How many of you know about the Ford Pinto gas tank blowing up if they get bumped in the rear end? If you are old enough to know what a Pinto is then you heard this. . . .
How about the Corvair?
A good college friend had a Pinto. It didn't blow up, but it did catch fire one night. He never figured out the cause, he just fixed the wiring enough to get it running and drove it for another six months with a burned out interior.
The first car I purchased on my own was a '65 Corvair that I bought for $500 in 1969. With good tires and shocks it was competitive with the Porches of the day on the roads up and back from the SoCal mountain resorts. I sold it for $650 two years later to a guy who didn't want the car, he wanted the engine and transmission for a dune buggy.
My view is that rather than try to find a particular model year, find the best example of the vehicle you want regardless of year and then analyze whether there are any known issues with that model year and how those issues can be resolved. Factor the cost to resolve those issues into the purchase offer.
In the case of 05/06 Wranglers there is a known issue with the OPDA installed within a particular time frame during the total production run for those years. There are few reports of problem OPDA units for Wranglers produced outside that time frame. The fix is to replace the bad OPDA with the aftermarket unit from Crown while retaining the original OEM sensor; the cost is just over $100. Easy, peasy.
The automatic transmission issue affects a small percentage of 05/06 Wranglers. It is caused by a failure in the PCM. If the problem manifests, which is by no means likely, the fix is to replace the PCM, which can cost $1,200-$1,400, admittedly expensive, and it also may be impossible to find one because new units have been discontinued. However, the PCM can be replaced with a re-programmed unit from certain other Chrysler vehicles for a cost of about $600. Problem solved.
Bottom line, work the price of a 05/06 Wrangler with automatic down $700-$1,000 and you can fix the alleged "defects" in those model years with the money you didn't pay the seller in the statistically unlikely event that those "defects" ever manifest.
Never blew up. Probably still going strong somewhere. You win for bringing up a Pinto for the first bbn time on this forum. @Chrishe needs an award
