Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)

au1994

28firefighter said:

Forgot to add, the 530 touring is on a truck back east. Got picked up last night. Could not have timed that better if I tried.

Nope! That was a cool ride and a good thing you did for your dad. The Jeep, however, I think you are going to come to love.

sda

28firefighter said:

Forgot to add, the 530 touring is on a truck back east. Got picked up last night. Could not have timed that better if I tried.

Sounds like your dad is doing better, great news! Love the new Jeep.

nyccarguy

@28firefighter - do you have the power roof on your new Jeep? I LOVE the color too. Looks great with the Black Wheels.

28firefighter

I've only got about 100 miles on the Jeep so far and it is really very different than I expected (in the best of ways).

Surprises (Good ones):
(1) The seats are shockingly comfortable - I took it on a 10 mile test drive followed by a 35 mile ride home and another 10 miles to Tball practice. Felt great afterwards.
(2) The ride quality is really good - better than any other Wrangler I've driven. Tires are overinflated so I need to fix that, but aside from that, minimal wandering, no death wobble or anything. It feels like a truck, for sure, but that's fine for my purposes here. Not too punishing. I attribute the improved ride quality to the additional weight from the batteries dead center in the car underneath the rear bench.
(3) Creature comforts are great - the heated steering wheel is particularly powerful.
(4) The hybrid system really is seamless. And it is darn quick relatively to it's other counterparts.
(5) Build quality seems good, so far. Not a single rattle, which is probably the most surprising.

Surprises (Bad ones):
(1) No dead pedal - I'm not sure how I never noticed this before, but apparently there is no dead pedal on Jeeps. Hopefully there is something I can get aftermarket - I don't use it regularly, just on long drives.
(2) Road noise is a bit louder than I would have hoped, but not awful.


My son has named this one "Sparky 12" because "[I have] had 12 cars since Sparky left." Sparky was the i3.

tifighter

Congrats.

I've always kinda wanted a 2-door wrangler. This isn't helping.

corvette

Nice writeup, @28firefighter ! And congrats on the new ride. I might have to give one of those a test drive at some point to try out the improved ride quality. Have you really had 12 cars since the i3?

28firefighter

No. I've had one - the wagon. But he is 4 and I suspect is susceptible to repeating my wife's hyperbole about my car habits. Not that I don't deserve it.

stickguy

tifighter said:

Congrats.

I've always kinda wanted a 2-door wrangler. This isn't helping.

Same here!

tifighter

stickguy said:

tifighter said:

Congrats.

I've always kinda wanted a 2-door wrangler. This isn't helping.

Same here!

I had a blue CJ-7 back in college. 3 speed manual. I'll guess the new one drives better.

stickguy

Not as easy to work on I bet.

explorerx4

The death wobble is from worn out front suspension parts, so you don't have to worry about that just yet, or probably ever.

28firefighter

explorerx4 said:

The death wobble is from worn out front suspension parts, so you don't have to worry about that just yet, or probably ever.

There was an issue with early JLs related to something with the steering rack, but I think they fixed that.

corvette

Repair Geek had a good video on death wobble in a 2014 (I think) Wrangler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzgdsinGRIg

Looks like a questionable lift kit and alignment contributed to the problem.

stickguy

I watched a lot of videos on fixing that on super duty Fords. Pretty interesting stuff.

xwesx

nyccarguy said:

When are you going to start modding it? Lol! Looks great @28firefighter! Congrats! Mazel-Tov & enjoy!

I say... those Hi-Lift jacks are a common sight on Wranglers. I saw a new one yesterday, though: The owner mounted the Hi-LIft in the middle of the rear door on the driver's side. Middle of the door! I cannot imagine a less-convenient location for a jack; he must use it daily to justify that location.

qbrozen

Something vaguely interesting on the Camaro. Through the interwebs, I discovered “competition mode,” launch control, and performance timer. From a stop, no special mode selected, just one foot, off the brake and on the gas. 0-60 in 4.3. Enabled competition mode and used launch control...4.4. Go figure.
But either one is fairly impressive on all-season tires on crappy street pavement.

Sandman6472

I've also always liked the 2-door Wranglers though I hear the ride is awful. Drove a few 4-doors and Gladiator's at work lately and they do have a loud punishing ride after awhile but think with the proper suspension and insulation, a 2-door could ride so much better. And in the right color combo, I'd love it. Now, will my bad spine be so happy, well, that could be a real issue.
On a side note, put off the oil change to the 3rd of June as the visiting child is taking the train up to her older sister's place in Orlando Thursday and I need to drive her to the station, at around 11:45 so canceled the 11:15 oil change to a week later. Am still good as it'll be a year on June 10th and I've only driven maybe just over 3K miles so well within the 10K specs of synthetic oil coverage. And to be honest, want to find out if I should just have the 60K service performed but go over before and see about getting it for some discount. Do y'all think that's possible as I know I did save some on the 20K and 30K service by purchasing them before needed. I called my SA today but she's taken today off. Will call or stop by on the way home tomorrow and see what we can work out. Since the olf will be staying a bit longer with us, might be worth it to get it done.
Thoughts anyone???

kyfdx

Had a '76 CJ-5 from '80-'82. Loved it.. 258 ci straight six with a 3-speed.

ab348

qbrozen said:

Something vaguely interesting on the Camaro. Through the interwebs, I discovered “competition mode,” launch control, and performance timer. From a stop, no special mode selected, just one foot, off the brake and on the gas. 0-60 in 4.3. Enabled competition mode and used launch control...4.4. Go figure.

But either one is fairly impressive on all-season tires on crappy street pavement.

Geez, visibility in the Camaro seems even more challenging than I thought.

corvette

ab348 said:

Geez, visibility in the Camaro seems even more challenging than I thought.

They don't call them "gun slit windows" for nothing!

xwesx

Sandman6472 said:

I've also always liked the 2-door Wranglers though I hear the ride is awful. Drove a few 4-doors and Gladiator's at work lately and they do have a loud punishing ride after awhile but think with the proper suspension and insulation, a 2-door could ride so much better. And in the right color combo, I'd love it. Now, will my bad spine be so happy, well, that could be a real issue.
On a side note, put off the oil change to the 3rd of June as the visiting child is taking the train up to her older sister's place in Orlando Thursday and I need to drive her to the station, at around 11:45 so canceled the 11:15 oil change to a week later. Am still good as it'll be a year on June 10th and I've only driven maybe just over 3K miles so well within the 10K specs of synthetic oil coverage. And to be honest, want to find out if I should just have the 60K service performed but go over before and see about getting it for some discount. Do y'all think that's possible as I know I did save some on the 20K and 30K service by purchasing them before needed. I called my SA today but she's taken today off. Will call or stop by on the way home tomorrow and see what we can work out. Since the olf will be staying a bit longer with us, might be worth it to get it done.
Thoughts anyone???

For you, since you don't do any of your own maintenance, it is probably good just to go ahead and have the service performed in a timely fashion at a shop. Most items on the list are preventative, so it's better to not put them off to the point that there are repairs needed.

cdnpinhead

28firefighter said:

The hybrid wrangler hath arrived!

Well, it's pretty and all and excellent that you can plug it in, but are you planning to take it off-road? There are tons of great trails in WA.
I guess I'll leave it at that.

venture

28firefighter said:

I've only got about 100 miles on the Jeep so far and it is really very different than I expected (in the best of ways).

Surprises (Good ones):
(1) The seats are shockingly comfortable - I took it on a 10 mile test drive followed by a 35 mile ride home and another 10 miles to Tball practice. Felt great afterwards.
(2) The ride quality is really good - better than any other Wrangler I've driven. Tires are overinflated so I need to fix that, but aside from that, minimal wandering, no death wobble or anything. It feels like a truck, for sure, but that's fine for my purposes here. Not too punishing. I attribute the improved ride quality to the additional weight from the batteries dead center in the car underneath the rear bench.
(3) Creature comforts are great - the heated steering wheel is particularly powerful.
(4) The hybrid system really is seamless. And it is darn quick relatively to it's other counterparts.
(5) Build quality seems good, so far. Not a single rattle, which is probably the most surprising.

Surprises (Bad ones):
(1) No dead pedal - I'm not sure how I never noticed this before, but apparently there is no dead pedal on Jeeps. Hopefully there is something I can get aftermarket - I don't use it regularly, just on long drives.
(2) Road noise is a bit louder than I would have hoped, but not awful.


My son has named this one "Sparky 12" because "[I have] had 12 cars since Sparky left." Sparky was the i3.

My son-in-law just got a Jeep like yours. He really likes it.

His is white and is gasoline only and has a soft top.

I guess it's not like yours.

28firefighter

cdnpinhead said:

28firefighter said:

The hybrid wrangler hath arrived!

Well, it's pretty and all and excellent that you can plug it in, but are you planning to take it off-road? There are tons of great trails in WA.
I guess I'll leave it at that.

Well, it is a lease...so I won't go crazy at the risk of needing to pay for excess wear. Big thing I'd like to do once the weather improves is (1) use it to take my little one camping; (2) be able to drive out and onto some of the beaches locally where that is allowed; (3) take the top off and go cruising around.

If you have any recommendations for fairly easy beginner level trails off the top of your head, PM me!

explorerx4

Here's a video of the Wrangler 4xe and 4Runner. Both are probably more off roady, but a good baseline comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UpuWACAF5I

xwesx

28firefighter said:

Well, it is a lease...so I won't go crazy at the risk of needing to pay for excess wear. Big thing I'd like to do once the weather improves is (1) use it to take my little one camping; (2) be able to drive out and onto some of the beaches locally where that is allowed; (3) take the top off and go cruising around.

If you have any recommendations for fairly easy beginner level trails off the top of your head, PM me!

With those wheels (and tires), you're definitely not going to do any "crazy" off-roading with it. Even if you tried, you would most likely fail before you were able to create too many "excess wear" problems.

For the stuff you listed, this can probably manage it. For beaches, you'll likely want to air down the tires, so having a 12-volt compressor at hand, as well as a pressure gauge, will be good.

Sandman6472

Xwesx, my thinking exactly to be honest. Had to postpone the oil change till June 3rd as the middle kid needs dad to drive her to train station on Thursday as she's going to see the newly weds in Orlando as I can't get away right now. Still all good as the synthetic in there is less than a year old, just by weeks, but have only driven it about 3K miles but not many of those were highway ones, so feel a year is the right interval for a change. And since it's staying a bit longer than expected, might as well do what's required, especially the hanging of the brake fluid. Will go in early to see if I can get it for a bit of a discount like I did when I bought the 20K and 30K years ago.

28firefighter

@xwesx said:
With those wheels (and tires), you're definitely not going to do any "crazy" off-roading with it. Even if you tried, you would most likely fail before you were able to create too many "excess wear" problems.

For the stuff you listed, this can probably manage it. For beaches, you'll likely want to air down the tires, so having a 12-volt compressor at hand, as well as a pressure gauge, will be good.

It’s a mall crawler haha

Sandman6472

Kid decided to forgo the rental vehicle which was kinda nice since the other guys insurance was going to pick up that bill as well. If her vehicle isn't ready by Tuesday though, told her we'd need to get a rental and she could take mine until hers is done. She lives an hour south of us and has no plans to commute even tough she works from 3:30 to midnight. I'd have no problem driving an Enterprise rental to be honest but hoping that the Accent will be done by next Tuesday mid morning.
We don't talk much, funny how she's closer to my wife & I am closer to our oldest girl, but today we ran some errands and she told me something of a plan she's formulating which made me very happy. Seems she likes working where she is in South Miami and wants to stay for the long haul. All that means is we're not going to leave South Florida as I've been planning to do for years now. She mentioned taking that rent money she pays each month and getting a property! Something I was hoping she'd do sooner than later as better to pay less per month for a mortgage than pay someone else for their rental property. Sure, if something breaks, she just picks up the phone but for all she pays, she could have a true investment. And maybe, just maybe, one day, we could move in also. She's single at the moment and hopefully will find a s o but who knows about that. We're also not getting any younger so one day, it could happen. And until today, nothing I really ever gave any thought to. But, she did open up an interesting can of worms here.
But one thing I do know, moving to the Orlando area really ain't gonna happen I'd bet if I did indeed bet. And it's really not the end of the world actually. As much as I detest Miami and would hate to move down there, it just might become a reality...eventually. Which means we'd stay in our current residence longer than we had ever dreamed. And it does need some work to be honest. Like a new kitchen, countertops, a master bath, a more consistent kind of flooring throughout the place that matches and a paint job inside and out. Plus fixing the driveway. He-l, we might as well just move into a newer place somewhere in the tri-county area.
Been an interesting day today, for sure. Lots to think about but the best thing, the absolute best thing is...we got time. We got time here and we can make some smart decisions going forward. Best of all though is that our house is a family house, a family house in a family area. We need to start to think about selling it to that family and get a 3/2 plus office somewhere else. Something to start thinking about!!!

oldfarmer50

28firefighter said:

The hybrid wrangler hath arrived!

Oh, I didn’t know it was a hybrid. I didn’t even know Jeep made one. I guess I should pay better attention. I look forward to hearing how it performs for you.

sda

I haven’t kept up with Jeeps in detail so the hybrid was new to me. I’ve since read about it, sounds like it is well integrated and a nice enhancement. Cool.

oldfarmer50

Sandman6472 said:

Xwesx, my thinking exactly to be honest. Had to postpone the oil change till June 3rd as the middle kid needs dad to drive her to train station on Thursday as she's going to see the newly weds in Orlando as I can't get away right now. Still all good as the synthetic in there is less than a year old, just by weeks, but have only driven it about 3K miles but not many of those were highway ones, so feel a year is the right interval for a change. And since it's staying a bit longer than expected, might as well do what's required, especially the hanging of the brake fluid. Will go in early to see if I can get it for a bit of a discount like I did when I bought the 20K and 30K years ago.

I let the synthetic in my Ford go two years since like you I probably haven’t put 3k miles on it in that time.

fintail

In a very real way, no shame in that for a rig like yours. The wheels and tires aren't posing as they are obviously not off road material, it isn't slathered with accessories and stickers - it's really more of a utility vehicle with some off road chops, not intended for stump jumping or fording 5 feet of water.

The silly ones have enormous knobby tires, light bars aplenty, racks on racks on racks, snorkels, aggressive stickers, those moronic angry eyes, etc. Most of those seem to see as much off road time as my fintail, too.

28firefighter said:

@xwesx said:

With those wheels (and tires), you're definitely not going to do any "crazy" off-roading with it. Even if you tried, you would most likely fail before you were able to create too many "excess wear" problems.

For the stuff you listed, this can probably manage it. For beaches, you'll likely want to air down the tires, so having a 12-volt compressor at hand, as well as a pressure gauge, will be good.

It’s a mall crawler haha

28firefighter

My friend got me a bumper sticker that says “I’m two with nature” - it suits me.

cdnpinhead

28firefighter said:

If you have any recommendations for fairly easy beginner level trails off the top of your head, PM me!

If you were in CO or AZ I could help you out; in WA, not so much. That said, every western state is blessed with national forest and/or logging roads that are tons of fun, and you don't need a rock climber to enjoy them. I'd be stunned if there aren't several great books of 4WD trails in WA. Most such books are pretty good at defining the hard-core trails from the ones that only need high clearance and, well, desire. Check Amazon.

Enjoy.

corvette

28firefighter said:

My friend got me a bumper sticker that says “I’m two with nature” - it suits me.

Kind of like how some people have an "inner monologue," but I refer to it as an "inner dialogue."

henryn

fintail said:

In a very real way, no shame in that for a rig like yours. The wheels and tires aren't posing as they are obviously not off road material, it isn't slathered with accessories and stickers - it's really more of a utility vehicle with some off road chops, not intended for stump jumping or fording 5 feet of water.

The silly ones have enormous knobby tires, light bars aplenty, racks on racks on racks, snorkels, aggressive stickers, those moronic angry eyes, etc. Most of those seem to see as much off road time as my fintail, too.

28firefighter said:

@xwesx said:

With those wheels (and tires), you're definitely not going to do any "crazy" off-roading with it. Even if you tried, you would most likely fail before you were able to create too many "excess wear" problems.

For the stuff you listed, this can probably manage it. For beaches, you'll likely want to air down the tires, so having a 12-volt compressor at hand, as well as a pressure gauge, will be good.

It’s a mall crawler haha

One of the sillier things I have seen recently on the freeway was a Jeep Wrangler 4 door. It was obviously customized, a really spectacular paint job with a lot of custom touches. And, of course, it was lifted, to make room for humongous wheels (at least 26 inch diameter) with rubber band tires. Seriously? Rubber band tires on a Jeep Wrangler? The shame.

Like many of you here, I have at times lusted for a 2 door Wrangler. On one occasion, maybe 30 years ago, I came very close. This was back when the Houston Chronicle had 30 pages of full color ads on Saturday, just from the new car dealers. One dealer advertised a base model 2 door Wrangler for some really low price, and I went down to try it and buy it. I drove it, I liked it, I told him to compute the bottom line and I would call my credit union.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry we've already sold that one. We have another one just like it, only slightly more". Yeah, like about $7k more. No thanks.

28firefighter

In case anyone was curious about the saddle interior. Apparently of the 140 4xE orders at my dealer, only a handful were saddle.

stickguy

Jeeps got fancy!

xwesx

cdnpinhead said:

28firefighter said:

If you have any recommendations for fairly easy beginner level trails off the top of your head, PM me!

If you were in CO or AZ I could help you out; in WA, not so much. That said, every western state is blessed with national forest and/or logging roads that are tons of fun, and you don't need a rock climber to enjoy them. I'd be stunned if there aren't several great books of 4WD trails in WA. Most such books are pretty good at defining the hard-core trails from the ones that only need high clearance and, well, desire. Check Amazon.

Enjoy.

Check out "softroadinginthewest" on YouTube, too. He mostly explores in Oregon, but he has a fairly extensive network of like-minded friends who have their own channels and cover Washington, northern California, etc.

xwesx

28firefighter said:

In case anyone was curious about the saddle interior. Apparently of the 140 4xE orders at my dealer, only a handful were saddle.

Now THAT is fancy! I like it!

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

Something vaguely interesting on the Camaro. Through the interwebs, I discovered “competition mode,” launch control, and performance timer. From a stop, no special mode selected, just one foot, off the brake and on the gas. 0-60 in 4.3. Enabled competition mode and used launch control...4.4. Go figure.

But either one is fairly impressive on all-season tires on crappy street pavement.

Some of those modes are more for spinning the wheels to impress your friends rather to than improve your track times. On my muscle car there’s some kind of line lock mode where you can sit and destroy your rear tires for 15 seconds before the front brakes unlock and let you drive to the tire store. I never used it because dad stopped paying for my tires a long time ago.

nyccarguy

@28firefighter
My cousin has a Snazzberry Gladiator Overland with the Saddle Interior. It is beautiful.

qbrozen

@28firefighter said:
In case anyone was curious about the saddle interior. Apparently of the 140 4xE orders at my dealer, only a handful were saddle.

Not what I pictured when you said saddle. Don’t believe I have ever seen a saddle in that color. Ha.

au1994

nyccarguy said:

@28firefighter
My cousin has a Snazzberry Gladiator Overland with the Saddle Interior. It is beautiful.

That sounds nice. How does he like the Gladiator?

au1994

28firefighter said:

I've only got about 100 miles on the Jeep so far and it is really very different than I expected (in the best of ways).

Surprises (Good ones):
(1) The seats are shockingly comfortable - I took it on a 10 mile test drive followed by a 35 mile ride home and another 10 miles to Tball practice. Felt great afterwards.
(2) The ride quality is really good - better than any other Wrangler I've driven. Tires are overinflated so I need to fix that, but aside from that, minimal wandering, no death wobble or anything. It feels like a truck, for sure, but that's fine for my purposes here. Not too punishing. I attribute the improved ride quality to the additional weight from the batteries dead center in the car underneath the rear bench.
(3) Creature comforts are great - the heated steering wheel is particularly powerful.
(4) The hybrid system really is seamless. And it is darn quick relatively to it's other counterparts.
(5) Build quality seems good, so far. Not a single rattle, which is probably the most surprising.

Surprises (Bad ones):
(1) No dead pedal - I'm not sure how I never noticed this before, but apparently there is no dead pedal on Jeeps. Hopefully there is something I can get aftermarket - I don't use it regularly, just on long drives.
(2) Road noise is a bit louder than I would have hoped, but not awful.


My son has named this one "Sparky 12" because "[I have] had 12 cars since Sparky left." Sparky was the i3.

Wait till you get the top and doors off, then you will really love it. When I had my 07 I did mostly logging/forestry service type roads. One was a little hairy but otherwise they could all be handled with stock tires and no lift. They were also tame enough that many in the ride would bring their kids. As I am sure you know there a huge Jeep community out there so finding a local group to ride with won’t be a problem.

tjc78

Just realized there is a new Grand Cherokee L three row model now. Looks pretty nice in the pictures.

au1994

tjc78 said:

Just realized there is a new Grand Cherokee L three row model now. Looks pretty nice in the pictures.

It does indeed and the upcoming Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer look stunning as they should for $80+k.

graphicguy

28firefighter said:

In case anyone was curious about the saddle interior. Apparently of the 140 4xE orders at my dealer, only a handful were saddle.

I like any interior that isn’t black. As such, lovin’ yours!

graphicguy

Since we seem to be on a kick on off road vehicles, when I was shopping I test drove a Bronco Sport. I actually liked it, quite a bit, except the one they had was a 3 cyl, which was a DOG. This was nearly 2 months ago and I had forgot I told the sales guy to give me a jingle when he got a 4 cyl turbo in stock.

He called yesterday and wanted to know if I wanted to order and put a refundable $100 down on the new Bronco. Not sure how he got the impression I wanted a Bronco, but I told him I had already purchased something. Out of curiosity, I asked when he expected the Broncos to hit the dealership, and what the price range would be for a 4WD V6 Turbo model would be. He said the “OUTER BANKS” model would be the one closest to that configuration (which was the model I wanted originally as the Bronco Sport). Price? Low $40s. I thought that would have cost a LOT more. Pleasantly surprised.

He expects orders placed now to be in stock before July 4th.