I am the second owner of this vehicle and lightly drive. While visiting my mom, my radiator had to be replaced. I have since had the radiator flushed, cap switched, new thermostat, new water pump...Still was overheating. Now I am told gaskets need repaired. Getting estimates of twelve hundred and up to fix. I bought this Jeep in 06 and half of the cylinders went bad within the first thirty days. Was under warranty. Found a used engine with only 27000. Then two years later ac unit seized and had to be removed because I could not afford to fix. It has had expensive brake work done also. I am sick but have no money for another car payment and it is going to cost from $1200 to over $3000 to fix the engine. I have been told by every mechanic that I have spoken with that these engines are garbage. pfffft!

Ugh, where to begin. Little did I know that a weekend getaway to Charlotte would cost me $1300 in repairs, $800 in rental car fees and dissolve any faith I once had with the auto repair industry. So I was on my way up to Charlotte, NC from Charleston, SC to visit some friends when I noticed that the truck in front of me had an uncovered trailer with a tarp tied around the boxes. Well he was going 80mph and the tarp blew off part way revealing a dog crate. For some odd reason the dog crate had a hole in it and as you can imagine Fido leaped out into the highway in front of me. Some how he lived and even started chasing his owner's car all the while I am shaking with disbelief I punch the gas to catch up with the driver who just had a doggy overboard incident. I caught up to him going 90 mph and pulled him over and he turned around and collected his dog.

I pulled back onto the road only to hear a "ding ding ding" coming from my dash. I had overheated my Jeep, badly. I took it to the closest place near my home which was a SpeeDee Oil & Tune Up. I have had minor work done there before and have been satisfied with their service. I explained what happened to the Jeep and how it happened and the mechanic advised that he would take a look at it and let me know what the problem was. He called me a few hours later and advised that I needed the following: Water Pump, Thermostat, Clutch Fan, Timing Cover, Timing Cover Gasket and Radiator Flush. Grand Total for parts and labor: $934.65 (That figure doesn't include the $200 I had to spend on a rental car while it was being worked on for almost a full week). I get my Jeep back after paying SpeeDee and realizing I was going to spend the rest of my life eating Raman Noodles only to have it overheat the next day! I take it back into SpeeDee and drop it off yet again. The mechanic advised that the thermostat may be bad but that it seemed to be running fine but if it overheats again to let him know, which it did, 3 days later. So yet again I take it up to SpeeDee and drop it off and the mechanic advises that I now need an electric fan. Great. So it sits in the shop for another week and costs me another $300 for parts and labor and $300 for the rental car. They finally call me and tell me it's ready to be picked up so I drop off my rental and pick up my Jeep after realizing that I now can't even afford Raman Noodles. I get about 10 feet away from the building when my check engine light comes on and my Jeep starts shaking horribly. I turn back around and ask them if my car is fixed why is it shaking with the check engine light on? They run a scan on it and determined that I have a misfire on cylinder 4. Perfect. They advise that they need to keep it overnight so that they can determine what caused the issue. The problem was, I just returned my rental car and they were closed for the night so I had no way to get home or to get to work the next day. I advise them that since I have no means of transportation other than my misfiring Jeep I have no choice but to take it. They let me. Driving on a misfiring cylinder is one of the most frightening things I have ever done.

So the next morning I take it back in and rent yet another car. I wait until about 2:00pm and still hadn't heard anything from them so I decided to call and see what they were going to tell me next. Maybe I had a unicorn trapped under my hood? The manager advised that they were busy with oil changes all day and didn't have time to get to it so it would have to wait until the next day. Hmm, ok that's not going to work for me. I told her that it was not my fault that I had to bring the car back to begin with and if she needed to keep it overnight she was going to rent a car for me. She agreed, sort of, and I called enterprise to secure my rental for another day. At 5:07pm the same day I was just leaving my office when SpeeDee called and said that they had a master mechanic come and fix my car and that it was once again ready to be picked up. I asked to speak with the mechanic who had been working on my car throughout the last few weeks and the manager advised that unfortunately he was arrested while test driving my car the day before. Yes, my mechanic was arrested and placed in jail while test driving my Jeep. I didn't know what to say at that point so I returned the rental car and picked up the Jeep. I have now taken my Jeep to SpeeDee 8 times and it still wasn't running right. It wasn't overheating but also wasn't running like it should so I decided to take it to the Jeep Dealership because they are supposed to be the "reliable" mechanics. Not so much. They hold onto my Jeep for 3 days and said that while test driving it it overheated and they were going to perform a hydrocarbon test to see if there is a blown head gasket. Supposedly SpeeDee had done both a Pressure Test and a UV Test and both came back negative for hydrocarbons or leaks but at this point I just wanted to get the problem solved.

The Jeep Dealer told me that the Jeep had the following problems: Faulty Clutch Fan, 2 Blown Head Gaskets, Leaking Timing and Valve Cover Gasket. A grand total of $2511.15!!!! I almost lost it. The mechanic at the Jeep Dealer asked me if it was ok to go into the engine and determine where the leak was coming from with the blown head gasket. I said sure, I mean at this point I was going to dispute the charges on my credit card that SpeeDee charged me since apparently the work they did was faulty and I had not one but two blown head gaskets! I wasn't planning on having the repairs done on the Jeep since I was just going to trade the thing in anyways to get a new car but I wanted as much info on the damage that I could get to make the credit card dispute easier. I called the Jeep Dealer back a few hours later to see if they found the leak and they said that it was difficult work and could take some time. I honestly didn't want to deal with paying for a rental any longer and told him to put it back together and I would pick it up by 5:30. He said that since they took it apart the only way I would be able to get it from their shop would be to replace both heads or have it towed. I almost cried. I called the jail bird mechanic at SpeeDee and told him what the Jeep Dealer had found and what they had to do and he was adament that the head gaskets were not blown and that I needed to get the heads from the Jeep Dealer so that he could take a look at them. I call the Jeep Dealer and tell the mechanic that I will be there in 20 minutes to pick up the old heads. He faltered and said that he would have to get them to me tomorrow. I asked him why and he said that he hadn't removed them yet. Yes, he straight up lied to me. He said that my engine had been taken apart and that they had already removed the heads from the gaskets and that I needed to buy new ones but when I told him that I wanted the old heads he knew he wouldn't be able to remove them in time and fessed up that they hadn't even touched my Jeep during the entire day! So after work I picked up my Jeep and have decided that it's getting traded in as is.