Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) just can't seem to stop screwing up. The company was recently slapped with a $105 million fine from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for dragging its feet on repairs and recalls. A few weeks ago, two hackers revealed they could remotely control a 2014 Jeep Cherokee. Now Bloomberg is reporting that FCA knew its cars could be hacked for 18 months before issuing a recall of 1.4 million vehicles to fix the problem.

The guys behind the Jeep hack, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, went public to Wired and planned to talk more about their exploits at an upcoming cybersecurity conference. This pushed FCA to take action. "Prior to last month, the precise means of the demonstrated manipulation was not known," company spokesman Eric Mayne told Bloomberg via email. While the exact means weren't known until last month, FCA knew it had vulnerable software in its cars since January 2014. Automakers have always been reluctant to admit fault and issue recalls, and that won't change in the information age. Still, defective software can be more quickly exploited and fixed than bad airbags, meaning automakers can't and shouldn't wait to fix things.