I own a wheeled toilet! Vent about automotive nightmares

Just think they are just about getting the same miles per gallon as the model A. We`ve come a long way.

smitty:
those 4x4 blazers are all bad........i work on a few......most of them need four ball joints and an idler arm and a pitman arm by 80,000 miles........i replaced the motor mounts on a 4.3 blazer once......had to lift the body off the frame to get enough room, and then the truck shifted and almost fell off the lift! never again!
if your oil is always overfull and smells like gas, the fuel injector is probably leaking......vortech motors have one central injector under the upper intake plenum and 6 crappy little plastic lines coming off of it to each cylinder......pricey bastards too

i'll stick with my 80's and early 90's cars and trucks.......my 86 town car has 206,000 miles on it, my 91 mark VII has 140,000 miles on it, and my 89 crown vic has 150,000 miles on it......the dodge dump truck i bought last spring took 500 bucks worth of parts to make it good again, but i'm sure i'll get at least another 10 yrs out of it with regular maintenance........even the bronco II that i parked due to rust never gave me any major problems, and it has 255,000 miles on it.........buy cheap cars!!

This Jimmy doesn't have that CFI injection system ... I know which one your talking about. Those were notorious pieces of dung. I think I figured out what the problem was ... After I raised hell about this, & accused my wife of adding oil when she said she didn't, suddenly ... no more mysterious oil rise! HMMMMMMMM! So far it's gone nearly 3K miles & hasn't raised or lowered ... so I'm in good shape there. Just 2 months ago, I did a front brake job (rotors & pads) ... then about 2 weeks later, the driver's side front hub bearing took a *censored*. So we got 110K out of the front end (did the front end as soon as we got it) , & that hub lasted to 135K .. which is a record for early 21st century GM trucks. I didn't want to do this twice, so I bought the lifetime warranty ones at NAPA for $190 EACH! Yeah, did both sides too .. might as well.

I hear ya on the full-sized Ford products ... My wife commutes 80 miles a day to work in the summer in her '86 Marquis. Runs mint! Only 160K miles & counting.

I owned one 10 years prior ... got stolen in Phoenix ... then I took a bus from Oakland to E. LA at 5AM to pick it up after the LAPD contacted my parents in MA to say they had recovered it a year later!! Mexicans were living in it ... I took it back to my place in Northern CA, spent a few hours detailing it, then sold it for $400 more than I paid for it in MA! 253 or 255,000 miles on her. That paid for gas for the El Camino, & U-Haul trailer for the trip home.

Everyone I know says I should write a book. God knows I've got enough stories to fill 5 paperbacks! Imagine me rich ...

got better mileage in the 80's.

Update on the wife's '05 Liberty CRD - over the past months it's been making a howling/rumbling/growling noise from the front end. I thought it was tires as the first time the noise started I rotated front to back and the noise went with the tires. When the noise came back, I figured it was time for new tires. But, first I tried rotating the spare onto the front end - which didn't help. So, then I figured it was wheel bearings, and replaced the right front. THAT didn't help. OK, so it needs new tires anyway, so we put on a set of Firestone Destination A/T. Well, PART of the noise went away, but it still sounds like you're driving a school bus with those old-school bias traction tires on the back end. I figure it's either the other wheel bearing or the front axle itself going out. My luck is the idiots at the dealer forgot to put fluid back in it when they did all the axles and transfer case - and that was 40,000 miles ago.....

So THEN, the other day she hits a deer with it, $1200 damage to the front end and it only busted up the plastic! At least she hit it dead-center (dead, get it....) and missed all the sheet metal and lights.

To top it off, she informs me the check engine light came on this week. She pulls out the code reader and gets a P0299 - which in CRD terms means 99% of the time the EGR valve is shot. I put in the last one at 56K, it's now 77K. $160 part that lasts 20K miles. If I replace it again it will be the 5th ONE THIS VEHICLE HAS HAD! WTF?!?!??!??!?!?!?!?!?!? Between that and the intake flow control valves at $350 each that only last 35K miles, ball joints, u-joints, and every other substandard, underdesigned, cost reduced, engineered by Rahib the Intern who didn't even know what a car was until he graduated from Bombay Techinical Institute, this vehicle has literally decomposed in front of my eyes. 150,000 miles on my '02 Jetta TDI and it's not had half the problems with twice the mileage as this CRD.

Chrysler deserved to go bankrupt and they should have STAYED THERE. Bah!

Liberty CRD....Crap Runs Downhill.

europachris wrote:Update on the wife's '05 Liberty CRD - over the past months it's been making a howling/rumbling/growling noise from the front end. I thought it was tires as the first time the noise started I rotated front to back and the noise went with the tires. When the noise came back, I figured it was time for new tires. But, first I tried rotating the spare onto the front end - which didn't help. So, then I figured it was wheel bearings, and replaced the right front. THAT didn't help. OK, so it needs new tires anyway, so we put on a set of Firestone Destination A/T. Well, PART of the noise went away, but it still sounds like you're driving a school bus with those old-school bias traction tires on the back end. I figure it's either the other wheel bearing or the front axle itself going out. My luck is the idiots at the dealer forgot to put fluid back in it when they did all the axles and transfer case - and that was 40,000 miles ago.....

So THEN, the other day she hits a deer with it, $1200 damage to the front end and it only busted up the plastic! At least she hit it dead-center (dead, get it....) and missed all the sheet metal and lights.

To top it off, she informs me the check engine light came on this week. She pulls out the code reader and gets a P0299 - which in CRD terms means 99% of the time the EGR valve is shot. I put in the last one at 56K, it's now 77K. $160 part that lasts 20K miles. If I replace it again it will be the 5th ONE THIS VEHICLE HAS HAD! WTF?!?!??!??!?!?!?!?!?!? Between that and the intake flow control valves at $350 each that only last 35K miles, ball joints, u-joints, and every other substandard, underdesigned, cost reduced, engineered by Rahib the Intern who didn't even know what a car was until he graduated from Bombay Techinical Institute, this vehicle has literally decomposed in front of my eyes. 150,000 miles on my '02 Jetta TDI and it's not had half the problems with twice the mileage as this CRD.

Chrysler deserved to go bankrupt and they should have STAYED THERE. Bah!

Liberty CRD....Crap Runs Downhill.

Go to lostjeeps.com, there you will find an active liberty forum, especially the CRD section. All issues are solvable,
even if Diamler-Chrysler chose not too. CRD is cool truck, once the bugs are worked out...Good Luck!

Paulie wrote: Go to lostjeeps.com, there you will find an active liberty forum, especially the CRD section. All issues are solvable,
even if Diamler-Chrysler chose not too. CRD is cool truck, once the bugs are worked out...Good Luck!

Oh yeah, been there, done that. It's a great resource and has helped me already a lot. But seriously, this vehicle is decomposing faster than I can fix it. EGR valves every 20K, Intake Flow Control Valves every 30K, ball joints, u-joints, etc. This is inexcusable for a modern vehicle with only 75K on it.

Daimler Chrysler junk, simple as that.

Some people think Honda makes a good car, but my 12-year-old Civic has only 216K on it, and already I have had to replace an idler pulley and the ignition switch. Sheeeesh!

rberq wrote:Some people think Honda makes a good car, but my 12-year-old Civic has only 216K on it, and already I have had to replace an idler pulley and the ignition switch. Sheeeesh!

What a piece of crap!

i put 300 miles on my lincoln mark VII sunday.......went to a mk7 club breakfast in levittown.......averaged 20.5 mpg, noticed a clunk from the front end, one of the original sway bar links broke.......10 dollar fix..........i love old cars!

The Jimmy strikes again!!!!!

Holy crrrrrrap!!! I've never owned a bigger turd than this!!! I think the Renault LeCar has been bumped from the throne! The new heir to the toilet is the 2000 GMC JIMMY!

SO ... a few weeks ago the check engine light came on again for the ..... oh, ...40th time??? WIfe said she felt a slight stumble every so often. I check the codes ..... P0300 : random multiple cylinder misfire. It's a non-blinking light ... meaning it's not going to turn my $500 catalytic converter to liquid/ash, it's just a stupid emissions issue. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE POLITICS OF THIS!!! Al Gore wants clean air ... & MAKES ME PAY FOR IT!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Deeep breaths ..........1 .......................2...................................3.........................................4..........................................5......................................... OK, I'm good now .....

So I check all the obvious stuff first ... everything looks good. Then I sprayed carb cleaner all over the intake manifold gasket area, & watched my scan tool for changes in fuel trim, signaling an air leak. None. I pop the distributor cap off & check inside. It's been in there for 30,000 ... good idea to change it, but I've run them 50 - 60K before without an issue. Doesn't look all that bad, but I look at my old receipt & see that it was the cheapo made in china crap cap/rotor .. so I have the wifey pick up a lifetime warranty cap/rotor, & a premium set of plug wires at ... against my better judgement ... Autozone, as nothing else was open at the time. So I install all the parts, yanked the MAF sensor & blasted it with carb cleaner for good measure, blew out the air filter, & checked for cracked vacuum lines. Cleared the code, & sent wifey on her way the next day. Code gone. All is well ........ or so I thought ....

About 3 weeks later (couple days ago), she says the truck is bucking/hesitating again. WTF ..... so I said I don't give a *censored* ... just keep driving. The next day, the check engine light is back on. Beautiful.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE BEST PART!! It's coming .....!!

SO I'm on the computer yesterday evening, as usual & wifey calls to ask what I want for supper. I tell her grab me my usual at Subway, ..... then, back to the computer for me. Well not 10 minutes later, she calls to tell me she HAS NO HEADLIGHTS!! Oh my F *** ING God I'm gonna snap!!!!!!!!!!! WTF!!!! You gotta be kidding me!!!!!! So I tell her to check this that, & a few other things ....... NOTHING. So I say call AAA .... I'm not goin' anywhere.

Well 2.5 hours later she finally gets home on the flatbed ...... with no food ... at 9:30 PM. So I start firing up some frozen meat on the grill & pour a very tall glass of 127 proof whiskey. All is well again.

So today I set out to do some troubleshooting on this stupid headlight issue. I figured this would be a 5 minute slam-dunk, because I bypassed the multifunction switch in the steering column & hooked it to a $9 foot dimmer switch from a `70's Nova or Torino ... can't remember which ... Anyway ... I'm testing away, & discover I have battery voltage at the headlamp. Good. Then I check the ground & discover I have battery voltage there also!!!!

Good God almighty .... just let me have 10 minutes in a room with these GM engineers SO I CAN KNOCK ALL THEIR F***ING TEETH OUT!!!! AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After some investigating online, I found that in their infinite wisdom, the ground is controlled by the Body Control Module, or BCM, or stupid F***ING BOX BUILT IN MEXICO FOR .30 CENTS & SOLD TO GM'S CUSTOMERS FOR $5000!!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!

Why? WHY WHY WHY have the damn grounds controlled by another frickin stupid ass computer??????? Then I find out the grounds are RELAY CONTROLLED. This just got super-complicated. .... BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND WHERE THE GODDAMN RELAY BOX IS!!!

THAT'S IT!! I'm designing my OWN ground system!! SO I get to work, cutting the grounds from the L & R low beams, then the L & R HI beams. By this time I have both headlamp assemblies out, along with the grille :


SO I figure I'll ground both low beams to the core support. I cut the low beam ground on the drivers side lamp, & hook my test jumper to it & connect it directly to battery ground. I turn on the headlight switch, & whaddya know? BOTH low beams came on! Progress, finally. Now to the high beams ....

I cut both grounds, L & R, for the HI beams & hook up my jumper. VOILA - bright light. Good deal ... but now I have to figure out a way to get this ground wire into the cab, & hooked up to the dimmer switch ... which now has to be rewired in order to ground the lamps. So I looked around, trying to find the easiest way in to the cab from the engine compartment, without boring a hole thru the firewall with the drill. I notice the E-brake cable conveniently close to where I have the dimmer switch mounted on the floor. After some swearing, & some aggressive help from a couple flat blade screwdrivers, I was able to force several strands of copper through the grommet. I then grabbed it with pliers, & hoped they wouldn't bust the strands off. Eventually I got the wire through! WOOHOO! Made all the connections, then went to test, and all the lights worked! I was happy that this nightmare was almost over ..... but then I notice a blue light in the instrument cluster mysteriously lit up. DAMMIT!! Hi beam indicator is now ON constantly - whether or not the lights, or the ignition is on. Great. No rhyme or reason, or any logical explanation for why this is happening. Probably related to the issue that caused the lights to cease functioning in the first place ...

Now I notice that the passenger side low beam mysteriously quit working. I ended up cutting that ground, & grounding it to a bolt for the bumper supports. Problem solved.

Now I begin my 3 hour saga to try & get the HI beam indicator to function the way it's supposed to. The thought crossed my mind to just say F*** it, & run it as is ... the lights worked .. good 'nuff! But that obsessive/compulsive part of me was gnawing at my brain .... I wouldn't be able to sleep if I left it like that. So now, out comes that instrument cluster, after removing 3 dash panels & unplugging another invention that has put GM engineers on my "LIST" -- mulit pin connectors with hidden latches in the most inconvenient of spots ... usually opposite of where you can get your hands in. Unreal.


SO now I got the instruments out. I pop the plastic cover off the back & remove the twist-locked HI beam bulb/socket assembly. After some though, & some testing with the multimeter, I decided to place a strip of electrical tape over the contact for the bulb's ground, & install a wire from the back:


With some optimism, I plug the panel back in, then grab one of the dash panels with the headlight switch in it, & plug that back in. The damn light is still lit. WTF!!! Back to the drawing board. Just for shits & giggles, I figure I'll swap the tape to the voltage side & let it ground through the panel as normal. I do that, then hook everything back up again. Still doing same thing! With my limited electronics knowledge, I think resistors in line would somehow magically fix this. SO after un-soldering 3 different ones from a junk circuit board I had laying around, I learned by carrying the cat by the tail that resistors just limit current flow, & make the light DIMMER, yet still lit when it shouldn't be!! Oh well. Third time is a charm, as they say. Out with the panel, part 3 .......

Now I have to tape off BOTH power AND grounds, & stick TWO wires through the back of the cluster(F***). I do this, Install everything part 3, & run the power lead to the instrument panel dimmer fuse, & run the ground to my HI beam foot dimmer switch on the floor. SUCCESS!! The only strange issue is that when the parking lamps only are activated, the light comes on ...??? But when you turn the headlights on or off, all is normal. Go figure. Electricity doesn't care what direction it travels ......

I forgot to mention the 3 times during the installation of the cluster that it was tilted at some point, & caused the speedometer to peg to 100mph, & the fuel gauge to peg past Full, & almost at 6 O'Clock! After wasting time searching the net for this issue, I discovered that rotating the unit around will cause the needle to flop back to zero, where it belongs.

SO this was my Sunday.

ANYONE WANT A '00 GMC JIMMY??? REAL CHEAP!!

SMITTY wrote:ANYONE WANT A '00 GMC JIMMY??? REAL CHEAP!!

No....sadly, the story is worth more than the vehicle! Fun reading, good entertainment. Sorry that it was at your expense.

My daughter kept a Jimmy on the road for 3 or four years. What a nightmare that was. The best thing she ever did was get rid of it.

And that SMITTY,is why I won't buy anything that I can't crawl into the engine compartment,smack the carburator w/ a ball-peen & get on down the road---impt. lesson--if you can't look at it & listen to it--DON'T buy it--Sorry you had to learn this one the hard way

Thats what I like about my 97 dodge ram, the check engine light & the brake light are reset in the dash so you can put a piece of black electrical tape over them & it doesn`t bother you anymore. I know, I know but its been that way for almost 6 years now & I can still go & stop. As far as i`m concerned problem fixed.

By God,I'm with you samhill---I just came back to mention that one,but damn it,you beat me