Owners have filed 34 complaints with NHTSA about this car, most about the electrical, transmission, and airbags. The 8 checks below target those problems, in the order you would do them at the car.
2024Tick items off on your phone at the car, or print it. Ticks stay on this device.
0/8 checked
2024 Jeep Compass: inspection sheet
Before you go, or before you touch the car0/3
Ask the seller not to warm the car up first0/2
At least 20 minutes, with some highway0/3
These checks are specific to this model year. For tires, body panels, fluids, and the other basics every used car needs, use the general inspection guide.
These years share the 2024's design and most of its parts, so their problems are the ones to look for on this car too.
Worth adding to your 2024 checks
Worth adding to your 2024 checks
Worth adding to your 2024 checks
EPA figures for each version of the 2024 Jeep Compass. Use them to confirm you are looking at the version that was advertised, and as a yardstick on the test drive.
| Version | Drive | EPA rating |
|---|---|---|
| 2.0L 4-cyl | AWD | 27 mpg |
Owners report these failures starting around the mileages below. A car inside one of these ranges deserves a closer look at that part, or records showing it was already fixed.
Automatic emergency braking faults
300–3,000 miles
NHTSA complaints for the 2024 Jeep Compass, grouped by the part owners named. Open a row to read what goes wrong.
Driver-assist systems drop out in clusters. Lane assist, blind spot alert, forward collision warning, and automatic emergency braking all show as unavailable at once, sometimes when the wheel is turned or in rain. Other reports describe false automatic braking, turn signals that switch on by themselves, fog lights cycling on and off, and interiors that go dark while the car still drives. A second pattern involves dead batteries, no-starts, and stalls with a loss of power in traffic. Dealers often clear codes or cannot duplicate the fault, so repeat visits are common. One complaint describes a crash after the lane system jerked the car off the road.
Four-wheel-drive service and drive-mode-unavailable warnings come and go. Dealers see the stored codes but cannot make them come back on a test drive. A separate report describes a strong cabin odor and smoke from the engine compartment in stop-and-go traffic. The dealer traced it to the transmission cooler, which failed again a few weeks after the repair. The one crash-related complaint is about a used car sold with an undisclosed prior collision that showed a transmission service warning on the first day.
No air bags deploy in two serious crashes, and each complaint reports one injury. In one, the car hit a guardrail at 70 mph and then bounced into it again. The other involved a violent impact to the right front section of the car. Neither report mentions a warning light beforehand or a dealer inspection afterward. With only two filings, no mileage pattern is visible.
Automatic emergency braking either shuts off behind a service warning or brakes on its own with nothing ahead. Trouble starts early: at 300 miles in one report and about 3,000 in the other. Dealers find no fault codes, cannot duplicate the problem, or say no fix is available yet. In one case the dealer simply turned off the front sensor, which leaves the feature disabled. Braking hard at speed for no reason creates a real risk of being hit from behind.
ABS shuts off while driving, and cruise control cuts out with it. The owner reporting this says a previous Compass had the same unsolved fault. A separate report describes a throttle control warning at startup, followed by lurching acceleration and no braking until the driver shifted into Park. The dealer found a stored code, but the car drove normally on test drives. Both problems come and go, and dealers struggle to pin them down.
False alerts say lane keeping, blind spot monitoring, and other safety features are unavailable or need service. They arrive as a pop-up with a beep that distracts the driver, and dealer repairs do not stop them. One owner also reports lane departure steering the car into the wrong lane and automatic emergency braking engaging at random on the highway. The faults come with no warning, and dealers cannot recreate them.
Excerpts from complaints Compass owners filed with NHTSA, as written. Listen for the same symptoms on your test drive.
Fog lights go off and on by themselves at times. Forward collision warning continues to trigger and have to be reset. Automatic braking has engaged several times without reason.
Filed with NHTSA, November 2025
Service four-wheel-drive light keeps on coming off and on on the dash and drive mode unavailable keeps on flashing on the dash no idea why have taken it to the dealership. They cannot figure it out. I’ve asked them to submit a ticket to corporate. They still can’t figure it out. The codes are stored in the system, but they can’t seem to get the codes to go active when they drive it.
Filed with NHTSA, August 2025
Complaints for this year next to the average for the other model years, area by area.
The 2024 ranks seventh for owner complaints among 8 Compass years, well under the average of the others. Newer years have had less time to collect complaints, so compare like with like.
Redesigns and mid-cycle updates change what can go wrong.
The 2024 is the eighth model year of the Compass's second generation (2017–2026).
It includes the 2022 update.
What changed for 2022
Cars shoppers compare with the Jeep Compass, with their own 2024 checklists.
2024 owner complaints, side by side
