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Thanks for all the comments, some people do miss the point however, I do realise that lots have great experiences with their Jeeps, many because they use them for a vastly different purpose than we use ours.
People posting on this thread that they love their Jeep and it has never given them a moments trouble is not the point of my question(although we are pleased for them).
We have had no end of trouble because we have been silly enough to believe the advertising hype and purchased a Jeep to go touring the outback with a camper trailer in tow.
We booked our first trip (a tag along in the Kimberly’s) and were told by the tour operator we needed better tyres (AT not HT), a snorkel and some rated tow points (a stronger front and rear bar). Whilst it was in the local ARB store they strongly suggested a better set of shocks and springs would be prudent for the Gibb River Road so we spent $6000.00 on modifying the Jeep and did the trip. The front axle tubes bent, all the oil poured out and it was trucked home, Jeep blamed the modifications and wouldn’t fix it. We had never thought the modifications would void the warranty - we were naive – some on this forum say stupid - but the other vehicles on that first tour were far more modified than us. Some were new, most a lot more expensive than ours and had lifts, winches, front and rear bars with two wheels hanging of the rear. As a matter of fact we cannot ever recall seeing any 4x4 out there in standard form, surely not every 4x4 has voided its warranty!
It turned out we had and it was only the start of our failures and the first of many thousands we have spent fixing broken bits on the JK to keep it going out there. Our JK is two years old and has done 46,000klms (40,000 of those on trips) it cost us $41,000 to purchase and to date we have spent over $25,000 fixing it and modifying it to do the purpose we naively thought it would do when we picked it up from the dealer on day one.
We have never successfully had anything fixed by the dealer under warranty apart from the first blown battery and they blamed that on the UHF wiring so when the second one blew up 3 weeks later stranding us out the back of Kalgoorlie, we paid an auto electrician to sort that out and supply a different type of battery (without blanket)that has now done over twelve months and 25,000klms.
Some of you have read all this before and will flame me again for rubbishing your beloved Jeep, but my point is: should I be giving any impression/recommendation by contributing in a magazine article about how great our 4x4 and camper trailer has been. The only reason we have been asked is because they look so great together, the fact that we could not do the pictures on the week they wanted because the Jeep was/is still in getting its regular rebuild in readiness for another two week camping trip was lost on the journo.
The magazine will gloss over everything and I do not want to be part of recommending people try and do what we have done with a jeep that simply has never been tested in our conditions and has absolutely no support from the factory. In My Humble Opinion.
We have therefore contacted the 4x4 magazine and declined the offer to do an article in their magazine.
We have, however, had no problems with the Camprite off road camper trailer. We will be more than willing to allow the other magazine (a camper trailer mag) their interview and pictures (which will include the Jeep as its tow vehicle)
Thanks for all your comments, I did leave this reply till we were about to leave again for a two week trip so I won’t be around to receive all your flames, pity, but I will get around to reading them all next month.
Picking up the JK in two hours and leaving in the morning...
Catch you out there,
Steve M.
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posted by flexytj: dealers promise the world and deliver an atlas
Last edited by redgp; 23-06-2009 at 05:13 PM.
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Pathetic nissan.
