I am in the market for a new vehicle, but due to short timeline and low funds I’m scraping the bottom a bit. I am fully capable of most repairs (just replaced entire front end on my ranger, serviced the transmission/valve body, etc) so I’m not too worried about possible repairs that will be needed.
A coworker of my mother in law had a second vehicle that they would sell me (they didn’t plan to sell it, but offered it when she was talking about my situation) which is a 2002 Jeep Wrangler Sahara w/ ~ 240k miles on it.
He said it was recently serviced and he put ~$3k in service and repairs and a new clutch about 2 years ago. He said I could borrow it for a few days/week to try it out and see if I like it before making a decision. He’s asking for $1500.
My question, not knowing much about jeeps other than they are usually pretty resilient, is there anything I should be overly concerned about? or to look for? I expect some work, but I’m talking deal breakers.
Blue book seemed to indicate the price was below the private party value, which seems to be nice (that he’s helping me out maybe?)
That–unfortunately–is a fairly common misconception. If I was going to do off-roading, a Jeep Wrangler would probably be my first pick, but that wouldn’t change the reality that this marque is known for pretty poor reliability.
If you plan to drive on regular streets and highways, there are MUCH better choices in terms of both handling and reliability.
I understand that, I mean resiliency in terms of fairly easy to find and swap out parts. in hindsight I should have used a different wording.
I know there is much better options for handling and reliability, the problem I’ve been facing is they aren’t a thousand dollars, and that’s all I can really afford (comfortably) at the moment. I wasn’t planning on needing a new vehicle and my current one is no longer safe to drive (large crack in my frame), so I’m sort of in a pinch.
My thoughts were to get it to use as a daily driver until the summer or tops a year and then, while I have time to save a bit, get something more reliable.
For 1500.00 this thing can’t be much worse than any other 1500.00 vehicle . If you actually have 1500.00 buy it and also start a real search for a dependable vehicle . If it dies there is a market for these things so you will not get your money back but you will not take a giant hit.
I don’t like leasing vehicles but you may be a candidate for a low cost new vehicle lease .
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