Life and adventures of Gertrude

Hello,

Like many I have been a long time lurker with the occasional post here or there but I have finally decided to post a somewhat small and slow going build thread with some family adventures mixed in. Before we introduce Gertrude (Gertie for short) I’m going to go into a little backstory. Before Gerty we had a 2007 Chevy Avalanche named Agnes
da0d3c9ca5d3314b817d90ffbef40651.jpg


She was a fantastic machine! We bought her in early 2019 with less than 50k on the odometer. We took her all sorts of places and she was fairly capable for being stock with only the G80 and 4wheel drive.
916916af9902635496ba2e3672827f5f.jpg

f2892327a8fc550f4589affef87b4227.jpg


But do to some very bad decision making on my part she met an early demise
aa630643b87c369ad16c4122478e078a.jpeg

3a144e106686966a6738440cb420db15.jpeg


I spent the next few weeks trying to fix her, draining everything, fixing electrical gremlins, trying to save her from salvage and the boss. Unfortunately though the damage was done and she was past saving for what we prepared to do.
28ef8d821c958b8327715b3f1a83b50f.jpg


So at this point we cut our losses and sold her. It was a really sad day. We replaced Agnes with this,
3383d2c01b010f51f9253359546d6679.jpg

d0b55e022f4f9eb6010547605eb41db1.jpg

A very nice and very clean 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee limited. She was a v6 with the quadratrac-II. We drove this Jeep around for about 2 months while the dealership did a fantastic job of screwing up the financial paperwork at every turn and whenever they possibly could. After 2 months we had finally had enough, returned her to the dealership and took our down payment back.

The search continues! After a few months of looking and trying to find the right vehicle for our family adventures we came across this...
b7aa0c859e5d9ad240871f4f9a6457de.jpg

ed294c36a3583576569d03745474be42.jpg


Meet Gertrude! Our 2018 Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, she is everything I was looking for after owning our last grand. She has just about every option you can think of and a few I didn’t know existed. She has a Hemi under the hood, air suspension, Quadra drive-II, full leather seats, and red tow hooks for extra horsetorques.

e66889055efda43d74744a544a00e3db.jpg


It didn’t take long before we went on our first family expedition in her. Just a small hiking trail not too far from the house but super excited to get the opportunity to really test her out!


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And it begins. How long before you figure out the lift, bigger tires, cargo etc....LOVE Gertrude! Shes a dandy rig.

As far as lift goes I am still undecided, I can make my own leveling or lifting links for the air ride but I have read mixed reviews on people’s opinions after installing. I have also read a post where someone installed the RRO leveling kit with custom links and some adjustments with alphaobd but I want to use it first to see what I decide. Tires I am thinking 275/65/18 general atx due to being able to get them in a p rating vs lt saving the unsprung weight. For cargo I have dreams of a gobi rack but they are a little on the pricey side so I am going to have to save my pennies for a little while for that one.


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I have seen things like that caused by American Adjunct Lagers that rate an "Awful" on Beer Advocate... ;)

The sad part was she had forded the river once before and conquered. This was on the return trip back across, took the wrong line ended up in a soft spot and that was all she wrote. Many life lessons were learned that day...


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jeepgc

Adventurer
Hello,

Like many I have been a long time lurker with the occasional post here or there but I have finally decided to post a somewhat small and slow going build thread with some family adventures mixed in. Before we introduce Gertrude (Gertie for short) I’m going to go into a little backstory. Before Gerty we had a 2007 Chevy Avalanche named Agnes
da0d3c9ca5d3314b817d90ffbef40651.jpg


She was a fantastic machine! We bought her in early 2019 with less than 50k on the odometer. We took her all sorts of places and she was fairly capable for being stock with only the G80 and 4wheel drive.
916916af9902635496ba2e3672827f5f.jpg

f2892327a8fc550f4589affef87b4227.jpg


But do to some very bad decision making on my part she met an early demise
aa630643b87c369ad16c4122478e078a.jpeg

3a144e106686966a6738440cb420db15.jpeg


I spent the next few weeks trying to fix her, draining everything, fixing electrical gremlins, trying to save her from salvage and the boss. Unfortunately though the damage was done and she was past saving for what we prepared to do.
28ef8d821c958b8327715b3f1a83b50f.jpg


So at this point we cut our losses and sold her. It was a really sad day. We replaced Agnes with this,
3383d2c01b010f51f9253359546d6679.jpg

d0b55e022f4f9eb6010547605eb41db1.jpg

A very nice and very clean 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee limited. She was a v6 with the quadratrac-II. We drove this Jeep around for about 2 months while the dealership did a fantastic job of screwing up the financial paperwork at every turn and whenever they possibly could. After 2 months we had finally had enough, returned her to the dealership and took our down payment back.

The search continues! After a few months of looking and trying to find the right vehicle for our family adventures we came across this...
b7aa0c859e5d9ad240871f4f9a6457de.jpg

ed294c36a3583576569d03745474be42.jpg


Meet Gertrude! Our 2018 Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, she is everything I was looking for after owning our last grand. She has just about every option you can think of and a few I didn’t know existed. She has a Hemi under the hood, air suspension, Quadra drive-II, full leather seats, and red tow hooks for extra horsetorques.

e66889055efda43d74744a544a00e3db.jpg


It didn’t take long before we went on our first family expedition in her. Just a small hiking trail not too far from the house but super excited to get the opportunity to really test her out!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Very nice and welcome, the first few pics I was thinking ....errrr.........

Looking forward to reading about your upcoming travels and mods.
 
So being on a Jeep forum I can guess what the answer is going to be but I figure I may as well ask opinions anyways. So through some research I have found there is a way to “lift” grand cherokees with the quadralift air suspension. If you purchase and install leveling pucks from “ insert cheap chinese made leveling kit” and the Alfa obd program you are able to then adjust the air ride preset settings and gain essentially 2” of ground clearance while maintaining all factory ride height settings. This would also allow the ability to run a 33.5” tire instead of 32”. One other stipulation with the taller tire is that I will have to switch from a p rated to an lt so I am adding a decent amount of unsparing weight. So in short is the extra cost in parts and additional cost that come with larger tires worth the additional 3.5” of ground clearance?


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Septu

Explorer
So being on a Jeep forum I can guess what the answer is going to be but I figure I may as well ask opinions anyways. So through some research I have found there is a way to “lift” grand cherokees with the quadralift air suspension. If you purchase and install leveling pucks from “ insert cheap chinese made leveling kit” and the Alfa obd program you are able to then adjust the air ride preset settings and gain essentially 2” of ground clearance while maintaining all factory ride height settings. This would also allow the ability to run a 33.5” tire instead of 32”. One other stipulation with the taller tire is that I will have to switch from a p rated to an lt so I am adding a decent amount of unsparing weight. So in short is the extra cost in parts and additional cost that come with larger tires worth the additional 3.5” of ground clearance?


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I think it depends on how you plan to use it. 3.5" of extra clearance (well actually only 2.75" as you only get half of the tire clearance under the axles) can make a noticeable difference even though it doesn't sound like a lot. However it's also possible that if all you're doing is FSRs then you may never need it, and that what the air suspension provides for off road travel will be enough.
 
I think it depends on how you plan to use it. 3.5" of extra clearance (well actually only 2.75" as you only get half of the tire clearance under the axles) can make a noticeable difference even though it doesn't sound like a lot. However it's also possible that if all you're doing is FSRs then you may never need it, and that what the air suspension provides for off road travel will be enough.

I do live in a pretty good area as far as places to go with varying levels of difficulty. The tires currently on Gertie are approx 30” tall so by going to a 33.5” tire and 2” of lift is where I came up with the 3.5 inches. The one thing I have read from people and somewhat felt myself from the small amount of off-roading we have done is it lacks down travel so in theory I should be gaining down travel with the leveling kit correct?


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Septu

Explorer
I do live in a pretty good area as far as places to go with varying levels of difficulty. The tires currently on Gertie are approx 30” tall so by going to a 33.5” tire and 2” of lift is where I came up with the 3.5 inches. The one thing I have read from people and somewhat felt myself from the small amount of off-roading we have done is it lacks down travel so in theory I should be gaining down travel with the leveling kit correct?


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Unfortunately I do not have an answer on that. jeep forum has a whole section on GCs/WK2s, so perhaps that is the place to look/ask. I expect that the GC will be 3 wheeling a lot more then my Wranglers ever did and it's just something that I'll have to accept as a limitation of the platform.
 
Long time since an update but finally have some stuff to justify one. She has been running good for us the past year. Had to replace motor mounts around 85k but other than that just fuel and oil changes. She finally got some new rubber. I found a set of 265/70/18 Cooper AT3 4s for $150 off of fb marketplace and they were in fantastic condition!
1b59413f242bd88af3ed5b2d5d334370.jpg


Unfortunately though it was kind of a rough year as well. Lost a few family members to different circumstances and while traveling from one funeral to another we were hit by a semi.
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After 3 months of fighting with insurance companies and the auto body shop she was finally all fixed up and back to being good as new. Took her for a small trail ride to give her a good shake down today and she performed flawlessly. Really excited for this year’s camping season and to get to do some exploring with our new rubber.
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