What´s the problem with the Jeep

[Shortbuss]

Interesting post. I always slammed Jeep for some reason. Then my Bro bought an 07 JK unlimited. Me and my dad made fun of him. Then my dad bought an 07 JK two door and I made fun of him. Then a few months later I bought an 08 JK two door. We all have the same lift, bumpers ect. I have over 80,000km on mine, my bro over 100,000km and my dad has hardly any. Me and my bro wheel pretty hard and the Jeeps see a hard life. I have had mine in for a few warranty repairs but nothing big. Same with my Bro. And believe it or not I came from a 4runner to my JK. I get over 20mpg and have towed my Kamparoo for a 6000km trip with 3.21 gears and have no complaints at all. Yes space is limited and the ride is a little on the harsh side. But when the roof and doors are off all is forgotten. Plus the offroad ability of the Jeep is unreal. Its a blast taking buddies out and scaring the crap out of them.

But to be honest I am not trying to convince anybody of anything. I love my Jeep and would not trade it for anything except another wrangler. A diesel unlimited Rubicon would be total ************! But I have had mine for almost 3 years, I usually get bored after 1 or 2 and trade up. No plans for that. Keeping it for a long time.

 

[AmericaOverland]

The other issue likely has to do with some form of QC at the factory. Jeep/Chrysler does not have a sterling reputation in this regard and as such "erratics" get through the process and cause problems.

Conversely, recalling a few million Toyotas and Lexus cars at a time is not uncommon either.

Exactly. All manufacturing has to deal with a balance of tolerance. Tolerance being what percentage of variance in the accuracy of machining a part, temperature for casting a particular part, the speed of lathing certain parts, etc. There HAS to be tolerance for variance, otherwise too many rejects per 1,000 units made can happen. The question is, "how much variance are you willing to tolerate in the end result, and how much are you willing to pay to keep the rejection rate down within the tolerance band you are shooting for?"

I think that the reason one person may drive a million mile Ford Pinto and another may drive another one that tosses its motor within one year is because one day, you get a batch of parts machined from sub-par quality metal that slipped inspection somehow, and another day, you get similar parts machined from a different batch of metal that is to specification. One day, your assembly machinery is going off-spec somewhere and you're not getting quite the fit-to-finish on something, it is caught a month later and fixed. It is a job to keep everything constantly in spec - do you even know that your tool bits or machinery are made within the same spec. called for? A lot of factors to account for.

I think that what we would be paying for is quality control via monitoring and controlling variance in the manufacturing process. Finally, my degree is useful for my 2 minutes of fame here...

 

[Xodius]

The availability of parts for one,
that's why I have a Toyota in Tanzania but have Jeep's here.

That is SACRILEGIOUS!!! Tom I am posting that on all the forums we both belong on, lol.:victory:

 

[BIGdaddy]

I honestly would feel fine taking my Cherokee anywhere in North America. I have fixed all faults that have come my way, and have maintained a fairly relaxed maintenence schedule and I have gotten nothing but reliability from my rig. Things that have needed replacing all pretty much fit in the category of "failed due to being 17 years old" (radiator, TPS sensor, O2 sensor, upper steering shaft, tires/brakes/fan belt, etc)

Never on the side of the road, never stranded. It simply a very well-thought-out, well proportioned rig.

I lust after the romanticism that is embodied in rigs like land rovers, but when I'm about 5mins behind schedule getting to work, or in the back country of anza-borrego, I realize that I never worry that my cherokee is NOT going to start. I never worry that it is NOT going to engage it's robust 4wd system and pull me out of the terrain I'm in, or break itself in a completely surprising way that I'm not prepared for or can't go down the street to pep boys and have fixed in 30mins.

 

[Mr. D]

:lurk:

 

[YJake]

I like me some Heep. More specifically any of the 91'+ YJ or XJ models. The things will take one hell of a beating and keep on tru-.. er, Jeepin'. :ylsmoke:

Reliable, easy to work on, and fairly inexpensive to maintain as far as 4wd vehicles go. I have rebuilt my transmission in a friend's driveway 3hrs from home when a gear went out and still made it home in time for work the next morning. How is that possible? Because there are more Jeep parts in junkyards and part stores here than anywhere else!

I have taken it many places, and in most situations it is ideal. But, Overlanding through Deepest Darkest Africa? Nope! I'm not even going to kid myself.

If you live here try it, you'll probably love it. (Unless you buy a JK :elkgrin: )

-Jake

 

[Black Dog]

YJake your post gave me fond memories of one particular break down me and a friend had in his 1990 YJ. Not even 5 hours after he bought the thing we were headed out to the country to wheel it and see how it did and were cruising along a paved road at probably 45 or 50 when we crossed a bridge. There was a pretty significant bump on the bridge and the jeep bounced pretty good and we heard a thunk and came to a screeching halt. We started it back up and tried to drive but it was like the jeep was in neutral, it just wouldn't go anywhere, so we tried four wheel drive and then it was mobile. We started heading back to his house but every once in a while something would catch and we would come to a sudden stop again, when it did that we found that if we rocked it back and forth a little bit then we could drive it some more.

So we got home and eventually started taking things apart and discovered that we shattered a spider gear in the rear diff. Luckily the used car dealer he bought it from was willing to work with him and offered to either buy the vehicle back from him or to cover all expenses to repair it, which is what he did. But that was a repair we did in a gravel driveway with just simple hand tools found in every tool box around the world. I think part of the nice thing about jeeps is that they have always been kind of an icon for the average guy and fixing it the way we did is something almost anyone could do.

 

[richmondbob]

1995 YJ Sport, owned since new. Used it for everything from going to school, work, carrying construction materials, camping, offroading, on and on. It's the only vehicle that has given so much utility, reliability and (********-eating grin) fun. Could never part with it so when the 4-door JK came out bought that for the wife instead :wings:.

 

[Lancer]

JPK - when I talked of the reliability of LR passing into folklore - it was meant to be tongue in cheek! There is the joke that 95% of all LRs ever built are still on the road - the other 5% made it back home! The good thing about the older LRs is that they are easy to fix; the bad thing is that they need to be. A friend of mine had an ex-army LR(110 Defender) for expedition and long range travel for many years, until it eventually just got too old and beaten up. After reading Tom Sheppard's book, he bought an old(ish)LWB G-wagen - ex-Bundeswehr. After kitting it out, he took it on a few shakedown runs across Europe and Scandinavia before crossing the Sahara, and then down the East Coast of Africa to Cape Town. He had done this journey years before in the LR. He told me that there was no comparison - the G was far more robustly built, and the only things he'd had to replace was a couple of the tyres. He hadn't needed to touch the engine or transmission (save for oil, filter and fluid changes) at all. As far as he was concerned, he couldn't see himself ever going back to a Solihull product.

 

[tommudd]

A few have written about repairing a Jeep in their driveway with common hand tools here in the US which of course is the way it should be done!
But what they are not thinking about is the availability of parts here in the US compared to other areas of the world.
case in point
As mentioned before we have a Toyota over in Tanzania, not my first choice but rather my wifes. But last time I went over it needed new rear shocks. ( roads over there eat shocks / suspension parts for breakfast)
Anyways went into town, (Dodoma) to find rear shocks and the shop which was about the size of most of our living rooms had a pair of Toyota brand replacements for 70,000 shillings,about 50-55 bucks American. They had others which wer Made in China and JUNK)
For the heck of it I asked about rear shocks for a KJ or a XJ , they would have to order them maybe taking two weeks or more.
Over the next month I tried about 20 shops in Dodoma, Dar es Salaam, Moshi, and Arusha and all got the same answer almost. So if a shock is hard to find imagine what a major part would be like.
Toyotas you can find sitting everywhere, they may not be any more reliable than say a Jeep but getting parts is a whole lot easier

 

[rsbmg]

I think it really boils down your needs. I'm new to this forum, I have a 2006 LJ. For me and my girl it has plenty of room for what I am doing. For me talking about wether I can get parts in Uzbekistan is about as relevant to me when choosing a vehicle as wether or not the radio has 5 presets or 6. I could not care less.

The rest is personal preference. If you are driving long distances on pavement and an occasional fire road for weeks at a time I would say a Wrangler is not the best choice.

If however you take shorter trips of say a week and you want to get places that no other vehicle is going to be able to get to, Jeep is your choice.

Generally speaking a Jeep, especially a modified Jeep is going to go more places than any other vehicle. Also, generally speaking its going to cost alot less to modify to get to those places and there are just plain more aftermarket parts for a jeep than anything else on the market.

 

[b jeepin]

little to add

i figured i was a candidate to add my 2 cents, i have both a rover and a jeep, currently the jeep is fitted for the more extreme offroad excursions and the rover for the more road trips and camping etc. in my opinion it boils down to what your personally comfortable with. so pick onebuild it up and have fun!:elkgrin:

 

[BIGdaddy]

A few have written about repairing a Jeep in their driveway with common hand tools here in the US which of course is the way it should be done!
But what they are not thinking about is the availability of parts here in the US compared to other areas of the world.
case in point
As mentioned before we have a Toyota over in Tanzania, not my first choice but rather my wifes. But last time I went over it needed new rear shocks. ( roads over there eat shocks / suspension parts for breakfast)
Anyways went into town, (Dodoma) to find rear shocks and the shop which was about the size of most of our living rooms had a pair of Toyota brand replacements for 70,000 shillings,about 50-55 bucks American. They had others which wer Made in China and JUNK)
For the heck of it I asked about rear shocks for a KJ or a XJ , they would have to order them maybe taking two weeks or more.
Over the next month I tried about 20 shops in Dodoma, Dar es Salaam, Moshi, and Arusha and all got the same answer almost. So if a shock is hard to find imagine what a major part would be like.
Toyotas you can find sitting everywhere, they may not be any more reliable than say a Jeep but getting parts is a whole lot easier

If you're talking about my posts about working on the jeep myself in my driveway( one of my common sayings ), and "not thinking" about not being able to find parts in other countries, I just wanted to clarify that I'm well aware of the lack of parts availability in other parts of the world.

I have no intention of travelling outside of N. america with my Cherokee. I'd probably do some research on what's available there, and use what's most prevalent, or better yet, just hire something when I get there.

I think for africa I'm pretty sold on using something like a Mercedes Diesel wagon with a couple cargo carriers on top. That, or a 70 series...

The portal has trained me well. :victory::victory:

 

[xj_chef]

i have a '93 XJ i'm currently building up for of-road/overland trips.
it has 264,000 miles on it and no problems. regular maintaince it is great and reliable for inside the U.S.

 

[BIGdaddy]

Something like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/300tdorg/3518250874/sizes/l/

would do my family and I very well on an african trip, I think...incognito, reliable, safe, able to consume the most primitive of fuels, etc. Traction and ground clearance never seemed to be an issue for them on their journey. Mostly fuel availability, and tire/wheel damage. You should look through the album to see where this wagon goes. VERY capable rig.