Today, I was driving my CRD and it just gave up and went into limp mode. It was pretty crappy because I was pulling out onto a major street and it just died on me. Other cars avoided hitting a vehicle doing 5mph luckily. I searched the forum and found that this happend to Litton too. I followed his link and filed a complaint with NHTSA. Below is my entry:

Description : The vehicle is a 2006 Jeep Liberty 4x4 equipped with the 2.8L CRD (diesel engine). From an intersection at a complete stop, I proceeded to turn right into another street. I accelerated to approximately 15 mph when the vehicle suddenly lost all power and would not accelerate. The engine began to hesitate and the vehicle could not go faster than 5 mph. It could only limp along at this speed while I attempted to get off the road. This created a serious condition for other drivers to attempting to avoid my vehicle until I could reach a section a that allowed me to pull-off the road. The vehicle then stalled when I came to a complete stop. I attempted to restart the vehicle after a few minutes, and it ran in a normal manner. I subsequently continued my trip without any other incidents. This is a very disconcerting defect because it exhibits no signs that allow the operator to take preventative actions to avoid possible accident during road use.

The NHTSA URL is http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/?CFID=1685587&CFTOKEN=72409082

I have not had any issues with this vehicle until today. I've only had the TSB for the transmission called F31.

I want to caution anyone, this failure almost lead to me being in a rear-ender due to the car just quitting while I was pulling into traffic. I did not pull out into on-rushing traffic, but as one does, you know the ability of your vehicle and can safely pull into a street without worry. Well, not true when this event occurs in your CRD.

I don't know what the next steps will be for this event. I will drive it tomorrow and see how it runs.

Thanks to Litton for the NHTSA info.

Cordially, GilaMonster

Sorry to hear about your limp-home mode. Good luck getting it addressed.

Just to play Devil's advocate, if you had been rear-ended, it wouldn't have been your fault. The person behind you was following too close regardless.

dgeist, that is a bit too far of a reach. Firstly, it depends upon state law, rather than federal, and it does vary from state to state. Secondly, it also depends upon who did the rear-ending. If he had been hit by a car that followed him around the corner, (and again depending upon state law) he'd have likely escaped fault. But if the car that hit him had been in the oncoming stream, then he likely would have been cited for making an improper/unsafe turn.

It should be noted that some states are more likely to blame the hitter rather than the hitee in such cases.

Sorry to hear about your experience. The important thing here is not who would have been at fault...but the fact that someone could have been seriously injured as a direct result of this malfunction. Glad that you filed the report, and glad you are okay. Hopefully these reports will get somewhere in trying to prevent this from happening.

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06.5 Jetta TDI PKG 2 - Silver/Anth

Indeed. and it should be said that I wasn't trying to make light of the situation, just tossing a little dark humor around. Gila, was the stop like the engine/tranny siezed and you lurched, or was it more of a "I no longer have any power and the car is slowing down because of it" kinda thing?

The vehicle stopped making power. It was like it was misfiring on all cylinders. I don't know about diesels, but on a traction control system I installed on an BMW M3, it would starve fuel to alternating cynlinders until traction was regained. An alternate description would be when the intake boot is torn on a fuel injected car and when you wide open the throttle body, it loses all power. That is how I would describe it.

That is a bit differant then what happened to me. Car was running fine but would not go above 35 mph but turning it off and restarting took care of the problem. That was at 600 mile notw we're at 6000 miles without further mishap....but it's always in the back of my mind as a worry seed.

If everyone that this happens to would file a complaint, it may spur a fix.

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2006 Libery Sport CRD, Lt Kakhi, nicely equipped
*****GDE Hot Tune at 38,879 miles
*****Stock TC.....for the time being!!

This limp mode needs to be done away with! It is just amatter of time until somebody gets killed by it.

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Wife: 2006 CRD Liberty - White
Mine: 2005 F350 Diesel - White

Was there a CEL/MIL set and an associated P-code set? Usually in situations like this the p-code will be P606 (Internal Control Processor) which is an issue with the controller. For some reason there were some vehicles that had wiring and/or other issues which would cause the no-acceleration situation as described by GilaMonster which coincidentally isn't actually a limp-home. I've run into the same problems with the engines we have on the dyno @ Rose-Hulman - a quick cycle of the key fixes the problem.

There is a point for limp home (when something breaks and you need to get it off the road and/or to safety), but what was described is well beyond that. I wish I had more information for you, but without a P-code and/or being in the vehicle to take a measurement with the compuer it's hard to know exactly what happened.

I did not get a CEL/MIL lamp on the dashboard. I do not have a way to scan p-codes, but could one have been set without illuminating the CEL/MIL light? If so, should I attempt to get the codes read?
As you stated, a cycle of the ignition did seem to resolve the problem, and I have been driving fine since. But, this "problem" put me in a bad situation to say the least. I didn't think to put it in neutral at the time and cycle the ignition. Maybe that would have got me out of the road faster.

What additional information can I attempt to provide to help investigate this situation?