Fiat Chrysler recently agreed to pay a record-breaking $105 million civil fine with U.S. regulators. This stemmed from the charge by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the company failed to complete the 23 safety recalls that involved 11 million vehicles, HNGN previously reported.
As part of the settlement, the company will buy back 500,000 vehicles, those with defective steering parts that cause the driver to lose control without warning. These include specific models of RAM trucks, the Dodge Dakota pickup and Dodge Durango SUV. The company will also allow the owners of at least 1.5 million Jeep Liberty and Grand Cherokees - those that are in danger of lethal fire - to be traded in at above-market value, Auto Blog learned.
The total dole-out could cost several billions of dollars with the sheer number of repurchases and trade-ins involved, as well as the cost of repairs to be covered. The exact number of cars in the buyback scheme is still to be determined. However, "if Chrysler had to buy back even a quarter of the trucks at issue, it could spend $2.5 billion," the Financial Express reported. Now, that only involves the RAM trucks.
The complete list of vehicles eligible for the buyback can be found here.
The trade-in could rack up costs further. For instance, "owners of Jeep Grand Cherokee in the 1993 to 1998 model years and 2202 to 2007 Jeep Liberties can trade in their vehicle and receive $1,000 over the fair market value of the car - the combined total of which can be applied toward the purchase of another Chrysler car, parts or service," Auto Blog explained.
The easiest way for consumers to check whether they are eligible for either the buyback scheme, the trade-in or other options, is to enter their car's identification number in NHTSA's VIN search tool. If a vehicle has an unrepaired recall under campaign numbers 13V-038, 13V-252, 13V-527 or 13V-529 the owners can avail themselves of the offers, advised Cars.com.
