| Author | Message | ||
     Aesquire |
Currently shopping for a Cherokee or Grand Cherokee. Bank has no problem with vehicles up to 10 years old, so I'm mostly looking at 2006 and newer models. Any years, engines, or packages to avoid? Full on off road isn't a concern, Although being able to make it up the driveway after a foot+ of snow falls during the day, is. Currently driving a '09 VW Sportwagen TDI, which isn't a bad winter car, except for the lag in producing cabin heat. I can start & idle it for 20 minutes and it barely melts a dollar sized hole in the ice on the wind shield. And there's always ice on the wind shield. I've also found the VW just won't carry all the camping gear I need. Admittedly I have a 16' Medieval spoke tent and carry a rolled up Ikea mattress. ( Why rough it? ) and, after camping 2 years ago, I returned home to find I had broken springs on all 4 corners. I spent decades going camping with full sized vans, and never broke one like that. But full sized vans are overkill for 95% of my driving needs. And you pay for that 100% of the time. Besides, I've never had a Jeep. | ||
| Etennuly |
Any years, engines, or packages to avoid? I can not help you with that. But I am sure some here can. The newest of the four Jeeps that I have had is my current CJ7, which is an '84. I did have a Grand Cherokee once. It was a 1965 with a "Tornado" straight six cylinder. I can recommend you steer clear of them(which shouldn't be too hard!).  | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Tires are mounted up.... I just need a Jeep to put them on Wife vetoed this idea...  | ||
| Etennuly |
 Had my wife looking at newer Corvettes tonight, kind of got that same response. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Each tire and wheel weigh 107 lbs That's a boat load of unsprung weight! Must be the heavier cold winter air.... Mounted and aired up to 35 pounds they are 36 7/8 tall I will probably only run 25 on the road and drop'm down to about 10 for the trails @ Aesquire Cherokee's of the late 90's to 2003 can be had for pretty good price. From what I understand, They changed the head casting in 2000 and some "may" crack right under the oil filler cap. I'm told you can see it if you look down the hole with a flash light. If it hasn't cracked by now, you should be good to go | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
well the pile of parts keeps growing in the garage.... I HOPE to have the jeep back mid Feb. so I can get started... | ||
| Ratbuell |
Avoid anything with the 4.7 V8, they're a time-bomb. 5.2 is good. 5.9 is good (I had a 98 Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited - WOW that was fun!). 4.0 is indestructible. Hemi is a good motor but seems silly in a 4x4, at least to me. And I love my diesel - you can find CRDs in older Libertys and Grands, and the new 3.0 Ecodiesel in the '14-up. The 3.7 Liberty is an amazingly capable package, too. XJ Cherokees (84-01) can be had, but watch for rust. Nice ones, be prepared to spend good money on. They're out there, but owners know they're popular (and worth it). If you're a DIY guy, get a project XJ and you pretty much can't go wrong. My '92 with 4.0 is still going strong even though it's not real pretty - and that's OK with me. It works, and parts (and mods) are plentiful. | ||
| Aesquire |
Thanks. Still looking. I've missed a few probably good deals but that's life. I did test drive a loaded '14 Grand Cherokee with the diesel. $34 k but sweet. I have a hard time swallowing the loan. Otoh I hit a wabbit with my VW and broke the front lower plastic . Something that can clear a mouse would be nice. ( much swearing took place ) | ||
| Thumper74 |
Where'd the Jeep go? | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Its back home getting a Ford 8.8 stuck under it with 5.13 gears and a Detroit locker It needs a bunch of brackets welded on... and my welds look like bird $hit on a shingle. | ||
| Thumper74 |
Mine too... I usually sucker a friend into welding. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I love my '14 Grand with the diesel. 2 years. just under 20k miles. One oil change and three tire rotations. That's it. It's been bulletproof, dead-nuts reliable, torquey, and....BORING in the snow. Might as well be dry pavement - I drive my XJ in 2 wheel drive now and then just so I can slide something around once in a while!  And....a 1.24% loan isn't too hard to swallow. My total interest on the loan will be less than $500. Love it. | ||
| Torquehd |
Do you jeep guys know much about the CRD that was put into the i believe 05-08 liberty's? Yes, Liberty, I know... It's for my wife. She wants a Ford Escape, I'd rather have a somewhat real 4wd that makes 300 ft lbs of torque. And it sounds like a tractor, something no other crossover can boast. From what I've read, the torque convertor and EGR system were the only major issues. Anyone have any first-hand experience? | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I'll send a copy of your question to Nukeblue. He is a mechanic at a Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep dealership. He did say the upper ball joints in the Liberty need to be replaced about every 30,000 miles. There is a company out there that makes a replacement set up that uses all Spicer joints that takes care of that issue I'll see if I can find a link | ||
| Ratbuell |
Not owning, but I've driven a couple and loved 'em. I also drove (and nearly bought) an 08 CRD Grand Cherokee. For the converter (and this is the first I ever heard about it), install a trans temp gauge, and use the "tow/haul" mode all the time. I did that in an 05 Cummins I used to own and it kept my trans temp hundreds of degrees cooler, even running empty (load-wise) around town (and you still get overdrive, it simply re-maps the shift points). EGR, you can get a delete kit. I had heard issues with the lift pumps, but there are workarounds for those as well should one go bad on you (much like my current Cummins, an '01 - the aftermarket is full of support). Get a fuel pressure gauge and keep an eye on it as well, it will tell you when it's time to pay attention to the fuel system - again, like my '01. My pressure was gradually dropping, so I picked up a $379 aftermarket lift pump before the low pressure killed the $1200 injector pump. Forgot to mention, my '14 Grand Cherokee Summit Ecodiesel just got me 30.1 MPG (hand calculated, round trip) from MD to FL. That would be a 5500 lb, full-time-AWD, not exactly "streamlined" SUV with every option except rear seat DVD and a console CD changer. Other than Georgia...my cruise was typically set between 73-78mph the whole trip. Love me some diesel | ||
| Thumper74 |
I like the idea of a CRD Liberty. I had a '12 gas model and, other than the gas mileage, it was great. When I worked at the Jeep dealer, we only had one Customer who came in with a diesel Grand Cherokee, so I didn't get to see much in the way of reliability... How are the CRD Libertys? | ||
| Nukeblue |
honestly we don't know much about them, they come in so rarely. we used to have one every now and then and it ended up needing a torque converter & had some major oil leaks. pain in the a$$ to work on under the hood looking at it & no one wanted to work on it lol pretty much red headed step children of libertys, kinda like the hybrid durangos. as far as reliability goes, not sure, don't see them anymore. but for power, once it spools up it's a real stump puller. prob why they eat torque converters | ||
| Thumper74 |
I knew they made hybrid Aspens. Never even heard of a hybrid Durango and I worked there! | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
not inner fenders.... save some weight and $$$ I may have to give this a try.  | ||
| Xdigitalx |
Wonder how many more years they gonna make the diesel avail. I heard... not too much longer. | ||
| Etennuly |
Mark, I will see if I can dig up some pictures of my brother's old CJ5. I took off the front fenders because they were too rusty to paint and too bad to repair. I then made him some aluminum splash shield inner fenders that came out to the hood edge. He did not like the look at first but once he found that he could hit a puddle and splash mud twenty feet out to the sides, and not get wet himself, he loved it! He douched everybody on a day long outing. We laughed our asses off when he would speed up hit the water and miss his target.  | ||
| Aesquire |
As a VW tdi guy, I'm waiting for the axe to fall. Rumor has it my year-'09, that does not use the Diesel emissions fluid, is not fixable. Just rumor but highly possible. The eco-warrior hate for cars goes double for 4x4's and double for diesel. True, the bozos who deliberately tweaked their pickup trucks to lay a smoke trail don't help. So I'm shopping vans & jeeps to have a good winter beater..... or permanent second hauler, looking forward to the time New York demands my car be "fixed" or taken off the highway. The worst part of the tdi debacle so far is I can't brag how green I am.  } | ||
| Damnut |
Love my 03 TDI Jetta. | ||
| Aesquire |
You're fine. I'm in the outhouse. | ||
| Torquehd |
I hadn't heard of the anti diesel movement. I learned in high school that a properly burning diesel is less damaging to humans than a gas burning motor. And I've heard that through the years. I wonder if the anti diesel crap is like the global warming crap. I guess that topic would be for the winter is coming thread though. | ||
| Ratbuell |
With DEF (which I fill annually, much like windshield washer fluid), the exhaust coming out of my Ecodiesel smells like a swimming pool - it's nothing but water, and is supposedly cleaner than the air going into the intake. I haven't huffed on the tailpipe on purpose, but I have had it running in the garage for a while with no ill effects (no pun intended!). Diesels are a hard sell to Americans. Europeans "get it"...while us dumb 'mer-cans only remember smoke-belching noisemakers like the original Rabbit diesels and the old Mercedes diesels. You're right, HD diesels are a different animal and the redneck crowd who loves blowing black smoke doesn't help the cause any...but the fact of the matter is, my diesel Ram - a 3/4 ton pickup truck with an 8' bed and enough torque to pull a house - nets me nearly 20mpg commuting up and down a mountain. And that's with a tuner that has me in the 400hp / 800 lb-ft neighborhood. The Mercedes Sprinter diesel is a huge seller in the RV and upfitter world, and overseas the Eco is huge, and can be had not only in the Jeep and Ram 1500, but also in the Chrysler 300, Jeep Wrangler, and before it was axed, the Dodge Magnum. But...it's had a hard time taking hold here in the states so far. Which is a shame, because it seems to be a rock-solid powerplant (and with 420 lb-ft, my Grand has a tow rating of...I think...7200 lbs). And, Gale Banks Engineering has the rights to build/rebuild/retune the Ecodiesel for the US Military, as well as diesel-swap packages: http://www.bankspower.com/news/show/77-The-Three-L atest-Diesel-Engine-Projects | ||
| Aesquire |
It's not exactly a big con, more like an extreme view. There are people who don't like off roading, since it ruins nature. In some cases, like the very thin ecology of certain desert/dry lake areas out west, there are still tracks from the horse drawn wagons that delivered settlers. Drive a jeep across it, leave tracks for centuries before the very thin soil recovers. The fact that these are flat, open, apparently useless areas, that are a hoot to drive at high speed across, means that there are tire tracks for well over a hundred years all over the place. https://www.desertmuseum.org/books/nhsd_desert_soi ls.php The extreme view is to forbid anyone from going to these unique places, so that they are preserved for future generations. ( who will also be forbidden to go there... I didn't say the logic chain was complete ) Even in the "not desert" lands like in Nebraska, you can still see the ruts left by the Oregon Trail wagons. ( a quick search of Oregon trail ruts will get you pics and maps ) Even here in the wet and wooded East, ruts from old trails and roads persist for long years... So you can see how folk who like to hike don't like dirt bikers, and there's a whole hierarchy of nature users resentful of others intruding on their own thing. Horse riders don't like mountain bikes, because they can scare the horses, leading to injury and death ( Like all the pages of my Cyclone Manual say ) of riders and horses. They don't like the noisy Dirt Bikes more, and a Jeep? That's why a lot of California with rich horse riders ( and there are few poor horse owners ) have great trails closed to bikes and bicycles. Money talks. Some of the hostility to off roaders is richly deserved. It's always some few that ruin everything for the responsible most. You can't walk through nature without touching it, so the more extreme eco-warriors have gone to the point where they want everyone to go live in Concrete cities and leave nature alone completely. ( except of course themselves, the Enlightened Ones ) While I mock the extreme Greenies, I can understand the emotions that drive them. If EVERYONE rode dirt bikes all over, the planet would be pretty torn up. Striking a balance between saving Nature and enjoying it is not easy, nor do I claim to have the answers. All I can ask is that we perhaps should avoid the most sensitive ecologies, with our most disruptive technology. Of course, when you get to some places, walking across it damages it for decades. You tell me how to deal with that. So, yeah. the bigger the perceived mess you leave, the more disliked you will be by a larger segment of the population. Try telling someone ignorant of modern engine tech that your eco-diesel Jeep is actually greener than a gas engine, and they will have a hard time getting that, since all they know about diesels is dump trucks leaving a choking cloud of soot. Unfortunately, "Don't be a jerk" has not been properly enshrined in law and tradition. ( It might have been on that tablet Moses dropped in the Mel Brooks movie, "History of the World, Pt. 1" ) | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I tend to leave the woods with a Jeep full of trash that I pick up along the way.... but then there's this... | ||
| Etennuly |
From my limited experience the Eastern US is pretty much self healing. If when you are done with your human ground abusing(excluding some toxic stuff), just leave it alone and over time it will erase nearly all signs that people treaded there. I have very little experience in the Western areas of the US and can see how it irritates some folks to make tracks. Reminds me of a perfect fluffy snow fall on the ski resort I worked at. So pretty until some idiot skis down it making tracks. I have ridden and hiked in the mountains in Pennsylvania where old(pre 1940's) oil wells and old oil handling techniques, that had black goo covering fairly large areas around storage tanks and such, have literally healed up. Sure it takes a lot of time, but it does heal up. The most stringent trail hiking greenies I have seen, use, wear and carry products made of plastics.....what is up with that? Everything we have comes from the ground. Eventually everything we have will again be a part of the ground. Even if nuclear winter happens and kills all of the humans on the planet, there will be some sharks, alligators, mosquitoes, and other fishes and bugs to come back over a thousand years or so to start over. I have been back to visit some trails that my buddies and I ripped on with me on my ol' TT500, Jeeps, buggies, trucks even, some 35 years ago. With no human intervention over these years, the signs of ruts and tire tracks that we got bitched at by tree huggers for causing such damage the ground, and erosion problems near the creeks, are completely gone(as are those tree huggers). I worked with the Forrest Rangers marking dirt bike trails in the Allegheny National Forrest. They did more permanent type damage with their erosion control methods than we ever did with our knobby tires. You can walk back in there where it has been shut down for many years and see no signs of dirt biking, but those damn erosion control so called "natural bridges"(that we hated and opposed) are still there, in unusable condition. Where we crossed those little stream bottoms that made ruts and mud pits at the time, are completely healed. So pardon me if I light up a mud rut with my 38" tires. I only do it where I have permission and where it is legal. A lot of areas NEED to be preserved and protected from idiots, but if every inch of this Earth were preserved we would all be dead. You gotta tear a pretty big piece of ground to grow enough food to survive and you gotta shit somewhere. Mark, I also do the Boy Scout thing. I cannot stand seeing people leave trash lying around out on the trails. I have seen more than one good riding area shut down for trash pigs. The worst thing I have seen happen to a great long time trail head, where thousands of people enjoyed nature and using the Earth as it was intended, got it's existence tangled up in a political fight. Nothing ruins good ground faster or more permanently. | ||
| Aesquire |
The most stringent trail hiking greenies I have seen, use, wear and carry products made of plastics.....what is up with that? Light weight, insulates when wet. Wool works, but is heavy.  ...but if every inch of this Earth were preserved we would all be dead. Truth. Not just in a spiritual sense. I totally agree, especially about the Eastern forest reclaiming our works. and messes. The places where you can legit argue for "no one allowed" to save the ecology and weird life forms are certain types of what you'd call desert. Calcite, Desert pavement, Microphytic soil crusts, ( the uncommon and insanely ancient ones. pre- ice age ) These are delicate places and we need a rational plan to preserve them. Sand dunes and salt lakes? Party on. They heal as you watch, sometimes. I tend to leave the woods with a Jeep full of trash that I pick up along the way.... but then there's this... First, thank you. Thank the Boy Scouts, and yeah! go Conservationists! second. Love the video. |
