My 2009 WH Grand Diesel.

[Mace1]

GDay folks.

A quick update on my GC.



This is the truck I found on Carsales advertised for $12k. I made a quick morning flight to Melbourne from Hobart and headed out to Dandenong.

First impressions... vehicle had been left parked under a prunus tree for at least 4 months. Covered in detritus. Inside covered in dog hair. Not a real worry, we have dogs too. 4WD service warning on as well. A quick spin around the local streets, drives well. Offered the punter $9k. Settled on $9500.

Head off to find a car wash. Now its clean. Fill it up with Deisel (after working out the filler cap key location).
Now into the city to catch the Spirit. All good. Next minute, hit a pothole. Loud crash noise from front end.... Berth on the spirit overnight, then arrive in Devonport next morning.

Drive of the Spirit, a few more speed humps/potholes and accompanying front end crash sounds. Pull into a servo and check tyre pressures, 70psi. Drop them all down to 30, much better. Back to Hobart.

Park up in the front yard for a day or so. Put the XJ on the market. Sold in 24 hours for nearly the same price I paid for it 7 years and 70,000 km ago. Better get the WH sorted I suppose.

Remove dog hair covered sheepskin seat covers. Spend more $$ at the local car wash. Vehicle is now looking schmicko...

Book it into the recognised local Jeep Specialist - works out of a back yard shed, an ex Jeep/Jaguar/LandRover technician. Leave it there for a week so he can give it a good once over and service.

Pick the vehicle up a week later. Account for $1100,which included:

Full Service and check-over, all fluids changed.
Find short in 4WD control box earth
Fix faulty wiring in headlights (due to poorly installed HID Units).
Install new front hub on drivers side - cooked ABS sensor.
Repair winch wiring.
Other stuff I can recall....
7 hours labour ($80 per hour.... cheap).

All in all, pretty happy.

Then book it in to Autobarn for a new Sony Stereo system with Apple Car Play. Nice...

Have been driving it around for two months now and covered about 3000km. No issues except its still unhappy hitting speed humps and pot holes. I guess a front end upgrade is in order. Any suggestions.

Its showing an average fuel consumption of about 11.5 lit/100 km, which is for a mix of city and freeway driving. Pretty happy with that, the XJ got about 16lit/100k.

I love lifting the oil filler cap and peering into the top of the engine. It reminds me of a Swiss Watch... Also love the way it drives in general.

Just one very happy WH owner at the moment.

Cheers, Al.

[alexbrown64]

Good write up.
Glad it’s all going well, as sometimes they have quite a few bugs to iron out.
Front could be anything, so a suspension shop would give you a good idea.

I have replaced the front sway bar bushes on both of ours. They wear and can clunk.
Easy and cheap fix.

Cheers,

[Clarky]

Yep
Sway bar bushes and front diff bushes.
Replace then even if you think they are okay.

The top nut on the strut will thump if its not torqued up correctly.

[Mace1]

Thanks guys, will have a squizz at them over the weekend.

And alex, my first mod.....