A dissatisfied Jeep Wrangler owner is classifying her car-buying decision as a “regretful buy” after encountering multiple instances of a specific and troubling issue.
The video chronicling the nightmare comes from creator Skyla the Stylist (@skylathestylist), and as of Monday morning, TikTok users amassed 2.3 million views of the tale posted to the platform on Saturday. In it, Skyla begins by talking about loading up her Jeep for a trip just two months into owning it. She set out on the trip only to encounter a disturbing issue.
“My whole entire car, my whole entire Jeep packed up and it starts vibrating and shaking and breaking down on the road,” she reports. “I bought it brand new and it’s going crazy on the highway.”
She took it into the dealership, and found out the issue has a name: The “death wobble.”
According to the Lemon Law Experts website, it’s a known issue, described by them as “an unnerving suspension defect or forced loss of control in some Jeep vehicles. This can lead to violent shaking when the car is in operation.”
That article goes on to say that it’s “a mechanical defect in your Jeep vehicle … caused by loose, damaged, or misaligned parts in your Jeep’s suspension or steering system.”
Skyla reports the dealership rep told her, “It kind of happens once, and then we fix it and like things are good.” But fast forward to the most recent Christmas season, when she’d had the car about a year, and the same death wobble issues reemerged.
“I thought I was buying a safe vehicle for me and my daughter,” she laments in the video. “Nobody warned me when I did my research before I bought this car. I read everything I was supposed to read.”
She adds that she was motivated by a bad experience with a previous car, a Chevy Cruze, to get a brand new car, and is angry that she worked so hard to get to that point only to have a car with a death wobble.
“I did my part,” she says. “I worked so hard to get to a point where I built my credit up and I had the money to buy the car that I wanted and I chose the Jeep Wrangler … and you did me dirty.”
@skylathestylist A loooong overue rant about JEEP’s. I have another video where I’m crying on the highway before I go to the dealership that Im way too embarrassed to post but this was theeee Worst purchase or my life 💔 dont be like me, be better than me 🙏🏾 #fyp #jeeplife #jeepwrangler #jeepsoftiktok #jeep4xe #hairstylistsoftiktok #hairstylist #hairtok #hairtiktok #tiktokhairstylist ♬ original sound – SKYLA THE STYLIST
Commenters were familiar with the death wobble.
“I tested drive a jeep and the death wobble happened during the test drive,” one reported. “The salesman had to drive it back. I was like nope.”
Another said, “Death wobble! I bought one a Friday and returned it on Monday. Common and scary. Once they told me the name, I said God you don’t have to tell me twice.”
Someone else cracked, “My co workers once told me Jeep stands for…Just Empty Every Pocket.”
Skyla responded, “EXACTLY that!”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Skyla via Instagram direct message and to Jeep via email.
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
