05-22-2019, 01:04 PM
How it all began:
So I started off this journey looking for a fully loaded, 2015+ Jeep Grand Cherokee. Preferably a Summit for the sound deadening glass, leather trim, and HK surround sound.
I had sold the Porsche about three weeks prior, so I was without a car and just relying on my motorcycle as I stayed in Harrisonburg for Maymester. This was all fine and I wasn't in a rush but as time went on, Hyperfest came closer, as well as my internship in DC which I would definitely need a car for, all loomed around the corner. This made me step on my search, nudge my budget up, and find a car that was specced just how I wanted. It was a white on brown, without any of the chrome mirrors or handles on the outside, only thing was it was on Iowa. I remember Jake saying how he used airline miles to fly out with a friend and road trip the car back, so that's exactly what I did.
I flew out at 6 am Friday morning to Des Moines, Iowa with a friend who decided she'd tag along 6hours before we left. I don't know how I could have kept my sanity doing this trip alone so glad I have some friends as crazy as me. Anyways, we got to the dealer and got the paperwork done pretty quickly. Noticed a few things that weren't online, like minor curb rash on a wheel, panel gaps, squeaky belts, and a small tear in the driver's seat. Oh well, this is what you get buying a car sight unseen, and I was already there with no ticket back home, so we made a deal and I was on my way. I know, I should have gotten a walk around video of the vehicle but even then I might have missed those things not seeing them in person, lesson learned and not a huge deal.
We then proceeded to turn a 16hours straight drive home, into 24 total hours of driving, 1,300 miles covered, 3 days on the road, and 5 main cities visited. Had some fun and put together a "vlog" of sorts for the entire trip, it's long but if you want to follow our adventure, here's the private link.
Now onto the spectacularly bad:
So we got back home on May the 12th, everything is fine and I go about using the car around town. Hypefest is that Friday so we pack up the car with three people, and head off for the weekend. Had a great time all weekend, and Sunday rolls around so we again load up the car and get on our way. Mind you, no crazy stunts were done in the Jeep, I wanted to take it on the off-road course but never got a chance, all this car has seen is highway and city miles, around 1,500 at this point after 10 days of ownership.
So after about two hours of driving back from Hyperfest, we stop to get food and I notice it smells a little like coolant. Pop the hood, and it still has full coolant and no signs of leaks, cool. Sit down for an hour to eat, and get back on the road for about 20minutes. Here's where it gets fun. All of a sudden the temp gauge spikes all the way to the top, fans go on full blast, and the engine begins to knock. Nice, I'm still 100miles from home on the highway with two other people, and a car full of luggage. Within a minute or two I get "Service 4wd system, Service Throttle Cable Actuator, Low Oil Pressure" and a flashing CEL as the car loses power as I pull off to a truck weight station along the highway. Pull up behind a truck that's stopped on the scales, and the Jeep clacks and clutters to a stop. Try to turn it back over, no luck, the engine is completely seized up.
At this point, I have semi trucks behind me trying to get onto the scales, meanwhile, my car is stuck pouring smoke in front of them, and it won't let me put it into neutral because of FCA's wonderful shifter design that only lasted a handful of years. After a few frantic minutes of YouTube, I find an emergency latch to put it into a neutral mode (some sort of lockout that can't be undone apparently), and we push it into the lot behind the weigh station. State trooper there was pretty understanding, and we called a tow truck and waited.
I have towing under my insurance so I thought all was good until I realized that we were 100 miles from Harrisonburg, and insurance only covers the first $100 worth of towing. Good thing I canceled AAA 6 months ago :/ So I have a difference of $250 to pay, whatever, get us back home man.
Then we realize something else, tow trucks normally don't have space for three people, especially not for an hour and a half drive back. So we just waited to see what they would say when the truck arrived. The guy shows up, then proceeds to tells us he's been up for 36 hours and only had one hour of sleep in his truck last night, this should be interesting. We came up with a plan though, trade the case of Monster we got from Hyperfest, in exchange he lets us sit in the Jeep while it's on the flatbed getting towed back to Harrisonburg. Somehow he agrees to this ridiculous plan and off we go.
So here we are, in my brand new broken car, less than two weeks after buying it, sitting on top of a flatbed, sending it down 81 at 11 pm on a Sunday night. So what else do we do other than crank the music until the battery dies, and go through all the leftover beer we had from Hyperfest. This in itself was hilariously fun, and a story I will absolutely tell my kids one day, the ultimate booze-cruise.
Where we are as of today:
So the dealer that sold it to me, Acura of Johnston (part of Lithia Motors), included a 60day and 3k miles warranty. This covered the tow bill as well as the loaner I am in right now. The local FCA dealer in Harrisonburg (Dick Myers) has the car, but can't get to it until next week to even see what was going on. I don't really trust them to do any work on the car, especially something this big. The fact that the tech they sent out to jumpstart my car found a way to mix up positive and negative wires, then set my fuse box on fire was not very confidence inspiring.
I called a shop back home that I normally take my cars to, to get a ballpark number for a new 5.7Hemi drop in. They said anywhere from $7,500-9,500 for parts and labor. Seems about right given a new engine alone is close to $6k, and who knows if the trans is good. It should be, but that service 4wd system was kind of odd given the other things going wrong at the time.
Here's my thought process, after just 10 days with this car, it had an absolute catastrophic failure, and I don't really want it to get fixed just for this to happen again outside of warranty. My ideal situation is for the dealership that sold the car to me, to buy it back given the experience I've had so far with it. I already know they are going to fight this, but that's what I'm pushing for. Since the dealer here can't look at it until next week, I'm just sitting and waiting. I got the quote from my shop back home last night, so my plan is to call the general manager today, put on my best Karen wig, and talk things out with him to figure out what will make this right.
If y'all have any suggestions for this, I'm all ears. Other than that, this might have been the shortest car ownership I've ever had (I think the e23 was about two weeks so maybe I'll beat it). Oh, and this is probably the last non-German car I ever buy seldom maybe a Ford truck. Womp womp, sorry America.
So I started off this journey looking for a fully loaded, 2015+ Jeep Grand Cherokee. Preferably a Summit for the sound deadening glass, leather trim, and HK surround sound.
I had sold the Porsche about three weeks prior, so I was without a car and just relying on my motorcycle as I stayed in Harrisonburg for Maymester. This was all fine and I wasn't in a rush but as time went on, Hyperfest came closer, as well as my internship in DC which I would definitely need a car for, all loomed around the corner. This made me step on my search, nudge my budget up, and find a car that was specced just how I wanted. It was a white on brown, without any of the chrome mirrors or handles on the outside, only thing was it was on Iowa. I remember Jake saying how he used airline miles to fly out with a friend and road trip the car back, so that's exactly what I did.
I flew out at 6 am Friday morning to Des Moines, Iowa with a friend who decided she'd tag along 6hours before we left. I don't know how I could have kept my sanity doing this trip alone so glad I have some friends as crazy as me. Anyways, we got to the dealer and got the paperwork done pretty quickly. Noticed a few things that weren't online, like minor curb rash on a wheel, panel gaps, squeaky belts, and a small tear in the driver's seat. Oh well, this is what you get buying a car sight unseen, and I was already there with no ticket back home, so we made a deal and I was on my way. I know, I should have gotten a walk around video of the vehicle but even then I might have missed those things not seeing them in person, lesson learned and not a huge deal.
We then proceeded to turn a 16hours straight drive home, into 24 total hours of driving, 1,300 miles covered, 3 days on the road, and 5 main cities visited. Had some fun and put together a "vlog" of sorts for the entire trip, it's long but if you want to follow our adventure, here's the private link.
Now onto the spectacularly bad:
So we got back home on May the 12th, everything is fine and I go about using the car around town. Hypefest is that Friday so we pack up the car with three people, and head off for the weekend. Had a great time all weekend, and Sunday rolls around so we again load up the car and get on our way. Mind you, no crazy stunts were done in the Jeep, I wanted to take it on the off-road course but never got a chance, all this car has seen is highway and city miles, around 1,500 at this point after 10 days of ownership.
So after about two hours of driving back from Hyperfest, we stop to get food and I notice it smells a little like coolant. Pop the hood, and it still has full coolant and no signs of leaks, cool. Sit down for an hour to eat, and get back on the road for about 20minutes. Here's where it gets fun. All of a sudden the temp gauge spikes all the way to the top, fans go on full blast, and the engine begins to knock. Nice, I'm still 100miles from home on the highway with two other people, and a car full of luggage. Within a minute or two I get "Service 4wd system, Service Throttle Cable Actuator, Low Oil Pressure" and a flashing CEL as the car loses power as I pull off to a truck weight station along the highway. Pull up behind a truck that's stopped on the scales, and the Jeep clacks and clutters to a stop. Try to turn it back over, no luck, the engine is completely seized up.
At this point, I have semi trucks behind me trying to get onto the scales, meanwhile, my car is stuck pouring smoke in front of them, and it won't let me put it into neutral because of FCA's wonderful shifter design that only lasted a handful of years. After a few frantic minutes of YouTube, I find an emergency latch to put it into a neutral mode (some sort of lockout that can't be undone apparently), and we push it into the lot behind the weigh station. State trooper there was pretty understanding, and we called a tow truck and waited.
I have towing under my insurance so I thought all was good until I realized that we were 100 miles from Harrisonburg, and insurance only covers the first $100 worth of towing. Good thing I canceled AAA 6 months ago :/ So I have a difference of $250 to pay, whatever, get us back home man.
Then we realize something else, tow trucks normally don't have space for three people, especially not for an hour and a half drive back. So we just waited to see what they would say when the truck arrived. The guy shows up, then proceeds to tells us he's been up for 36 hours and only had one hour of sleep in his truck last night, this should be interesting. We came up with a plan though, trade the case of Monster we got from Hyperfest, in exchange he lets us sit in the Jeep while it's on the flatbed getting towed back to Harrisonburg. Somehow he agrees to this ridiculous plan and off we go.
So here we are, in my brand new broken car, less than two weeks after buying it, sitting on top of a flatbed, sending it down 81 at 11 pm on a Sunday night. So what else do we do other than crank the music until the battery dies, and go through all the leftover beer we had from Hyperfest. This in itself was hilariously fun, and a story I will absolutely tell my kids one day, the ultimate booze-cruise.
Where we are as of today:
So the dealer that sold it to me, Acura of Johnston (part of Lithia Motors), included a 60day and 3k miles warranty. This covered the tow bill as well as the loaner I am in right now. The local FCA dealer in Harrisonburg (Dick Myers) has the car, but can't get to it until next week to even see what was going on. I don't really trust them to do any work on the car, especially something this big. The fact that the tech they sent out to jumpstart my car found a way to mix up positive and negative wires, then set my fuse box on fire was not very confidence inspiring.
I called a shop back home that I normally take my cars to, to get a ballpark number for a new 5.7Hemi drop in. They said anywhere from $7,500-9,500 for parts and labor. Seems about right given a new engine alone is close to $6k, and who knows if the trans is good. It should be, but that service 4wd system was kind of odd given the other things going wrong at the time.
Here's my thought process, after just 10 days with this car, it had an absolute catastrophic failure, and I don't really want it to get fixed just for this to happen again outside of warranty. My ideal situation is for the dealership that sold the car to me, to buy it back given the experience I've had so far with it. I already know they are going to fight this, but that's what I'm pushing for. Since the dealer here can't look at it until next week, I'm just sitting and waiting. I got the quote from my shop back home last night, so my plan is to call the general manager today, put on my best Karen wig, and talk things out with him to figure out what will make this right.
If y'all have any suggestions for this, I'm all ears. Other than that, this might have been the shortest car ownership I've ever had (I think the e23 was about two weeks so maybe I'll beat it). Oh, and this is probably the last non-German car I ever buy seldom maybe a Ford truck. Womp womp, sorry America.
Current:
13' E92 M3 Comp | 05' Yahama R6 | 95' E36 M3
Past:
14' BMW 335xi GT | 06' Porsche Boxster S | 15' Jeep Grand Cherokee | 84' BMW 733i | 85' Honda Shadow VT700 | 06' Acura TL
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