Jeep liberty input

snappy

snappy

YHDG's adopted son!!!
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Jun 19, 2007
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Looking for a newer dd. anyone have a diesel liberty? I think I want one but not sure what I might be getting into.... What do I need to look for? Stay Away from?
 
^^^ What he said.
 
Funny you should ask, we have one at work. Driven by the same guy daily for the last 5 years, 25k per year. It just had to have both intercooler pipes/hoses replaced @ $400+/- each due to a loss of boost pressure code, and was due for a timing belt @ 120,000 miles so we figured we would knock that out as well. Our shop of three International Harvetser truck mechs didn't even dare touch it and farmed it out to a "small diesel" mechanic in the Wayne county area. Parts weren't terrible but he has had to pull the entire front end off to get to it. I'll give you the final amount when I see the invoice.......
 
Damn of all people ron..... Looking for small diesel without going with a vw that will go in the crap weather without breaking the bank..... Since you guys want to bust my balls, what else ia there???
 
snappy said:
Damn of all people ron..... Looking for small diesel without going with a vw that will go in the crap weather without breaking the bank..... Since you guys want to bust my balls, what else ia there???
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Diesel Grand Cherokee. That's what I'm thinking about for my wife. There's also the Touareg TDI, which should be comparable in all aspects.
 
My father in law has had one since they were first released and he bought one new. It has been pretty reliable for him over at least 130K that he has one it. The only major problem he had was the transmission. It was replace 2 times within the first 50K. Since the last time, it has been trouble free so far.

He is a pretty big stickler for regular maintenance. The KJ has been across the country at least 2-3 times since he bought it new since my brother in law lives in WA now.
 
My girlfriend has 07 Liberty. It's not a diesel. It's a V6, think it's a 3.7 It is really reliable, a little under powered, rides and drives great. My only grip is the retractable roof. It has terrible wind noise. Other than that, not a bad vehicle.

I had a 07 Escape a few years ago. I like it a lot better. Better power and mileage. But it was smaller.
 
Mine is an 08 not an 07 dear. I dearly LOVE it. Drives great. Plenty of room. I've had it almost a year and can say it is with out a doubt my favorite vehicle ever,

Sent from my A1-810 using Tapatalk
 
Reid said:
is Mahindra importing their diesel trucks yet?
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last word i had was they could'nt meet all the federal mandates, tpms, crash ratings....etc and their American investors were filing lawsuits, there were people that had already bought franchises
 
jeepinmatt said:
Diesel Grand Cherokee. That's what I'm thinking about for my wife. There's also the Touareg TDI, which should be comparable in all aspects.
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Avoid the 3.0 CRD WK diesel unless you enjoy crazy high repair bills. Those made me very successful during my dealership days. Swirl valve actuators, intake manifolds, turbos, oil coolers, etc...
 
snappy said:
Looking for a newer dd. anyone have a diesel liberty? I think I want one but not sure what I might be getting into.... What do I need to look for? Stay Away from?
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I spent 7 years working on them...
If you do get a KJ diesel, purchase on of the stealth EGR delete kits. EGR causes so may issues on them. Take time to inspect the air flow control actuator for wear and noisy operation (clicking for about 20 seconds after shutdown). The intake side of the engine tends to become clogged over time due to aggressive EGR operation. Closely inspect the turbo for wear too as they can be an issue as well. Expect to replace intercooler hoses somewhat regularly. They are $$$.
If they overheat, you can usually kiss the cylinder head bye bye. Lots of very specialized tools are required to work on them.
I would have one, but only with low miles and if I did an EGR delete and proper tune. They can easily produce 30 mpg after EGR work and a tune is added.
 
Jody Treadway said:
I spent 7 years working on them...
If you do get a KJ diesel, purchase on of the stealth EGR delete kits. EGR causes so may issues on them. Take time to inspect the air flow control actuator for wear and noisy operation (clicking for about 20 seconds after shutdown). The intake side of the engine tends to become clogged over time due to aggressive EGR operation. Closely inspect the turbo for wear too as they can be an issue as well. Expect to replace intercooler hoses somewhat regularly. They are $$$.
If they overheat, you can usually kiss the cylinder head bye bye. Lots of very specialized tools are required to work on them.
I would have one, but only with low miles and if I did an EGR delete and proper tune. They can easily produce 30 mpg after EGR work and a tune is added.
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So basicaly like any newer diesel with egr huh?
 
I did alot of research years ago on the CRD Libertys and Grand Cherokees, and we went with the Liberty for the reasons Mr.Treadway said. We absolutely loved our liberty and searched for 2 years to find one with low miles and within our budget.

Samco make silicon intercooler hoses to fix that problem. They are around 250$ but are supposed to last a lifetime. They have been on ours for about 4 years and are still holding up well.

Green Diesel Engineering will tune the factory computer for mileage and also for EGR delete. The oil in this thing when we got it felt like it had grit in it and would stain your hands for days. After the tune, it got clearer every time I changed it. With every oil change I also pulled the map sensor and cleaned it. It was nasty at first but cleaned up nicely after the EGR shutdown.

The libby was EXTREMELY laggy when we first bought it. It was almost dangerous if you were not familiar with it. I put a lift pump on it and it fixed the problem completely. It was really easy to put on it and the wiring for a fuel pump is already there because of the gas models.

This thing was easily my favorite vehicle out of almost thirty we have owned over our lifetime. Unfortunately we had to sell it when my wife got pregnant with twins, because with one child and two more on the way, three car seats would not fit in the rear. With it being my wife's primary driver, that wouldn't do. My father in law bought it and he still drives it everyday. I did a timing belt change on it for him and other than a few specialty tools, it wasn't too bad. I did in in a weekend.

On a side note, one thing I found very interesting on this thing was it is designed to brake the rocker arms in the event of a timing belt brake. Instead of killing a piston it would brake rockers. It still cost something like 800$ for the rockers, but it's cheaper than a new motor. I guess the Italians arn't too bad at designing a motor....
 
We bought ours about 4 years ago for 12k with about 50k miles on it. There are good deals out there on these, you just have to be patient.

On the mileage, before the tune it got around 19-20 mpg in stop and got traffic and on the highway it would get around 25. After the tune, the stop-n-go went to 22-23 but the highway went over 30! Btw, they have the 545fe transmission, which IMHO, is the best transmission chryco has come out with in years.
 
bump.....

Adding info to an old thread.

I just picked one up. immediately had to put a water pump (and since it had to come off ,a timing belt too) parts werent that hard to find, or that expensive considering it was a diesel.


ford just announced a light duty diesel in their f150 for late 2019/early 2020
Are the Durmax Canyon's available yet?
Mahindra is no where closer to bringing a diesel to the US market than my last post 2 years ago.

The CRD KJs are still the cheapest 4x4 (true 4x4 not all wheel drive) you can get into.
 
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