The Dart Just Returned to Haunt Dodge Thanks to a Massive Recall

It’s the recall so nice that they decided to do it twice! A couple months back we reported that NHTSA renewed its investigation into the reliability of transmission gear selectors in the short-lived revival of Dodge’s compact Dart sedan. Dodge already had to recall all of them once to address a design flaw that left the gear selector cables brittle and vulnerable to snapping completely, stranding drivers and even allowing parked cars to roll away without warning. Well, a host of recent failures suggests that the original campaign didn’t do the trick, and now the feds are telling Dodge it’s time for a do-over.

Originally, FCA blamed the problem on degradation from heat and humidity. This combination wears the bushings that hold the shifter cables to the transmission. As they degrade, they can become loose, making it difficult to select gears. Eventually, they can fail entirely, and without warning—both while the vehicle is in motion and while it’s parked. No serious incidents were reported ahead of the initial recall, but Dodge said the number of documented failures numbered well into the thousands.

“A failure of the shift cable to maintain connection to the transmission can cause an unexpected and unrecoverable loss of PARK (“LoP”) function and/or a vehicle movement in an unintended direction,” Stellantis said in its recall report.

Now, after dozens of fresh failures (some of them on cars that had already been “fixed,” Dodge will take another crack at a permanent solution. Unfortunately, for the moment, Dodge doesn’t have one. A remedy is in the works, the company said, but for the time being, customers will have to make do with existing parts, which will likely become harder to find now that they’ve essentially been branded as defective.

Stellantis is including every Dart on the road in its recall population—all 300,000-ish of them:

“The suspect period began on February 24, 2012, when the first suspect vehicle was produced, and ended on October 4, 2016, when the last suspect vehicle was produced,” the report said.

We’ll be on alert for news of the coming fix. In the mean time, if your Dodge Dart becomes difficult to shift into gear or park, you may want to consider parking it someplace flat—or at least where it can’t roll into something (or somebody) you care about—and be sure to set your parking brake every time.

Has your Dodge Dart rolled someplace it shouldn’t have? Let us know at tips@thedrive.com!

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