Hello everyone!
So recently I was T-boned and unfortunately my 01 TJ was totaled. I had been on the hunt for a new one(TJ or LJ) for about two weeks when I found a beautiful 00 TJ sport with 10k in professional work with receipts for all of it, very very clean underneath and overall from talking to the owner it sounded like a great TJ with few issues.
I’ll attach a video, but it sits on Dana 44’s, 37’s and 4.88’s, warn front lockers and rubicon air locker(air locker not currently working), 4” mid arm lift, winch, raptor liner interior and bedrug carpets, bestop seats, and a bunch of other great stuff.
A bit of info that’s pertinent, I live in NY, and finding a TJ year Jeep up here in good condition regardless of mods is very very hard. So my search extended from NY to Maine to Georgia to Michigan and everywhere in between. This Jeep was at the top of the list for how well it seemed to be built and general condition....the catch? It was in NC. So I put a deposit down with a clause to keep me and him safe, and planned to buy it if all things went well in person, and drive it home.
So finally I fly down there and meet him and see the Jeep. I looked at every inch of that thing top to bottom and it was just what I was wanting to see. Only catch? A “slight” knocking coming from the engine bay. The owner had it only for a year, as he wanted it for a family fun rig but his family got bigger and it was just impractical to keep it. In the year he had it he only put about 900 miles on it, mostly city and light dirt road driving. So according to him he’s never had any issues regarding that noise and has even driven it multiple times on the highway at 70 with no problems. So hearing all this and knowing that well it could be an issue for sure, but something I could address when I got home and could have my magician of a mechanic look at it and determine how bad it is.
So I get him to knock the price down 1k, after I had got him down $750 from his original price already. Originally he was asking $11,750 so at this point I had him down to 10K.
we sign the title and bills of sale, and because it was a federal holiday(yea this just happened), banks were closed and he wanted to have access to the money for sure. So we set on PayPal as all research said we could transfer up to 60k...well we had trouble and I ended up only being able to pay him 8k altogether including the deposit I already made. We agreed that I’d pay the rest when the banks would allow and I went on my way
Here’s the fuck-up ladies and gentlemen. It’s 730 miles home from where I was. I got about 100 miles into it, doing great, knocking noise didn’t sound as bad and it holds wells at 70, straight as an arrow too...still in the state of NC, and the knocking noise intensified out of nowhere to a crazy degree. I limped it to a exit ramp about a mile away and shut it off. Through a series of calls to my mechanic inclined dad, we determined it must be something in the engine related to the pistons/that area. Called the PO, told him what happened and he called a tow truck, I found a shop about 3 miles away and thankfully my luck hadn’t totally left me that day.
Every single guy there was so helpful and kind and helped ease the situation for me. Just from hearing me turn the vehicle on for 5 seconds the owner of the shop said it was the wrist pins on the pistons. Told me we had a couple options and we determined a donor 4.0 with lower miles that had been gone though and made sure it runs properly would be the best and quickest way(as I need this vehicle to get to work lol). Total cost of donor engine, other parts, and labor? $2100. Called the PO and after a few minutes we agreed that we would call it even on payment.
As of now the old engine is out and the new(used) engine arrived today. Should be all buttoned up by Friday!
SO the lesson here to me at least I’d never ever underestimate the noises you hear when checking out a potential vehicle. If it’s something you can work around(wanting a fixer upper, trailering it home etc) then maybe not the case for you.
Below I’ll attach a video of the Jeep when I did a walk around of it...with the sound on you’ll be able to hear the noise plain as day and I fully expect the criticism coming in the comments hahaha
So recently I was T-boned and unfortunately my 01 TJ was totaled. I had been on the hunt for a new one(TJ or LJ) for about two weeks when I found a beautiful 00 TJ sport with 10k in professional work with receipts for all of it, very very clean underneath and overall from talking to the owner it sounded like a great TJ with few issues.
I’ll attach a video, but it sits on Dana 44’s, 37’s and 4.88’s, warn front lockers and rubicon air locker(air locker not currently working), 4” mid arm lift, winch, raptor liner interior and bedrug carpets, bestop seats, and a bunch of other great stuff.
A bit of info that’s pertinent, I live in NY, and finding a TJ year Jeep up here in good condition regardless of mods is very very hard. So my search extended from NY to Maine to Georgia to Michigan and everywhere in between. This Jeep was at the top of the list for how well it seemed to be built and general condition....the catch? It was in NC. So I put a deposit down with a clause to keep me and him safe, and planned to buy it if all things went well in person, and drive it home.
So finally I fly down there and meet him and see the Jeep. I looked at every inch of that thing top to bottom and it was just what I was wanting to see. Only catch? A “slight” knocking coming from the engine bay. The owner had it only for a year, as he wanted it for a family fun rig but his family got bigger and it was just impractical to keep it. In the year he had it he only put about 900 miles on it, mostly city and light dirt road driving. So according to him he’s never had any issues regarding that noise and has even driven it multiple times on the highway at 70 with no problems. So hearing all this and knowing that well it could be an issue for sure, but something I could address when I got home and could have my magician of a mechanic look at it and determine how bad it is.
So I get him to knock the price down 1k, after I had got him down $750 from his original price already. Originally he was asking $11,750 so at this point I had him down to 10K.
we sign the title and bills of sale, and because it was a federal holiday(yea this just happened), banks were closed and he wanted to have access to the money for sure. So we set on PayPal as all research said we could transfer up to 60k...well we had trouble and I ended up only being able to pay him 8k altogether including the deposit I already made. We agreed that I’d pay the rest when the banks would allow and I went on my way
Here’s the fuck-up ladies and gentlemen. It’s 730 miles home from where I was. I got about 100 miles into it, doing great, knocking noise didn’t sound as bad and it holds wells at 70, straight as an arrow too...still in the state of NC, and the knocking noise intensified out of nowhere to a crazy degree. I limped it to a exit ramp about a mile away and shut it off. Through a series of calls to my mechanic inclined dad, we determined it must be something in the engine related to the pistons/that area. Called the PO, told him what happened and he called a tow truck, I found a shop about 3 miles away and thankfully my luck hadn’t totally left me that day.
Every single guy there was so helpful and kind and helped ease the situation for me. Just from hearing me turn the vehicle on for 5 seconds the owner of the shop said it was the wrist pins on the pistons. Told me we had a couple options and we determined a donor 4.0 with lower miles that had been gone though and made sure it runs properly would be the best and quickest way(as I need this vehicle to get to work lol). Total cost of donor engine, other parts, and labor? $2100. Called the PO and after a few minutes we agreed that we would call it even on payment.
As of now the old engine is out and the new(used) engine arrived today. Should be all buttoned up by Friday!
SO the lesson here to me at least I’d never ever underestimate the noises you hear when checking out a potential vehicle. If it’s something you can work around(wanting a fixer upper, trailering it home etc) then maybe not the case for you.
Below I’ll attach a video of the Jeep when I did a walk around of it...with the sound on you’ll be able to hear the noise plain as day and I fully expect the criticism coming in the comments hahaha
