haha. I thoroughly hate land rover and everything they represent in America.
you can get a decent Cherokee around here for 1500bucks, they are advertised for that every week in the local advertising booklet, THE GUIDE, and that s what I paid for mine.
the local used car lots had them for 3500 or so but I had two of them talked down to 2200 before I bought mine from a private owner, for 1500. I didn t even try to talk him down, it was a fair price.
the current Cherokee may be great, but it just doesn t have that “jeep look” . I m glad to hear it has some truck like qualities though. easy cleaning is important , cause jeeps were made to get dirty!
Both the G wagon and Range Rover are very expensive to begin with and it doubt the OP is interested in them. But if someone can afford them and they meet the buyer’s needs and desires, they should buy them. James Healey, auto tester and writer, said that if he could afford a Range Rover Sport, he would buy it in an instant. He was willing to put up with the repairs for the driving experience it offers.
This James Healey must be a glutton for punishment
If he buys any of those vehicles mentioned, they’ll probably spend as much time in the shop as in his garage
Doesn’t sound like a wise investment to me, even if you can afford it
The Range Rover and the G-Wagon were offered by me as other examples of off road capable vehicles being bought more for their status than for actual off road driving. Both are extremely complicated and expensive to fix when something goes wrong. I strongly suspect that many buyers trade in before the warranty runs out (or just lease in the first place)
The OP wants a Jeep which is fine with me.
Healey has a different set of desires in his vehicles than you do, @db4690. Just because they are different doesn’t make them bad. He doesn’t make enough money to spend $70,000+ on an SUV. He just said that if he could afford it, he wouldn’t let the repair bill get in the way of driving what he considers to be the most capable SUV on the market. And he knows a lot about new vehicles since he reviews them for Motor Week and USA Today. I also know someone that used to have a 1980-something Corvette. It broke a lot and he was unhappy. But he said within a few blocks of the repair shop, he forgot about the problems because it was so much fun to drive. He sold the car because he got married and wanted a family car to go with his new responsibilities.
That may be the threshold for CR giving a bad rating, but they also sometimes list the ten worst and best vehicles. The worst, like the Jag XF and XJ, are really bad, not just a few percentage points worst than the best. As with most things, when graphed auto reliability approximates a bell curve, with most models fairly close together in the middle, a small number far better than that, and a small number far worse. Those are the models to avoid. Anything close to the middle is actually quite reliable these days. The super unreliable cars are almost always luxury models, because there are far more things to fail on them. The best cars are usually mainstream cars that have been made for years with modest mechanical changes. When they do make changes, like going to a cvt or dsg transmission, a previously reliable car can plummet. That has happened with the Accord. Every review hails it as a brilliant car, as good as any in its class, but its new cvt is having trouble and people like CR who compile reliability stats are noticing. I’m sure it will get sorted out, but right now it’s troublesome.
We had a Land Rover in my family. A 1998 Discovery bought brand new by my Dad. I believe we got about 150K roughly out of it, and it was handed down through the family to my two sisters. He owned it, then one sister, then the next. For it to last through my sisters abuse and lack of mechanical knowledge that was impressive, but towards the end it nickel and dimed the hell out of my sister. Everything had to be ordered online or through a special shop just to aviod the outrageous dealer repair fees. When we were a kids, he was deciding between that and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We all loved the safari look and multiple windows. You can guess which car we wish we bought!
The Disco, of course. It looks like a lot of the cost or repairs was directly related your sister’s abuse.
Yes and no. Leaky everything - valve covers, power steering fluid, probably rear main seal (kind of standard there on an older car), one bad cat, radio stopped working, window switches stopped working, gauge cluster cowl coming loose, just all kinds of electrical. Weather stripping. Other then that it ran well and rode well. But yeah, I think the age and problems compounded by it being a european make really killed the ownership experience towards the end.
I imagine if those issues had been taken care of as they occurred, the Disco would have lasted longer. I still think the neglect had something to do with the problems. A long time ago I also neglected my cars, and it resulted in many problems. Now I take good care of my cars and I almost never have problems.
Well just about every time they came home they’d get a “what the hell are ya doing!?” from Dad and he’d go around and top everything off. Eventually they got the hang of giving the special added attention it then required, but being the car it is, the cost of parts and labor eventually surpassed what buying new would be, so they traded it in. In fact one sister has a toyota corolla which has been very good to her, and the other a fiat 500, which she’s been very happy with.
Here in the San Jose area, the Wrangler – that’s the one that looks like an actual open-air (sort of) 4x4 Jeep you’d drive up the Rubicon Trail, right? – anyway, that version is quite popular here. I see them all the time. Mostly parked in people’s driveways though, not so much on the road. I suppose when they get driven, it happens up in the Sierras on dirt roads, not for going to the grocery store. But all shiny and chrome and bright colored paint, sitting up high w/the differentials fore and aft visible, it is a cool looking vehicle.
Oh, and get this. Remember the topic of why the rear diff is called the “pumpkin”? One of these Jeep Wranglers I see now and then, the owner has painted the rear diff bright orange and painted a triangle-eyed pumpkin face on it!
Around here, those newer 4 door Wranglers are quite popular
I think they’re hideous . . . very far removed from the late 80s original Wrangler
Wranglers. Some buy them to use and some as a lifestyle accessory. My very flamboyant gay San Francisco hairdresser drove one for years. He liked that you can easily see and be seen from one. He had a boring little Pontiac for rainy season use (it came in purple - it was the eighties.) I think k there are at least as many poseurs as serious off-roaders who own them. Oh, some drive down the of occasional muddy track, but nothing that a car couldn’t Traverse.
Do the newer Wranglers still exhibit death wobble?
So, ultimately I’ve nailed my “checklist” down to: reliability; utility (wagon or something that can swallow “too bulky for a trunk” loads from time-to-time; somewhat reasonable MPG for a 30-mile daily commute . . . I cannot justify the 4WD or even AWD for the couple of weeks I might want it each year for snow . . .
Any Chrysler product is going to be lacking in reliability compared to most other brands. That inline 6 was great but some of the more modern engines have also been plagued with problems. As for Jeep, some people say it stands for Just Empty Every Pocket!
Sure, Jeeps are fun but you want something more reliable for a long commute.