A friend has offered me his Jeep Grand Cherokee Ltd 3.1 TD £8000 on 2000 X plate 39000 miles. I currently have a 1996 Renualt Laguna 1.8RT probably only worth £350 - £650
The Jeep is in excellent condition, nothing wrong with it and well looked after. Parkers internet guide seems to indicate £3000 under book in good condition.
it has 26mpg ave and its impracticality, cost of parts and that it might not get under my garage door and having to park it round the back rather than on the road. Common sense tells me I should get a Mondeo Diesel preferably 130 BHP perhaps a Zetec.
I still can't get my head around that the jeep is good value.. I wondered what all your opinions are!!!
Dorian
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Funnily enough I did a bit of work on one of these on Monday. The front N/S wheel bearing had gone (52k miles) - I'd done the O/S one about 6 months ago. The bearing is shrunk into the hub so you have to buy the whole hub assy (well over £300). The silver had also gone off one of the headlamps (another £300+).
The owner is very unimpressed with the car, and I must say, looking around these Chryslers I'm very underwhelmed by the quality of the engineering - they seem to deteriorate pretty quick, which is typical of modern American designed stuff. They use Scotch connectors on the electrics, for example, and the air-con pipes are just push-fit together with a retaining clip. All a bit cheap and nasty.
One thing the dealer told me is that they only reckon to maintain parts supply for 5 years - I don't know if this is true or not, but that's what the parts guy told me.
I definitely wouldn't buy a Chrysler product with my own money.
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i would buy an old one with all the toys for pocket money but £8000 no way
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i would buy an old one with all the toys for pocket money but £8000 no way
I too sort of bulked at sort of paying £8000 for a car..I do agree with you. I think common rail diesel is the way to go.. performance and ecomony. Thanks for your advice!
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Thanks for your advice..I really needed someone elses input to put me off buying it - I was trying hard to try and convince myself why I should not have it.. when at the same time I would not minded having it. I too thought parts would have been pricey. Almost my experiece of American hire cars in the states have inferior build quality to european cars. I do think the german cars set the standard if you can afford it, and generally depreciate less than others. I always thought Jeep were better than most of of the other american cars, but was interesting to get feedback from you about quality of parts. Now I dont't think I will get it! Thanks again for taking the time and effort to reply!
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I doubt he's giving you £3k - he's selling it at a price that he can get - with the price of petrol going against him he's trying to shift it!
It could well become a money pit, both at the pump and the garage. The same money on a TDCi Mondeo would get you a very reasonable and tough vehicle with little chance of big bills for quite a few years.
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I doubt he's giving you £3k - he's selling it at a price that he can get - with the price of petrol going against him he's trying to shift it! It could well become a money pit, both at the pump and the garage. The same money on a TDCi Mondeo would get you a very reasonable and tough vehicle with little chance of big bills for quite a few years.
I totally agree with you about the discounted price..now you mention it.. with diesel almost £1 a litre it will be hard to shift it when fuel comsumption even on the diesel not that great. Definitely a money pit at the pumps and garage getting that age when parts will have to be replaced! I just thought The mondeo although a mainstream car will have parts cheaper than the Jeep.. and will have 50mpg I guess... its the way to go with petrol and diesel prices going sky high... commom rail diesel I think offers performance with encomony which the Jeep does not have! Thanks for your input.
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OK, to be brutally honest I think all Chryslers are rubbish. Style over substance.
The 3.1 litre 5-cyl Diesel engine is IMHO a pig of a thing. Headgasket failure every 60k (or less) and its a £1500 job to fix. Nearly as bad as the previous 2.4 litre (which had individual cyl heads). The engines come from VM Motori in Italy.
The cars themselves are shoddily built and not up to the job. I've head of lots of problems with steering columns failing, various types of transmission failure etc etc. Not only that but the parts are very dear. We have one dealer near us and they are totally useless at sourcing parts. When I did a service on one they send me three different air filters (one after the other) none of which was correct, and an oil filter that had been out of the box and had oily fingerprints all over it and some waterpump plier marks on it! I would expect used prices to fall like a block of concrete....
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In a word NO
I used to work with someone who has had 4 all petrol loves them to bits ALL have been back to the local Jeep dealer on numerous occasions 3 of them had un fixable gear box oil leaks.
They make some LR products look well built
One occassion he was pulling off his drive on full lock when it cut out and went dead. dealer was called, mechanic rolled his eye sucked through his teeth, common problem apparently. Something to do with full lock and certain angles they shut down. Solution was dead simple just tow it a couple of feet and ok! Imagine if you were doing some serious off roading and this happend!
He buys them because his golf partner is a salesman in the Jeep dealer, i've seen some of the deals he gets & he gets ripped off every time especialy on the fianance. i can assume they also look good in the golf club car park
I have mentioned in a previous thread that mrsmm likes PT Crusers... well.. err.. um.. she also has a soft spot for.....Jeep (whispering) Wrangler....Help
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They are nightmares a quick way to drain your bank account.Even the diesels guzzle fuel way beyond any performance you would expect in return.
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Just to complicate things...
I've had a Y reg GC from new. So far (60k miles), it's been no trouble and since it's been out of warranty servicing by the local general garage is very reasonably priced. Build quality is not as bad as others claim - in fact it's built in Austria so I'd expect better quality than US builders.
Having said that, since retiring it's only used for towing the caravan and the odd long day trip when a bit of comfort is needed. And at its last service on Monday they gave me an advisory that the front swivels and nearside wheel bearing will need attention before too long - and that's a main dealer only job! So perhaps it's only just getting to the expensive stage.
So your decision depends on how much of a gambler you are. Me, I changed from an XM (which incidentally gave me no trouble either!) so I may be lucky or just foolhardy!
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Terry
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Never ever buy a car off a friend, unless you want them to become an ex-friend, or you are extremely pragmatic (and even then they are likely to feel very guilty if the engine drops out the week after). Especially not something that Aprillia thinks is less than good.....
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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