Jeep Reliability?

[JS2]

I have always heard this but my experience with jeeps has been great.
'97 Wrangler - Bought used in 2000. Replaced O2 sensor at some point. No other issues. Sold in 2010 with right at 100,000 miles.
'09 Liberty - Bought used in 2010. Sold this year to buy Gladiator. 90,000 miles, only issue was Evaporator core in AC.
Gladiator - 1,100 miles, too early to say but so far so good.

Also, my dad has owned many Wranglers through the years, going back to CJ models. He has never had any major issues. Maybe a small repair here and there.

I think most of the reliability issues are self inflicted wounds on trails, mudding, offroading, etc. To me, this is not a reliability issue but a known consequence of testing your Jeep to its limit.

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[WXman]

Everytime some fool comments "You bought a Fiat. Garbage." on one of my YouTube videos I want to punch them in the throat. Are people really that stupid?

A) It's not a Fiat. It's a Jeep.

B) If it were a Fiat, it would be built by a company that's 120 years old, is one of the top producers in the world, and has a history of making everything from micro-cars to bulldozers and construction equipment.

C) If FCA vehicles were trash, would they consistently hold sales records in cars, SUVs, vans, AND pickup trucks? Would they consistently be one of the only domestic names showing annual increases while GM and Ford suffer and continually change their portfolios to keep up?

 

[TennesseePA]

The main thing that I have heard is that Jeep has a poor quality control process. Every vehicle line will have the occasional outlier that is nothing but trouble from the day of delivery but, especially given the volume of new cars sold each year in America, they are pretty rare. Jeep tends to let things out of the factory that should have been caught during design and production. Go back through the years and see how many Jeep engines had head problems early in production because of "casting problems." I know it is an issue with early 4.2, 4.0 and the 3.6. I would argue that a company that has been around since 1941 should have figured out how to cast a head by now but it continues to happen. That being said most of the vehicles are fine. My JT was delivered on June 25 and it has 4400 miles on it now with a weekend trip to Gatlinburg, TN planned for later this evening, towing my enclosed trailer. The JT is a good truck and if mine were to bet totaled or stolen I'd be fine ordering another one just like it.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Let me ADD:

My '03 Rubicon was built to the wheel, I got it in Aug of '02, the first Jeep Rubicon delivered to Texas for public use. It came on the same truck as the Rubicon that was shipped to Dallas for the Dealers to send over the mechs to work on and explore.

Within the first few months, I hada lift kit (Teraflex), gone to 37's, installed a Supercharger installed with 7 lbs of boost and Dynatrac ProRock 60's High Pinion, 4:88's, ARB's.

I had sold my company and wheeled, HARD! Of that 88k mi I put on it came from driving to Ca, Nv, Ut, AZ, NM, Co, OK, Tx, Mexico (Sea of Cortez & S Sonoran Desert) 13 trips to Moab*. I drove that Jeep to wheel and some of my trips were 2 and 3 weeks long, most of it by myself. It never overheated inspite of the weeks and weeks I spent in Death Valley and other desert areas in many states. It never left me stranded on the trail, never got there or got back NOT under its own power, it NEVER broke in 8 years of hitting the trails and rarely missing a weekend. In fact, I moved to Scottsdale AZ as you can wheel there 365 and it put me closer to all the places I wheeled all year.

Don't anyone tell me Jeeps are not reliable!!!!

*Moab: You got go, I recommend EJS which I attended twice, which is really once to many...for me. Don't go there to wheel, waste of time with nearly 5-10k Jeeps there you will spend 8 hrs waiting to go on a 30 min trail. Words to the wise: Moab County Sheriff office, city of Moab and the Moab PD make over 80% of the annual budget in less than 10 days just on motor vehicle violations especially DUI... I like to call EJS 'zero-tolerance week'!

 

[AggieJeep]

Simply, the Jeep reliability thing is a myth perpetuated by non-Jeep people. They have inappropriate expectations. I immediately dismiss those that even mention the obvious wind noise, steering and such. They clearly don’t get it. I’ve owned six Jeeps and they have all served me well. They have a better track record than the GM vehicles I’ve owned.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Simply, the Jeep reliability thing is a myth perpetuated by non-Jeep people. They have inappropriate expectations. I immediately dismiss those that even mention the obvious wind noise, steering and such. They clearly don’t get it. I’ve owned six Jeeps and they have all served me well. They have a better track record than the GM vehicles I’ve owned.

Been driving them since the 60's and the ONLY time I had to tow one, when I blew the clutch...racking another Jeep on the road.

Of note: Ever since the first mass-produced Jeep, every part is still available, the only other cars I know of that MAY be the Corvette and the Mustang. But as far as I know Jeep is the ONLY American Auto that if an ICON by legal def, like Kleenex or Xerox.

Realize of course that Jeep is not always popular with the extreme far left...FREEDOM is NOT their thing.

 

[lrtexasman]

I realized in hindsight this is not really a good place to inquire. I assume if someone had a dismal time with a jeep they wouldn't be purchasing a Gladiator or join this forum. Multiple accounts of not having any issues at all is reassuring though.

Actually this is a good place IMO. The guys and gals on this forum shoot pretty straight and far less critical than folks on the ranger and tacoma forums. In fact you’d be called a troll multiple times already on their forums. I have several critical posts as well as positive posts on my thoughts and test drives of the JT and everyone has been fair. All the manufactures right now seem to be having a few lemons mixed with good trucks. Bottom line is the JT has a reliable drivetrain and most complaints resolve around electronics and suspension wandering.

 

[Klutch]

I will share my experience:

In 1997 I bought a brand new Cherokee:

- After a year of driving on paved roads only, the front brakes were completely useless. The rotors were a two-piece design and I lived near the ocean in southern Virginia. Those rotors had corroded. The calipers had also corroded and were frozen. When I put the front of the vehicle up on jack stands, I could just barely turn the wheels by hand because the calipers were dragging so hard. That XJ was still under full factory warranty and when I brought it to the dealer, they refused to acknowledge there was anything wrong with the brakes. A few weeks later, Jeep issued a recall for that very problem. Dealers to were supposed to replace the rotors and calipers. When I brought my XJ back to the dealer and showed them a printout of the recall notice, they told me it didn't apply to my area. Grrrrrr... I talked to my mechanic, who was extremely honest and reliable, and he told me he had seen Many Jeeps with the same problem. I brought him my Jeep and he removed the calipers and rotors and threw them away because they were complete junk. He installed new calipers and one-piece rotors which lasted me another 12 years.

- A while later, the fuel gauge stopped working. My XJ was again under full factory warranty. Again the dealer refused to do anything about it. Again, Jeep issued a recall for that exact problem. Dealers were supposed to replace the sending unit in the fuel tank. Again I brought my XJ and a printout of the recall notice to the dealer and AGAIN they said the recall didn't apply to my XJ.

* I travelled a lot of work at the time and was not in a position to battle Jeep for recall repairs.

A few years ago I bought a 2000 XJ. Despite the sucking Jeep dealer in Virginia, my '97 XJ was a pretty reliable vehicle. And I had learned to fix almost anything myself. What I didn't know was the 2000 I-6 was prone to cylinder head cracking. Sure enough, my cylinder head cracked. I replaced it with an aftermarket head specifically designed to fix the cracking issue.

So, I think between things like bad brakes, cracking cylinder heads and horrible, awful, evil dealers, Jeeps have a bad reputation.

 

[wch_Chip]

Everytime some fool comments "You bought a Fiat. Garbage." on one of my YouTube videos I want to punch them in the throat. Are people really that stupid?

A) It's not a Fiat. It's a Jeep.

B) If it were a Fiat, it would be built by a company that's 120 years old, is one of the top producers in the world, and has a history of making everything from micro-cars to bulldozers and construction equipment.

C) If FCA vehicles were trash, would they consistently hold sales records in cars, SUVs, vans, AND pickup trucks? Would they consistently be one of the only domestic names showing annual increases while GM and Ford suffer and continually change their portfolios to keep up?

Careful there's a lot of people on another forum that claim to be MOPAR OR NO CAR that would disagree with everything you just wrote.

 

[B345T]

Actually this is a good place IMO. The guys and gals on this forum shoot pretty straight and far less critical criticism than folks on the ranger and tacoma forums. In fact you’d be called a troll multiple times already on their forums. I have several critical posts as well as positive posts on my thoughts and test drives of the JT and everyone has been fair. All the manufactures right now seem to be having a few lemons mixed with good trucks. Bottom line is the JT has a reliable drivetrain and most complaints resolve around electronics and suspension wandering.

I am on the Tacoma Forum (current DD 2014 Taco ccsb) and they have not tried to direct me to the 3rd gen Taco and most like the Gladiator for competition to hopefully wake Toy up to the changing world or better trucks..

 

[AKDrifter]

We loved our JK. Fantastic car. That really brought us around to buying the Gladiator. Before that we had an 02 Grand Cherokee and it was garbage. When the thing ran the engine was fine. But it would not start for days on end and you'd go to try to start it one day and magically it would work. No idea what was up with that and the dealer never found out either. The seat frames were notorious for completely rusting through breaking down and leaving you without any mounts to the floor or a seatback sometimes. You'd be going around a corner and fall into your rear passenger's lap. This was in a new car. Went through many of those. It had death wobble at every speed. By 20 miles an hour it would have a loping vibration and by the time you were going 65 it was shaking violently. We kept going back to the dealer and they thought it was the brakes screwing up but it was never resolved. Chewed through it's rotors and pads at like 15k miles. I hated that car. The transfer case did not allow 4wd in anything but 4 Low because Chrysler used some stupid transfer case system that would burn out 4 high within a couple years. For the day it was considered a nice rig but I just got a lemon and got rid of it after 2 years. We did not consider Jeep because of it for a long time until one day the wife just wanted something different than her Tacoma so we bought the JK and got addicted to it. But I would not ever recommend to my worst enemies any Jeep other than a Wrangler/Gladiator.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Hey folks, DON'T BLAME JEEP!

Want to place blame and I do, start with Chrysler and then Marsaydes Benz. Fiat has done a GREAT job for us.

Jeep has had a strong and loyal following for nearly 80 years! How many cars you know have been around for 80 years?

But Jeep has been fighting for it's life most of that time and here is the problem with Jeep. They don't a lot of them, I remember when Jeep broke the 50,000 sold mark in one year. Now ar mfg have teams of people that are always looking to shave a penny off a door handle as a penny saved can be tens of thousands of net profit. Shave a $1 off every car sold and for the big 3 that becomes Millions $$$.

But Jeep in spite of being the MOST profitable auto in the business for most of its life Jeep had one problem, the folks who HATED it and YES HATE is the word. Who were these people? Generally the most powerful people in large Corps, Fortune 500 level and as the companies get smaller they have less and less influence. They are the ACOUNTANTANTS, the bean counters, the CPA's, they work with numbers and got NO FRIGGIN idea of what happens over in Engineering, Manufacturing and the rest of the company. They wear starched WHITE shirts, never gets them dirty. These are folks that tell the CEO the folks at the factory in Ft Worth are using 27 rolls of masking tape a day and none of the other locations in the US are so you need to crack the whip on them in Ft Worth!

YES I despise them! Yes they can account for every penny but they have never understood the operations side of the house, they have never built a car, sold a car, nothing but work with numbers...'cept the operations side of the house is where you create revenue, something they don't understand.

Here is what they say about Jeeps: Yes the most profitable auto made, but we are in the business to sell millions of cars a year, not 80,000. MB when they bought Chrysler wanted to kill the entire Jeep line...so says some Accounting hack sitting over in Germany!!!

Neither Chrysler or MB came to grips that jeep was and is an ICON. So for many, many years Chrysler and MB sucked the profits out of jeep while giving them at best token support. Jeep got poor at best warranty support from dealers.

Fiat GETS IT!!!

Next time you see a Jeep Rubicon*, kiss its front bumper because the Rubicon was what saved jeep from being killed off by Chry-MB.

Rubicon: There were a few young guys working in Jeep Wrangler Engineering who happened to be Jeep guys, the Rubicon was their idea. They sold the idea to Jeep Wrangler folks as just an add on a model in the line. They wanted a Jeep more focused on off-roading instead of the Sahara which was the lux model. Jeep hoped to sell about 5000 of them.

Built from existing parts, the key components (axles, transfer case, and steering box) were already there and Jeep sourced the HD Steering Box from MB. The only outside sourcing was (IIRC) the F/R lockers were made in Japan. The reason why they did not use ARB, Detroit, etc is that no one in the business had the mfg capacity and most were not sure there would be a large enough long term demand so none of them wanted the work.

 

[ACAD_Cowboy]

It’s generally been my experience that the unreliable jeeps are the ones that have been monkeyed with; home made CAI, a mutant ignition with huge wires and some crazy coil, trick plugs and a thick coating of grime, sketchy belts and hoses with the structural integrity of sugar wafer.

I had a CJ with the prestolite and swapped in a home made GM HEI, never had an ignition problem again. A modern GM small chassis alternator went on and never had a charging problem again.

My JK lost a battery and two PS pumps, the battery through cost considerate procurement and the PS pump through operator abuse. 50k has seen a brake and suspension R&R due to eol/out of spec but other that no complaints about reliability.

My J20 and J3000 loved long and glorious lives with little to no issues of the reliability type. To be honest I think too many people conflate reliability with maintenance, every vehicle is going to need to service parts at some point, why should this be seen as a failure?

 

[Jjsudd]

I’m on number 4.
Had a 96 Cherokee I sold at 110k. Replaced AC compressor at 95k
2006 Commander. Traded for smaller car with better gas mileage at 60k, no issues
2012 Jeep Wrangler. Sticky calipers on both sides at 85k. Traded it in for a JT this past Friday
2020 JT, check engine light at 600 miles. P0330 code(knock sensor)

I’ve never been stranded by one.

 

[smlobx]

Hey folks, DON'T BLAME JEEP!

Want to place blame and I do, start with Chrysler and then Marsaydes Benz. Fiat has done a GREAT job for us.

Jeep has had a strong and loyal following for nearly 80 years! How many cars you know have been around for 80 years?

But Jeep has been fighting for it's life most of that time and here is the problem with Jeep. They don't a lot of them, I remember when Jeep broke the 50,000 sold mark in one year. Now ar mfg have teams of people that are always looking to shave a penny off a door handle as a penny saved can be tens of thousands of net profit. Shave a $1 off every car sold and for the big 3 that becomes Millions $$$.

But Jeep in spite of being the MOST profitable auto in the business for most of its life.......

Here is what they say about Jeeps: Yes the most profitable auto made, but we are in the business to sell millions of cars a year, not 80,000. MB when they bought Chrysler wanted to kill the entire Jeep line...so says some Accounting hack sitting over in Germany!!!.......

I understand that you are on some sort of soap box but you are flat out wrong about Jeep being the most profitable car company in the world....please use some facts not just spouting off something that you think is right (or should be).

Porsche has been the most profitable car company in the world for many years (not necessarily every year).

https://www.evo.co.uk/volkswagen/19062/porsche-is-the-most-profitable-car-company-in-the-world

Although according to the latest results i’ve seen Ferrari is currently the most profitable...

I don’t mean to call you out but please use facts to back up your assumptions so those who may not know don’t end up perpetuating falsehoods.

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