hear someone say they’re going to get rid of a car because of a normal maintenance item. Sensors die occasionally and need to be replaced. Limp mode is a good thing. Before that it would just be dead until the sensor was replaced. If you get rid of your vehicle every time a little problem comes up you’ll go through a lot of vehicles and won’t be happy with any of them.
 
So I get it...but I don't. And it's entirely possible my first post wasn't clear enough. There's nothing mechanically wrong with the engine. The sensor has gone bad. It is detecting a problem that isn't there. So no, the GC wouldn't have died without the sensor, because the only thing wrong with the GC is the sensor itself.

That being said, I get that the sensor and limp mode are ultimately good things, in that they (when they function properly) prevent worse things from happening. The thing about my situation is that the reason the vehicle went into limp mode didn't actually exist. I have no problem going into limp mode because of a legit mechanical problem.

Regardless, I truly appreciate the opinions, which seem to be of the "gotta take a little bad with the good" variety. Thanks.
 
In the overall scheme, that is a minor annoyance. Consider what would have happened on a different vehicle where instead of going into limp mode, the engine just dies. Now you have little brakes to almost no brakes, almost no steering or very difficult steering and it slows down much faster. I'd much rather it went into limp mode.


As much as I absolutely hated the couple of times I had to drive in limp mode (never in a Jeep) I can't say I disagree with that.
 
Amazes me every time I hear someone say they’re going to get rid of a car because of a normal maintenance item. Sensors die occasionally and need to be replaced. Limp mode is a good thing. Before that it would just be dead until the sensor was replaced. If you get rid of your vehicle every time a little problem comes up you’ll go through a lot of vehicles and won’t be happy with any of them.

Not unlike some of the cars that have interference valve trains. You replace the timing belt on a tight schedule or, risk very high repair bills when the valves and pistons crash into each other.
 
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Vehicles going in to limp mode is the norm now with all the electronics involved. Sure it's a pain sometimes, but they help the vehicle run more efficiently. The computer didn't know it was just a bad sensor, it just knew something was wrong. It was trying to prevent catastrophic failure by going in to limp mode, which 9 times out of 10 is better than just shutting off. As @mrblaine said, you lose a lot of functions you take for granted and that would be a bear to control at highway speeds. Who knows what would happen with the electronic power steering if the engine just died. Trading it in because of this won't solve anything, every new car out there is filled with more electronics than you can imagine, so good chance it'll happen again at some point
 
I marvel every time I see heavy traffic or jet planes in the sky....pretty amazing it all works as well as it does to me.
 
I marvel every time I see heavy traffic or jet planes in the sky....pretty amazing it all works as well as it does to me.
Traffic, heavy or otherwise is mind boggling.
If we were to start from scratch without ever having seen a 10 lane freeway or any type of two way road and ask ourselves to design a system to direct the flow of vehicle from point A to point B, the system would not look like they do.
We want easy, cheap, and it has to account for all sizes of vehicles from tiny little smart cars to tandem trailer semis, all at the same time with minimal distances between them for high density. We have to be able to direct the flow without any regard or discrimination for attention levels, skill levels, differences in acceleration, and deceleration.

Given all of the criteria to make a successful highway with all the crap it needs to do, no one would say- Alright, got it, lets just take the flat road and paint some lines on it about 15 feet apart. We'll save some money and not do solid ones, just ones about 3 feet long, about 3" wide, and skip a space twice that and do it again. We'll reserve the solid lines that cost more when we don't want them to pass on the left or run off the road in the fog on the right. We'll toss up a sign now and then telling them how fast they can go and maybe a few to tell them what road is coming up.

Anyone with a brain would kick that system right to the trash can where it belongs but yet, it is so simple and works so well that it just mind boggling in its effectiveness.
 
Traffic, heavy or otherwise is mind boggling.
If we were to start from scratch without ever having seen a 10 lane freeway or any type of two way road and ask ourselves to design a system to direct the flow of vehicle from point A to point B, the system would not look like they do.
We want easy, cheap, and it has to account for all sizes of vehicles from tiny little smart cars to tandem trailer semis, all at the same time with minimal distances between them for high density. We have to be able to direct the flow without any regard or discrimination for attention levels, skill levels, differences in acceleration, and deceleration.

Given all of the criteria to make a successful highway with all the crap it needs to do, no one would say- Alright, got it, lets just take the flat road and paint some lines on it about 15 feet apart. We'll save some money and not do solid ones, just ones about 3 feet long, about 3" wide, and skip a space twice that and do it again. We'll reserve the solid lines that cost more when we don't want them to pass on the left or run off the road in the fog on the right. We'll toss up a sign now and then telling them how fast they can go and maybe a few to tell them what road is coming up.

Anyone with a brain would kick that system right to the trash can where it belongs but yet, it is so simple and works so well that it just mind boggling in its effectiveness.
I think of all the engines & transmissions & moving parts and Harmony of it all. It just amazes me that so many things happen correctly.

I can't remember if it was Star trek when they came back to Earth...but the first thing the guy said was before they sure do travel close to each other... Everyone must value their own property.

I thought well in a nutshell that's kind of it works...that and their safety.
 
Absolutely. When you immediately slow from 70mph to 40mph on a busy interstate highway, you could be the cause of an accident that takes your life, someone else's, or both.

Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster, especially around here.