In the evening, June 13th, 2001, my vehicle was parallel parked on a side street in boston, my partner shifted the automatic transmission into reverse, backed up approximately 2 feet, I was on the sidewalk guiding him back so as to not hit the car behind us. With his foot firmly on the brake, he shifted into drive, suddenly the engine revved high, and the vehicle lunged forward, striking a Toyota rav4 parked in front. My bumper guard hit their bumper hard and my grill lightly hit their rear mounted spare tire, but there was really no damage. Within a couple of seconds the engine idle returned to normal. Once the vehicle was out of the parking space, you could see tire skid marks approx. 3 feet long from the front tires, and the heavy smell of "burnt" rubber. After reading about the Grand Cherokee problem today, 08-03-01, it made me realize that if a person were standing between the vehicles on the day of my incident, they would have been crushed badly. I brought it to the dealer the following week, they said "they could not duplicate the problem and couldn't detect anything wrong." The problem has not re-occured, but shortly after they needed to replace the wiring harness for the guages since they would all go off while I was driving, and the odometer indicated "no bus" I suspect the two are unrelated, but I'm not an expert. The dealer knew exactly what was wrong with the guages, but never had another report of the engine revving out of control as mine did. Thanks for your time. Regards, al fowler.

- Medford, MA, USA

Vehicle was in the park position when gear switched from park to reverse, causing vehicle to hit garage. Consumer had to be taken to emergency room for injuries to knee/ eye and ears.

- La Port, IN, USA