Jeep WK; educate me

[deadtom]

So, I took the advice of several people on this forum and acquired a jeep WK to go adventuring in.

so far I am quite happy with it, 215 diesel horsepower should make short work of steep scottish mountain roads and tracks, and its nice have heated seats etc

however, i have found a couple of (hopefully) minor issues with it;

- after first start up it judders when going around corners as if the centre diff is locked up. this goes away after 30 seconds or so of driving and is then fine for the rest of the journey; transmission / transfer fluid level too low?

- the manual override has worked only once in the last 5 days of use despite trying it every time i drive it; I've read it could be grotty electrical contacts, but maybe related to the above?

- backlight behind heater control is out on the right hand side; a common problem I think and a bit of a faff to sort out so just leave it as is?

- putting it in low range means centre diff is permanently locked which makes manoeuvring on hard surfaces all but impossible; I think this is just the way the system works so nothing can be done?

other than that im happy with it, (almost) all the gadgets work and it drives very nicely

oh and it has the 18" wheels from the overland model on it, recently refurbished. I don't really care about having the bigger wheels so I have been thinking I will sell the 18's and acquire some standard 17" wheels to recoup some money, but is this worth doing or will I pay just as much for a set of the smaller wheels?

Edited by deadtom on Friday 8th June 19:37

[deadtom]

OK thanks for the replies.

any thoughts on what to do about the manual mode on the gearbox? that is my main annoyance at the moment.

did a bit of towing with it today, probably 1400 kg on the back and it was excellent

kevincamaroSS, did you find that the full service made any appreciable difference? it was last serviced 3000 miles ago and the on board computer suggests its fine for another 8000 or so I think so I'd rather not spend £600 ish unnecessarily

I'll have a close look through the service history to see when trans. fluids were last done

as for interior quality it is a sea of hard scratchy plastic, but there are very few squeaks or rattles and everything is still held firmly in place so its not too bad (so far)

[deadtom]

KevinCamaroSS said:

I did the full service and fluids because the history on mine was patchy. If you have a good history with fluids being done on time then not to worry. Check the brake fluid changes if you are towing a lot. Never bothered about the manual over-ride, used it a couple of times, but also found the auto mode to be fine for me.

fair enough, overall I like the way the autobox goes about its business but there have been one or two times where it holds a gear a little too long on a hill where I'd prefer to be able to knock it down a gear.

I got a transmission over temp warning the other day while towing ~2.5 tonnes around small country lanes with a few hills wand a bit of low speed manoeuvring thrown in. The car was working reasonably hard but I was surprised that the trans. was overheating from just that. It never misbehaved in any way so the warning on the dash was the only sign. Should I be worried or is that sort of use on the limit for these cars?

[deadtom]

scrw. said:

shouldn't get that, whats the fluid level like?

couldn't tell you, it's one of those retarded 'dealer only' security caps on the top of the dipstick tube. If i have time I will drop by my local garage tomorrow and see if they have the necessary bits to check / top up the trans fluid