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A couple of notes:

• Removing the chin spoiler makes it a lot easier to crawl under the front of the vehicle.  Six quick-release fasteners are all it takes to buy yourself about 2-3 inches more room under the fascia.
• You can indeed change the oil on this vehicle without removing the skid plate under the engine, but a small amount of oil does run along the skid plate and drip out at a different spot under the driver’s side of the ‘plate.  A 2×4 placed under the driver’s side front wheel might help with that.
• The oil drain plug takes a 13MM wrench or socket.
• In a REALLY nice touch I discovered there is a chute built in under the oil filter that routes used oil directly to the drain pan, instead of letting it run all over the place on the skid plate and undercarriage.  That was one of those surprises that just delights the DIYer, and probably goes unnoticed by 90% of the owners, but what a fantastic little piece of thoughtful engineering that is!

I was thinking about doing a tire rotation tonight, but I wanted to measure the tread depth on all of the tires and see where I wanted to place them, and decide whether or not I wanted to rotate in the full size spare.  It started getting too dark to get that done, so I did a quick clean-up of the interior and glass, reset the service mileage counter and called it good.  I’ll rotate the tires before the snow comes.

It is SO NICE to have such a beautiful, low mileage vehicle to drive, but there were some things that happened about a month after I got it that haven’t been mentioned here yet.

• One day, I hopped in, turned the key, and nothing happened.  Absolutely nothing.  I gave the starting system a quick going over in the driveway (it was already dark) and when I didn’t find anything, I drove the minivan instead.
• There was a serious water leak in the front passenger footwell.
• The passenger side front window would not auto-return to the up-position due to binding — it would stall then go back down unless you held the switch up.
• The passenger side rear door would not open via the interior handle.

All of these things were the occasion to bring the truck to the dealer for service under warranty.  Sometime in early April I took it to Jim Riehle’s Friendly Jeep on 14 Mile and Van Dyke with the above complaints.  It took two or three days for them to wrap everything up, but they did fix everything:

• In a surprising, shot-gun repair, they replaced the ignition switch, battery harness and starter motor to repair the no-start issue.  In several months the problem has not reoccurred, so they must have fixed it, but I gotta say, wow, that was one expensive approach.
• The water leak was due to a void where two body panels meet, someplace under the exterior sheetmetal.  The technician sealed it up with RTV, and then noted the carpet was mildewed.  A complete one-piece interior carpet was ordered and put into the vehicle.
• The passenger side front window regulator was replaced to fix the window issue.  Surprisingly, they also replaced the driver’s side front as well.  Whether this was due to a TSB or some other known issue was not made clear, but it did fix the problem with the passenger side.
• The interior handle was reconnected to the latch mechanism on the passenger side rear door, fixing the problem.

Since these repairs, the Jeep has been trouble-free.  Now it could be that these were left-over problems that should have been caught by the two dealers that had the car before it was sold each time — and they should have been.  It could be that the build quality of the Grand Cherokee is not up to snuff, and according to somebody I know who works at Jefferson Avenue North, the water leak issue is well known, so I think that’s the case.

Either way, it was a little disconcerting to have these problems with a vehicle this new.  It was even more disconcerting to watch the dealership replace virtually everything except my ignition key to fix the no-start problem, although admittedly the problem cleared up before I brought it to them (I was going to have it towed the next day, and just on a lark I hopped in and turned the key only to see it start right up.)

Obviously this thing is an excellent truck.  It is better in almost every way than the WJ that it replaced with the minor difference that it accelerates almost imperceptibly slower than the old truck did; this has got to be because of the extra 600 pounds it’s carrying around.  It is much smoother, much quieter, much more responsive to steering input, and feels much more stable than the WJ.  I enjoy driving it.  But I have to say, I just hope it’s got the longevity I need it to have…

Today, Thursday March 4, 2010, we took delivery of a used 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo Rocky Mountain Edition 4×4, with ~12,300 miles.  Our new WK is equipped with a 4.7L V-8 engine, Quadra-Trac II 4 wheel drive, and the Class IV towing package.  The Rocky Mountain Edition goodies include power sunroof, Boston Acoustics premium stereo with six-disc changer, MP3 and IPOD capability; fog lamps, “Ronin II” cast aluminum wheels with gray accents, cargo cover, and roof rack with cross rails.  This package does not quite bring the Laredo up to the Limited’s level of equipment, and we will miss  the automatic climate control, leather interior and heated seats from our old WJ.  Unfortunately, there is a large price premium associated with the Limited of $5-7,000, over the Laredo, owing largely to the Hemi engine that typically comes with the package.

I test drove a number of WK Jeeps before deciding on this Jeep Metallic Green example.  The Hemi engine is significantly more powerful than the 4.7L V-8, but the seat of my pants tells me that the difference in performance is largely academic (the Hemi faithful will argue this point) and not worth the added cost.  The difference is there, but it is far less apparent than the difference between the 3.7L V-6 and the 4.7L V-8.

I would have liked to have the Limited’s equipment, but could not justify the cost once I discovered the Rocky Mountain edition’s added extras, which had just enough equipment to convince me that I didn’t need to pay $100 more a month for a Limited.

By far, one of the most important selling points of this particular Jeep was its condition and low mileage.  The vehicle was obviously not used as intended by the original lessee; with only a few thousand miles put on per year and the obvious excellent condition of the paint and tires, this Jeep spent most of its time sitting in a garage.  The salesman suggested it may have been owned by an elderly person; I don’t know if that was the case or not.  The interior still had the plastic wrapping on the carpet from the factory when we test drove the car, the engine compartment still had all of the inspection paint marks on the components.  The tires appear as new, there are no dents in the body, and the wheels are free of curb rash or corrosion.  It has all of its owner’s manual and service records books.  It is not perfect; there are two minor flaws: a scuff on the front passenger door trim pad, and a small mark on the driver’s sun visor.  There are a couple of extremely minor scratches on the body that are not noticeable unless you are looking for imperfections.

I have never seen a better kept used vehicle — period.

The savings over buying a Limited, combined with the low mileage mean this Jeep will be paid off long before it reaches 70,000 miles; it is not inconceivable it could be paid off somewhere in the 50,000 mile range, but it is difficult to predict the future, and my employment situation may have me commuting back and forth to work again sometime in the next five years.

Here’s some pics of the new machine taken from the dealer’s website.

The ad copy from the dealership read:

“Right SUV!!!! Right price!!!! Come to Dick Huvaeres Richmond Chrysler!!!! Low Miles!!!! Want to stretch your purchasing power? Well take a look at this attractive 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Take this talented Grand Cherokee down the road, and fall in love with driving all over again. Call or stop by for a visit at Dick Huvaere’s Richmond Chryler Dodge Jeep today.“

Asking price was $20,295.  We settled on $19,700 plus tax, title, doc fees, etc.  Compared to the other vehicles out there, especially considering this one’s mileage, we paid a very fair price.  The total came to $21,131.84.

The Jeep protected us well. The approximate speed at the time the fishtailing started was roughly 65-70MPH. The roof maintained most of its integrity, crushing down on the passenger side approximately 2 – 3″. Although Angela was sore and bruised from the seat belt and suffered a minor yet painful tear in the soft tissue in her shoulder, the kids and I barely had a scratch and only minor bruising which appeared days later.

The Jeep, however, gave up its life to protect us. The roof suffered major damage, of course, as did the doors on the passenger side, the driver’s side rear quarter panel, driver’s door, and hood. Surprisingly, none of the glass broke, although the passenger side door headers peeled away from the roof, allowing mud to accumulate in the car as it slid on its side. The engine and transmission were both damaged in the accident somehow and were leaking fluids several days later when inspected by the insurance adjuster. After they found $11,000 worth of damage, they threw in the towel and wrote it off as a total loss, buying it from me for $14,800 plus tax and title fees, which paid off the loan and left us with $8000 to put a down payment on a replacement vehicle.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed driving this truck every time I sat in it and turned the key. However, there were some issues that would have needed attention before too much longer had the accident not happened:

o The exhaust was rusting out and needed replacement. I have never paid to replace an exhaust on any vehicle, so I was surprised to hear the exhaust note change and find a rust hole along a seam in the muffler.
o The heater blend doors started making a clicking sound at times. I understand this was a problem endemic to WJ Grand Cherokees with automatic climate control systems.
o There was a water leak in the spare tire well. I never found the source.
o There was the aforementioned braking noise. I believe the front rotors were probably warped and needed machining, but I’m not sure.
o There was a gear whine in the rear axle. It might have just been a byproduct of the locking (Varilok) axles, or it might have been a slightly misadjusted pinion gear. Not sure.
o There was a ringing sound which I associated with the transmission during cold weather operation before it fully came up to temperature. It may or may not have been a transmission noise, but it definitely varied with vehicle speed. This wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but it got my attention when it happened.

If I had to sum up the ownership experience with this Jeep in a few lines, here’s what I would say:

Pros:
—-

• Unstoppable 4 wheel drive
• Excellent acceleration
• Great for light-to-moderate duty towing
• Luxurious, comfortable interior for front passengers
• Excellent retention of value
• Excellent accident performance
• Fun to drive
• Great stereo system
• Overall vehicle design

Cons
—-

• Poor fuel economy.
• Poor air circulation in the rear seat area
• Noisy drivetrain
• Minor quality issues (failure of the oil pressure sending unit, failure of the pedal adjustment switch).
• Premature rust-out of exhaust components
• Premature rust-out of door trim moldings
• Premature rust along lower door skin pinch welds
• Premature failure of driver’s door detent

Although the list of “cons” is significant, it is by far outweighed by the list of “pros” in my opinion. That’s why we replaced our WJ with a 2007 WK today.

The Jeep has developed a slow, pulsating noise on brake pedal application that only  can be heard when it is almost stopped.  Having cheerfully ignored the rear brakes during last winter’s quickie $20 brake job, I decided it was time to pull the rear wheels off last (Thanksgiving) weekend to see what I had.

After disassembling everything I found a rear brake system that was in basically good repair, but with about 20% of life remaining on the pads.  Having gone this far, I decided to pull the rotors as well, have them turned, and put on a set of fresh pads.

The rotors weren’t any fun to remove.  After I backed the adjusters for the in-hub emergency brake all the way off, they were still pretty stuck to the hub.  It took some pretty serious whacks on the corner of the hub to break them loose.  I thought I might have cooked the rotors for sure.

Well, I took them up to the 18 Mile/Ryan O’Reilly’s (formerly Murrays) for turning.    After $30 of machine work, the rotors cleaned up with approximately .020″ left before the discard-at spec.  I had a difficult time getting a straight answer as to how much they took off at first, but when I started raising hell about it, they handed me the micrometer and it looks like they only took about .010″ off.  Not too bad — they couldn’t have been warped – much.  (They seem to have gotten rid of the staff that I remember being there previously in favor of a bunch of geezers with bad attitudes.  I don’t think I’ll be going back.)  $20 worth of new brake pads, and I was out of there.

The brakes went back on with little drama.  I adjusted the emergency brake the best I could under the circumstances — which were cold and very, very dark.  It seems to work a little better than I remember, but I think there is some room for improvement.  It *will* hold the Jeep against a pretty heavy application of the accelerator pedal in gear, so maybe it’s good enough.

Anyway, the braking noise is still with me.   After having my father-in-law drive the car around me in the parking lot over at the kids’ elementary school, and then around with me in the back seat, I’m pretty sure the rear brakes are NOT the source of the issue.  There is some creaking and groaning in the brake pedal which helps to, but does not entirely, explain what I’m hearing.   I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps the front rotors are ever-so-slightly warped, or there is a suspension component which has gotten noisy.  I need to dig up my dial micrometer and check the run-out on the front brakes.  Hopefully I’ll have some space in the garage cleared out before long, it’s getting cold outside, and there have been flurries in the air…

Tires

…which leads me to the thing that was done today.  The tires on the Jeep were questionable last winter.  I had to rotate them to get decent performance out of them in the snow (for some odd reason, there was more wear on the driver’s side, and the vehicle would skew oddly to the left on throttle application in snow).   This summer, the few times I pulled the boat out of the water with it there was some wheelspin on the ramp, which was not encouraging.  Finally, it started to slip and slide a bit on wet asphalt.  The original Goodyear Wrangler SR-As were done.  Truth be told, I was never too impressed with them.  With the snow about to fly, I wasn’t eager to try going another winter on these tires; they were showing signs of dry rot, the tread wear bars were nearly to the top of the tread, and, well, they looked like crap.   Being that OE Goodyear tires have never been anything but a disappointment to me, and their premium replacement line is so overpriced, I decided to look to other manufacturers.

Can I mention here that finding decent tires for a common-as-dirt Jeep SUV should be easier than it is?   Finding decent tires that don’t cost $200 apiece is really difficult.   I shopped on and off for these for a couple of months, but today I had to use a day of use-it-or-lose-it vacation time, so I figured today was the day.  Thought I’d be done by lunchtime.  I wasn’t done until after 6PM.

The replacement tire industry is full of bait and switch tactics, products of questionable quality, devious practices designed to make it difficult to comparison shop, and only the subjective experiences of website users to go on in making a quality determination.  It sucks.

Originally, I was considering three tire brands: the Firestone Destination A/T (well reviewed, a little pricey, and, ultimately, unobtainable due to a national back-order), the Hankook  Dynapro ATM RF10 (well reviewed, a little less pricey, and equally difficult to obtain, unless you’re willing to pay $200 more a set than the going rate at Sears), and the Fuzion XTi (also well reviewed, also of limited availability.)  Having struck out in my efforts to find a set of four, well-reviewed tires in the 7th largest metropolitan area in the United States without going into a week-long (or more) wait while they were ordered, I began considering alternatives.

I wasn’t about to overpay for Michelin, or the so-so quality of OE Goodyear.   I considered the GT Radial’s Savero H/T Plus, which were priced right, but their manufacture in Shanghai left me cold.  I was almost talked into a set of BF Goodrich Long Trail TA Tourings by a salesman at Belle Tire, but fortunately I stuck to my guns about not buying something I hadn’t researched.  (They’ve got very poor reviews despite all the BS about how great their siping is, and the price was nothing special.)   I briefly considered a set of Pep Boys house brand Definity Dakota HTs, said to be made in Ohio by Cooper Tire.  All the comments I read about the tires themselves were positive, all the comments I read about the quality of the installation by Pep Boys were negative.   Finally, I gave John R Spring and Tire in Troy a call, and was quoted a price on Cooper Discoverer ATMs of $624 out the door.  Six hundred bucks is a lot of money to spend on tires, but I couldn’t find anything reputable for less, and Cooper seems to have a very well regarded design.   The tread pattern looks at least as aggressive as the first choice Firestone Destination A/Ts, so I decided to give them a try.  Time will tell….

An OE battery that lasted 5 years and 49K miles doesn’t owe you anything, in my opinion.  I replaced it with an Autolite 84-month battery I got at Murry’s.  I spent about $80, and life is good again.  I’m going to wait until the weather is warm again and make sure I thoroughly clean the battery terminals off; I knocked some corrosion off with my screwdriver, but it’s just too cold to mess with right now.

Well, appearances clearly were deceiving.  There was at least 50% of the front pads left, but the design of the caliper makes it difficult to tell.  May I say, however, that I’ve never run across a better designed  brake caliper than these.  Two bolts remove the caliper piston assembly (it’s actually a dual piston setup), and then the pads easily slide out of the carrier without removing it!  Even better, the pads are identical, so there’s no need to keep track of what came from where.  Even in 20F temps today, it was a very painless brake job; about 20 minutes per side including jacking and R&R of the wheel.  I did not touch the rotors; I mic’d them and they were good, their surfaces were smooth except for a small ridge at the outer periphery of the inside on both, and I just didn’t see the point of having them machined; they weren’t warped.  So it was a $20 brake job.  Not too tough to take.

Well, I finally got the chance to change the transmission fluid this evening.  It was fairly straightforward; lift the Jeep up a little to make it just a tad easier to crawl under, put the drain pan down on top of the big “baking sheet” drip catching pan I have, drop the pan too fast and make a mess anyway…

I changed both of the transmission filters.  There is the usual, flat filter that bolts to the underside of the valve body, and then a very *unusual* spin-on type filter that goes on near the point where the cooling return line comes into the front of the trans.  It is actually up inside the pan, sort of forward and to one side of the valve body, and is shaped like a miniature oil filter.  Trouble is, it was a bit “stuck” and ordinary hand pressure wouldn’t break it loose.  It was too small for the cap style oil filter wrench I have.  So I tried my largest pair of channel-lock style pliers, but they weren’t big enough.  Finally, I hit upon the solution: I used one of my 8″ C-clamps as an ersatz wrench.  It was a little clumsy, but it worked great!

Note that there is an oil seal ring for the normal transmission fluid filter that must be replaced.  There are lots of warnings to not put that ring onto the new filter’s tube and just jam it into the underside of the trans.  Apparently they will get loose and cause all sorts of trouble.  Prying the old one out was no joy; it’s a tight fit.  I had to have the secondary spin-on filter removed to get to it with a small screwdriver, but it finally popped off.  Next, putting the new one in required pressing it in place and tapping it with the butt end of a hammer handle.

Other than those things though, a very simple, straightforward, if messy fluid change.  It took about 7½ quarts of transmission fluid before it was finally filled up, so I’ll have to remember to have plenty on hand.

Oil Change

While I was at it this evening, I also changed the oil.  At 41K miles, it was due to have the original synthetic 5W30 swapped out, and Angela needed the Jeep to go to Wisconsin for her dad’s surgery.  So I went down to the quickie lube place and had them throw in regular 5W30 to get it through that trip.  (The Jeep apparently performed great in the 12″ plus snowfalls they had out there, by the way.  She said it just kept right on going with no drama.)  So we were at the 3,000 mile mark on this dino oil a couple of days ago.  Knowing I would have the evening free, I stopped by Walmart and picked up 6 quarts of synthetic.

Now the subtext to this is that gas has hit $4.00 a gallon, and of course, the Jeep being what it is, it averages 12-13MPG in the city, where it gets most of its use.  I’m cool with that; I knew that’s what it would be like, so no worries, but it needs to be kept tip-top so we’re not wasting anything, either.  So I decided to try Mobil 1 0W30 this time because of its advertised fuel saving benefits.  It’s the same price as the 5W30 synthetic, so even if it doesn’t do a thing for fuel economy it will at least not cost anything extra.

Finally, I swapped the air filter out too.  It was fairly dirty, and certainly could use the change.  They’re a bit pricey for this thing at $15 though.  The air filter is a Fram; the oil filter is a Mopar, just for the record.

Old News

About ~1,500 miles previously, I noticed that I hadn’t managed to cure the Jeep of the leak at it’s rear axle last summer.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was leaking at the pinion seal, rather than at the back cover as I first thought.  I checked with a friend and found out that the powertrain warranty would cover it, so I took it over to Monicatti and let them work on it.  They noticed that the front outboard axle seals were leaking, as well as the outboard seals on the rear in addition to the pinion seal, so the Jeep got treated to a bunch of new seals for the $100 deductible.

The only maintenance left to do for now is a trans fluid change, as well as the 6K-interval oil change that I’ve decided to go with.  I already have the trans fluid and both filters; I just need another warm, dry day…

The OBD-II code indicated that the sensor voltage was measuring too high.  At this point I was starting to wonder how to troubleshoot this; I haven’t been successful so far in finding a reasonably priced used factory shop manual lately.  I finally gave in and spent the $25 for a one-year AllData subscription, knowing that using it just this once would be enough to pay for itself compared to taking it into the shop.

The bottom line is there are a number of tests you can perform, but the most likely outcome is that the sending unit was shot.  I looked at the wiring and didn’t see any evidence of frayed or worn insulation, so I decided to “shotgun” it and throw a new sensor on.  Rock Auto had them for about $15 plus shipping.

While I was at it, I looked through the AllData material and found that I was about 8,000 miles overdue for spark plugs!  I would have thought this vehicle would have 100K-mile plugs, but it turns out it doesn’t.  I ordered those up at the same time; my total with shipping was about $33.

Naturally the oil pressure sending unit was inaccessible with a crescent wrench.  I measured the new one and discovered that I needed a 27MM deep-well socket to get the old one off.   That cost $8.

So, it’s been three days since the swap (done late on Saturday night over Thanksgiving weekend) and the problem hasn’t resurfaced.  It seems fixed.

The sparkplugs were interesting.  For one thing, the OE plugs were *completely shot*.  There wasn’t much electrode left at all; I expect that the truck would have begun to stall sometime in the next 5,000 miles.  For another thing, they’re accessible from the upper side of the cylinder heads, instead of being tucked down underneath the exhaust manifolds.  I didn’t have too much trouble replacing them, but the #8 plug (rearmost on the passenger side) was a bit of a pain; it took as long to do that one as it did to do most of the rest.

I pulled the battery terminals off while I was in there and cleaned them up.  They weren’t corroded, but the posts weren’t shiny.  The cold cranking performance improved considerably after the new plugs and refreshed battery connections.

I’ll have to remember to change those plugs again at 68K miles.