“There it is right there.”
A nurse in a 2025 Jeep Wagoneer has racked up 2.7 million views on TikTok by filming the dashboard from the driver’s seat and showing what happens when she rolls her brand-new SUV up to a stop sign. Without warning, while still in drive and with her foot on the brake, the entire vehicle dies on her and throws a power-steering warning on the restart.
Addison Stanley (@addierain), a home-care nurse and mother according to her channel bio, recently posted the 29-second clip. “These new vehicles get on my nerves…. The tiniest thing will malfunction and make the entire car not start,” she writes in the caption. The replies suggest she has tapped into a vein of deep frustration on the part of Wagoneer owners.
In the clip, Stanley narrates what’s happening in real time.
“2025 Jeep Wagoneer. We’re currently in drive coming to a stop sign. We’re going to come to a complete stop. Yep. There it went,” she says. “Completely shuts off. I was in drive. Didn’t even put the car in park. Completely shuts off and I have to redo it. And then it throws—usually it’ll say like power steering. Yep. There it is right there.”
She closes the video with an open question: “If anybody knows what this is, let me know.”
The thread filled up quickly with self-identified Jeep dealership employees and Wagoneer owners pointing at the same suspect: the auxiliary stop-start battery, a smaller second 12-volt unit that powers the vehicle’s electronics and stop-start cycling alongside the main starting battery.
Jack, who said he is a Jeep dealer, wrote: “The most common fix is to replace the stop-start battery. It’s the small battery. If it tests bad, warranty will cover it if you’re under the mileage.”
Jennishagyrl, who said she works at a Jeep dealership, wrote that the issue is unusually common in this generation: “I have had to have more batteries replaced in 6 months than I did in 6 years working at a Nissan and Hyundai dealership. They have so much running in the background it drains the batteries.”
In a reply, Stanley confirmed the dealer has been there before. “This will be our 2nd battery,” she wrote.
Lindsay, another Wagoneer owner, described the same symptom set: “I have one and it was my battery. My car would never turn off but my power steering would lock up and that light would come on.”
In vehicles with stop-start systems, the auxiliary battery exists to handle the radically increased starting cycle. The primary battery handles the starter, and a smaller second battery keeps the radio, climate control and electronics running while the engine is briefly off at idle. When the auxiliary battery weakens, the behavior can include what Stanley shows on camera. The engine drop, lost electrical accessories and power-steering warning at restart happen because the electrically assisted rack briefly loses its supply.
Several commenters added a wrinkle that complicates a quick DIY fix. The replacement battery has to be coded to the vehicle’s body control module by a mechanic, or the car will keep flagging the same fault.
The Wagoneer is not the six-figure luxury barge several commenters assumed. Stellantis cut Wagoneer pricing for the 2025 model year by as much as $7,000, with the standard Wagoneer now starting at $59,945 and topping out at $76,040 for the Series III; the longer Grand Wagoneer is the variant that runs into the high-$90,000s and $100,000s.
What the Wagoneer is, however, is a vehicle on a full-size shared Stellantis platform that has accumulated a long list of recalls and customer-satisfaction campaigns since launch—covering, among others, improperly installed B-pillar trim that could prevent side-curtain airbags from deploying in a crash on about 44,000 vehicles in 2023, third-row seatbelt damage or accessibility issues on more than 97,000 SUVs, and a 2025 campaign over rear-window trim that can detach from more than 123,000 vehicles.
The thread under Stanley’s video complains about all this and more, with the phrases “lemon law,” and “take it back to the dealer” in dozens of replies, alongside a steady drumbeat of comments along the lines of “your first mistake was buying a Jeep.”
Several commenters who said they have relevant background—including current and former Jeep service-department staff and lemon law-savvy buyers—converged on the same advice. Get the auxiliary battery tested under warranty, document each visit in writing, and if the same fault recurs after multiple repair attempts, pursue a buyback or lemon law claim. The exact thresholds vary by state, but most jurisdictions trigger a presumption of defect after three unsuccessful repair attempts for the same problem within a defined window, or a cumulative number of days out of service.
For now, Stanley’s video has done the lemon law process a small favour by date-stamping the fault, on camera, with the entire dashboard as a witness.
Motor1 reached out to Stanley via TikTok direct message and to Stellantis via media relations for additional comment. We’ll be sure to update this if either responds.
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