I bought a tow-car! 2003 Grand Cherokee CRD
Discussion
MuscleSaloon said:
I've had a few WJ's. The steering has always been the worst thing about them. It spoils the car IMO. The subsequent WK model was hugely improved in just about every area and finally got a steering rack so it drives so much better. Useable WK's are down at £2k - £3k now. Unless a WJ was very clean and silly cheap I would avoid..
My only concern with the newer 3.0 CRD were the reports of oil leaks that go into the V of the engine, a job that i didn't fancy tackling, i know every car has it problems but you just have to weigh them up for yourself and flip the coin 
Evo said:
MuscleSaloon said:
I've had a few WJ's. The steering has always been the worst thing about them. It spoils the car IMO. The subsequent WK model was hugely improved in just about every area and finally got a steering rack so it drives so much better. Useable WK's are down at £2k - £3k now. Unless a WJ was very clean and silly cheap I would avoid..
My only concern with the newer 3.0 CRD were the reports of oil leaks that go into the V of the engine, a job that i didn't fancy tackling, i know every car has it problems but you just have to weigh them up for yourself and flip the coin MuscleSaloon said:
Most of them are now at the point where people will just live with the leak to be honest. Its not 'that' bad a job to do and while you are there it makes sense to do the glow plugs, glow plug module etc. If you go through it you should have a fairly sorted car. I rate them but would not pay strong money for one because they do all have the same issues.
Hence why i'd rather pay a bit more and get a facelifted X5, i do prefer my BMW's. I loved my 04 Grand cherokee but when it went it went hard..
Be sure to change the injector bolts and washers as a precaution - when they go they melt the foam under the engine cover and it makes a right mess.
Then when on the way to get it inspected, one of the bolts loosened. I went to tighten it and didn't realise the tiniest amount of diesel must have gotten in and it hyrdolocked out. Snap goes the bolt.
eventually fixed and sat a while and the gearbox started throwing error codes and at that point I got rid of it cheap as a project for someone else. May have just been a sensore but I was over it at that point.
Drilled a hole at the back to change the rear injector seal and plug without dropping the engine
Few other niggles, heater doors, cabling through the doors, one window mech but all easily sorted.
A shame as it really was a good car for what it was, comfy, had some poke, arguably looked nice, loaded with toys, heaps of torque solid to drive despite the numb steering.
Be sure to change the injector bolts and washers as a precaution - when they go they melt the foam under the engine cover and it makes a right mess.
Then when on the way to get it inspected, one of the bolts loosened. I went to tighten it and didn't realise the tiniest amount of diesel must have gotten in and it hyrdolocked out. Snap goes the bolt.
eventually fixed and sat a while and the gearbox started throwing error codes and at that point I got rid of it cheap as a project for someone else. May have just been a sensore but I was over it at that point.
Drilled a hole at the back to change the rear injector seal and plug without dropping the engine
Few other niggles, heater doors, cabling through the doors, one window mech but all easily sorted.
A shame as it really was a good car for what it was, comfy, had some poke, arguably looked nice, loaded with toys, heaps of torque solid to drive despite the numb steering.
Edited by up_shift on Tuesday 21st May 01:22
Jimmy Recard said:
Interesting to read your thread because last year I was looking for a tow car and basically settled on a WJ CRD, then an ML270 CDI with the same engine popped up and it was the perfect car for my needs at the perfect time, so I went for that and love it.
It shows me what I'm missing out on! Interesting to compare the two popular DaimlerChrysler luxury SUVs of the era
Sounds like you pretty much went through the same thought process as me! It really came down to right car, right time as you say. I do sometimes wonder if an ML270 would have been a better bet, but they both have their foibles It shows me what I'm missing out on! Interesting to compare the two popular DaimlerChrysler luxury SUVs of the era
Evo said:
Great read and you seem to have done precisely what i'm looking at currently. I have been threatening to finally get my track build 924S "on track" and decided that driving it to and from an event wont work as either me or the car will break at some point.
I've been looking at a couple of ends £4-5k or just take a punt on something really cheap and came to the conclusion that the Grand Cherokee shape you've bought is about as good as it gets for the cheap end without buying super old jap stuff that probably has dust for a rear subframe including Disco 2's or an ML which just rusts everywhere but has a decent engine ( injectors aside ) which is also in your car.
Perfect choice btw, the seats look perfect for a long journey and it's not easy finding a budget 4x4 capable of safely towing 1800kg+
I ruled out a later 3.0CRD Cherokee as the interior is just too plasticky for me and i think your Grand Cherokee looks a much nicer place to sit.
I've decided to go for a facelift E53 3.0D Sport on the basis i can fix most of the things that pop up in a "what goes wrong" search, my wife has a new Range Rover but i have been very clearly told it wont be towing anything and to get my own tow car.
Do you own your own trailer or are you weekend hiring?
Thanks, appreciate that I've been looking at a couple of ends £4-5k or just take a punt on something really cheap and came to the conclusion that the Grand Cherokee shape you've bought is about as good as it gets for the cheap end without buying super old jap stuff that probably has dust for a rear subframe including Disco 2's or an ML which just rusts everywhere but has a decent engine ( injectors aside ) which is also in your car.
Perfect choice btw, the seats look perfect for a long journey and it's not easy finding a budget 4x4 capable of safely towing 1800kg+
I ruled out a later 3.0CRD Cherokee as the interior is just too plasticky for me and i think your Grand Cherokee looks a much nicer place to sit.
I've decided to go for a facelift E53 3.0D Sport on the basis i can fix most of the things that pop up in a "what goes wrong" search, my wife has a new Range Rover but i have been very clearly told it wont be towing anything
and to get my own tow car.Do you own your own trailer or are you weekend hiring?
I did look at X5s, but it seemed that all in my budget already had a healthy number of pre existing problems that I didn't really want to deal with. It would have been a nicer drive though, I have no doubt!
It is surprisingly comfy on a long haul and cruises well. Just as well, really, as it's taking us to Anglesey in a couple of weeks!
The trailer is owned by my RX8 co-owning buddy. I'll most likely get my own when I have space for one.
The old Jeep has certainly been earning its keep of late! The end of May saw it tugging the RX8 on a 500-and-something mile round trip to Anglesey for a sprint double-header in the Javelin and Japanese series. I’m constantly impressed with how comfortable it is for such a long haul, which took 7 hours out (traffic!) and 5 hours back – it took two of us, all of our assorted gear, tools, a spare set of wheels and of course the trailer and enough road trip snacks to feed a medium-sized F1 team.
Back to normality, and it’s been nursing a sporadic incontinence problem for a while along with reluctance to start from cold, and an occasional “there’s something in the diesel filter that I’m not sure about” warning light. In a fit of personal organisation I moved house the day after we returned from Anglesey, and the morning of a move is hardly the ideal time for a car that’s loaded to the gunwales to not work properly. So when it stalled the moment I put it into Drive I wasn’t too pleased!
Cue lots of spinning on the motor, and an ever increasing puddle of diesel under the car before it finally grumbled into life and we toddled off to the new house. With plenty else to keep me occupied it sat here for a couple of weeks before I eventually got it looked at, and it was diagnosed as needing a replacement high-pressure fuel pump – essentially the pump piston ovals over time causing an ever increasing leak, and while you can chase replacement seals around for a while (which has happened here, as the paperwork indicated the pump was ‘rebuilt’ about a year ago) sooner or later it’ll need replacing.
So, one badly timed bill for about a third of the car’s original cost later, and we’re back in business. I try not to think about the amount of petrol I could have bought instead had I just bought the V8 in the first place
Can’t complain though. It has been certainly earning its keep recently along with the Gumtree special trailer – multiple tip runs, furniture collection, a whole lead of fencing, and generally fulfilling its brief as a ‘throw anything at it and in it’ work horse.
Oh, and the aircon works, which is more than I can say for the Beemer! It's been bloody lovely the last couple of days
Back to normality, and it’s been nursing a sporadic incontinence problem for a while along with reluctance to start from cold, and an occasional “there’s something in the diesel filter that I’m not sure about” warning light. In a fit of personal organisation I moved house the day after we returned from Anglesey, and the morning of a move is hardly the ideal time for a car that’s loaded to the gunwales to not work properly. So when it stalled the moment I put it into Drive I wasn’t too pleased!
Cue lots of spinning on the motor, and an ever increasing puddle of diesel under the car before it finally grumbled into life and we toddled off to the new house. With plenty else to keep me occupied it sat here for a couple of weeks before I eventually got it looked at, and it was diagnosed as needing a replacement high-pressure fuel pump – essentially the pump piston ovals over time causing an ever increasing leak, and while you can chase replacement seals around for a while (which has happened here, as the paperwork indicated the pump was ‘rebuilt’ about a year ago) sooner or later it’ll need replacing.
So, one badly timed bill for about a third of the car’s original cost later, and we’re back in business. I try not to think about the amount of petrol I could have bought instead had I just bought the V8 in the first place
Can’t complain though. It has been certainly earning its keep recently along with the Gumtree special trailer – multiple tip runs, furniture collection, a whole lead of fencing, and generally fulfilling its brief as a ‘throw anything at it and in it’ work horse.
Oh, and the aircon works, which is more than I can say for the Beemer! It's been bloody lovely the last couple of days
Looking good! I feel like your plate suits mine more than yours
Sorry to hear about the high pressure fuel pump, I'll have to look out for that on mine. Luckily no issues at all yet.
There's something great about a big SUV with working air con that cost very little. Sorry for the thread hijack, I'm just enjoying that our two lead such similar lives and share a lot.
Mine made it to Anglesey too:
And Oulton Park:
And Nuerburgring
Sorry to hear about the high pressure fuel pump, I'll have to look out for that on mine. Luckily no issues at all yet.
There's something great about a big SUV with working air con that cost very little. Sorry for the thread hijack, I'm just enjoying that our two lead such similar lives and share a lot.
Mine made it to Anglesey too:
And Oulton Park:
And Nuerburgring
I couldn’t help but notice the rego on the trailer is just the Jeep’s rego; do trailers in the UK under a certain size not require their own registration/roadworthy/insurance etc? In Australia and Germany that isn’t the case, so I am asking purely out of curiosity.
I wish I could find a nail/shed/sh*tbox as nice as this in Germany. Cars over the ditch are just so damned cheap.
I wish I could find a nail/shed/sh*tbox as nice as this in Germany. Cars over the ditch are just so damned cheap.
In the UK the trailer doesn’t have a registration, no. Just the car does. It doesn’t have to have its own insurance either.
There’s no test of roadworthiness either, but of course if a trailer is found to be in use and not roadworthy, that’s illegal
Truck trailers don’t have their own registration either, but they do have to pass an MOT
There’s no test of roadworthiness either, but of course if a trailer is found to be in use and not roadworthy, that’s illegal
Truck trailers don’t have their own registration either, but they do have to pass an MOT
Nunga said:
I couldn’t help but notice the rego on the trailer is just the Jeep’s rego; do trailers in the UK under a certain size not require their own registration/roadworthy/insurance etc? In Australia and Germany that isn’t the case, so I am asking purely out of curiosity.
Basically, no, a trailer isn't considered to be a vehicle itself, so has no requirement for any of that.It still needs to be roadworthy and loaded per the restrictions of the trailer/tow vehicle/your licence etc, but there's no separate registration and anything else "legal" is effectively subsumed into your other stuff.
So if I clip someone's car with a trailer I'm towing, that's going through my car insurance. If I'm caught speeding by a camera, it's the number plate on the trailer they'll use to send the letter to the registered keeper of the tow vehicle.
The lights turned out to be a blown fuse, traced (eventually! ) to some dodgy wiring on my crappy tip trailer. Simple enough, at least!
In the latest adventures of the big gold bus, we've done another ~500 miles towing the racecar up to Croft and back. This passed mostly without hiccup, and the Jeep proved yet again to be a comfortable old tank as we managed 5 hours each way without stopping. Annoyingly, a mild grumbling from somewhere around the front end has now got a bit louder
. It's in for an MOT in a couple of weeks (gulp) so I'll ask the Man what he thinks (my money is on the front propshaft).
Current sitrep: MOT in 2 weeks, it needs two front tyres fairly soon, the rear control arm bushes need doing, it's probably overdue a change of all the gearbox/diff/transfer box oils, it's still big and gold, and it's making a funny noise. I still feel oddly attached to it even though it's often a pain in the arse. Perhaps I should have bought a Shogun? Or stumped up for a Landcruiser? Who knows
In the latest adventures of the big gold bus, we've done another ~500 miles towing the racecar up to Croft and back. This passed mostly without hiccup, and the Jeep proved yet again to be a comfortable old tank as we managed 5 hours each way without stopping. Annoyingly, a mild grumbling from somewhere around the front end has now got a bit louder
. It's in for an MOT in a couple of weeks (gulp) so I'll ask the Man what he thinks (my money is on the front propshaft). Current sitrep: MOT in 2 weeks, it needs two front tyres fairly soon, the rear control arm bushes need doing, it's probably overdue a change of all the gearbox/diff/transfer box oils, it's still big and gold, and it's making a funny noise. I still feel oddly attached to it even though it's often a pain in the arse. Perhaps I should have bought a Shogun? Or stumped up for a Landcruiser? Who knows
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