Let my mistake be a guide for Jeep buyers!

cliffish said:
The wife and I graduated from Oswego just north of you. I actually bought a sight unseen TJ from Pittsburg/ohio area that is pretty much rust free (obviously some of the bolts are a bit tough to break free. The seller happened to have a crew going to Philly and he drove the Jeep there with only a deposit and we agreed if I did not want it he would refund the deposit and drive it back to Ohio. It is pretty nice but my next one will be a Rubicon from out west or south.
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Both my parents graduated from Oswego! Rudy’s was a go to spot for us every year growing up.

Nice! Yeah pretty much the condition of my new one, if it’s a original pet it’s got some rust starting but most things are now on it so I’m not worried one bit! Definitely going to get it fluid filmed though.

if you still live in NY and eventually do get another rig, I’d suggest trailering it or getting it trucked lol...this whole going to get it states away is a huge hassle
 
jeepguy03 said:
Damn dude, that sucks! You've just been hit with a ton of bad luck recently.

It's hard to know if a noise in a 4.0 is fatal or not unless it's really obvious, because they are just really noisy engines. The lifters tick and knock, they have piston slap, some have light rod knock, and many of them make these noises for 100,000 miles and it never gets any worse.

My guess is that it had a broken piston skirt, which isn't unheard of, and the higher RPMs of sustained highway driving broke the piston the rest of the way. I'd bet $100 that if you pull the oil pan there will be pieces of piston skirt in the oil pan.
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Yup. I purchased a 99 XJ with that very issue for super cheap. Swapped out the engine with a junkyard with documented miles and came out ahead.
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Wow...this is crazy pertinent to me right now. I went looking at a Jeep over holiday weekend and I couldn't pull funds because of the holiday. The Jeep I looked at is perfect in almost every way...including a Dana 44 rear end. The engine has 180k miles and does have a decent tick/knock which scared me away. I offered him 8500 banking on the fact that I may have to replace the motor down the road. He's holding tight at 9,500 which isn't awful but still more than I want to spend.
 
SoCalTJ said:
Wow...this is crazy pertinent to me right now. I went looking at a Jeep over holiday weekend and I couldn't pull funds because of the holiday. The Jeep I looked at is perfect in almost every way...including a Dana 44 rear end. The engine has 180k miles and does have a decent tick/knock which scared me away. I offered him 8500 banking on the fact that I may have to replace the motor down the road. He's holding tight at 9,500 which isn't awful but still more than I want to spend.
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Got pics of it? Yeah at 180k with that knocking noise, if you plan to wheel hard or drive it on the highway, based on my recent experience I’d plan for an engine swap(whatever your heart desires. If it’s in great condition otherwise, I’d say 8.5k is a good place to hold at if I were you
 
Reidminer said:
Both my parents graduated from Oswego! Rudy’s was a go to spot for us every year growing up.

Nice! Yeah pretty much the condition of my new one, if it’s a original pet it’s got some rust starting but most things are now on it so I’m not worried one bit! Definitely going to get it fluid filmed though.

if you still live in NY and eventually do get another rig, I’d suggest trailering it or getting it trucked lol...this whole going to get it states away is a huge hassle
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Yeah, Rudys is cool. We are down state on Long Island. We just got back from NC yesterday dropping my daughter at college. My son graduated last year and is teaching in NH. I will definitely retire out of state, maybe NC or TN so will probably look there for an upgraded TJ. For now I will play with this one and my 74 Triumph TR6 until I sell that and find another toy to play with on the lift.
 
cliffish said:
Yeah, Rudys is cool. We are down state on Long Island. We just got back from NC yesterday dropping my daughter at college. My son graduated last year and is teaching in NH. I will definitely retire out of state, maybe NC or TN so will probably look there for an upgraded TJ. For now I will play with this one and my 74 Triumph TR6 until I sell that and find another toy to play with on the lift.
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Ah nice nice. Yeah I was remarking to everyone down there how mild the weather was. Definitely wouldn’t mind somewhere down there in the future. Good luck!
 
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Reidminer said:
Got pics of it? Yeah at 180k with that knocking noise, if you plan to wheel hard or drive it on the highway, based on my recent experience I’d plan for an engine swap(whatever your heart desires. If it’s in great condition otherwise, I’d say 8.5k is a good place to hold at if I were you
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Here's a quick one. Its a 98, manual, dana 44 rear w/3.73. He's already replaced all the normal stuff...water pump, radiator etc. All steering components are new with new bushings. Has 3 tuffy boxes all keyed the same. Brand new soft top. Bartact seat covers. It does have 2020 Rubi wheels and new rubber on it. I dont want those and think I could probably sell them for 800-1000 maybe.

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SoCalTJ said:
Here's a quick one. Its a 98, manual, dana 44 rear w/3.73. He's already replaced all the normal stuff...water pump, radiator etc. All steering components are new with new bushings. Has 3 tuffy boxes all keyed the same. Brand new soft top. Bartact seat covers. It does have 2020 Rubi wheels and new rubber on it. I dont want those and think I could probably sell them for 800-1000 maybe.

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Ah Nice, yeah sounds decent for 8k with the motor issue in mind I’d say! Definitely could get a pretty penny for those wheels lol. Best of luck to ya!
 
Man, same thing happened to me bought my jeep and within 100 miles I developed a knock and it wasn't repairable. I went with a new jasper though total cost was 6.5k
 
lulzpwndyah said:
Man, same thing happened to me bought my jeep and within 100 miles I developed a knock and it wasn't repairable. I went with a new jasper though total cost was 6.5k
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Geez 6.5k for an engine replacement? Or total for the Jeep and engine? Yeah either way it’s just a frickin hassle lol, that’s my biggest issue, just annoying hah.
 
Hey @Reidminer you are not alone!
Few months ago I flew all the way down to Sicily (I live in Torino in the North of Italy) to buy a "perfect" TJ. I've been so naive to send some money in advance to the seller, which seemed to be a pretty decent guy from internet and the research I made. Well, the TJ wasn't exactly perfect. Nothing extreme, but I didn't have any evidence of the defects in advance (pictures and videos were made on purpose), like: a ripped seat, misfiring, the airbag non functioning, driver door lock non functioning, esthetically almost perfect, though.
In my defence I can say that I never bought a used car and much less a TJ.
Anyway, I had the car serviced and repaired when I arrived back home, but with an extra expense which I didn't consider when I decided to buy the car.

All's well what ends well! Next time we all be more cautious!!!
 
Francesco.com said:
Hey @Reidminer you are not alone!
Few months ago I flew all the way down to Sicily (I live in Torino in the North of Italy) to buy a "perfect" TJ. I've been so naive to send some money in advance to the seller, which seemed to be a pretty decent guy from internet and the research I made. Well, the TJ wasn't exactly perfect. Nothing extreme, but I didn't have any evidence of the defects in advance (pictures and videos were made on purpose), like: a ripped seat, misfiring, the airbag non functioning, driver door lock non functioning, esthetically almost perfect, though.
In my defence I can say that I never bought a used car and much less a TJ.
Anyway, I had the car serviced and repaired when I arrived back home, but with an extra expense which I didn't consider when I decided to buy the car.

All's well what ends well! Next time we all be more cautious!!!
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Oh wow a Euro Jeep bro! Hey!

wow, sorry to hear that, that’s rough! Glad you were able to get it fixed though. Yeah it’s tough buying a used vehicle never having seen it in person until you go to buy it. I know my way around cars and especially TJ’s for the most part, but when it comes to internal like motor issues, I’m almost clueless haha. Glad I’m not getting screwed in my situation that’s for sure.
 
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I ran into the same situation, with the "knock" looked at a '99 tj about 75 miles away, very pronounced "knock" and first thing, I asked him if he would negotiate on the price, "NO WAY, " so we just moved on. Its still on craigslist. The jeep had been abused so I didn't even think about fixing the problem.
 
Not bad after all, considering everything. My ‘01 sounded the same when my piston skirt broke. Ripped it out myself and had it rebuilt for $1300. I think total with fluids, new clutch and other odds and ends it came out to around $2000. Seems like you didn’t get a bad deal at all.
 
that's awesome that the seller was willing to work with you. I've ran into my fair share of scummy people, and while I'm sure you are lovely, I don't know that I would've been as accommodating as the seller was. For one, I wouldn't have let you drive it off w/o full payment. And second, all sales final, no warranty expressed or implied. That he came down 1750 initially, and then ate another $2k when you were already "under contract" for the remainder tells me that he knew there were problems and was happy to have cash in hand and the headache out of his driveway.

All told, sounds like you came out of it pretty good, hopefully that's the end of major trouble for a while.
 
rancholago said:
I ran into the same situation, with the "knock" looked at a '99 tj about 75 miles away, very pronounced "knock" and first thing, I asked him if he would negotiate on the price, "NO WAY, " so we just moved on. Its still on craigslist. The jeep had been abused so I didn't even think about fixing the problem.
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Damn. Yeah sounds like you dodged a major bullet!

in my situation I wasn’t sure how bad the noise meant things were and I’m 98% sure the seller didn’t know either. He’s a finance dude that likes toys so he isn’t exactly a mechanic lol. Truly, other than this engine issue it is a phenomenal Jeep that’s built incredibly well. Once I finally get it this time, I know I’ll be estatic
 
Jamesval035 said:
Not bad after all, considering everything. My ‘01 sounded the same when my piston skirt broke. Ripped it out myself and had it rebuilt for $1300. I think total with fluids, new clutch and other odds and ends it came out to around $2000. Seems like you didn’t get a bad deal at all.
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Ah damn. Nice on doing it yourself though! If I had a vehicle and this was my weekend toy I probably would have tried tackling it myself but I’m in a time crunch so thankfully, it seems like I’m getting a pretty decent deal!
 
hear said:
that's awesome that the seller was willing to work with you. I've ran into my fair share of scummy people, and while I'm sure you are lovely, I don't know that I would've been as accommodating as the seller was. For one, I wouldn't have let you drive it off w/o full payment. And second, all sales final, no warranty expressed or implied. That he came down 1750 initially, and then ate another $2k when you were already "under contract" for the remainder tells me that he knew there were problems and was happy to have cash in hand and the headache out of his driveway.

All told, sounds like you came out of it pretty good, hopefully that's the end of major trouble for a while.
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While I can’t be sure, I’m almost positive he didn’t know how serious the knock was. I mean, he’s “downgrading” from this to a sequoia, because he needs something more family friendly. I think he just got more than he bargained for. He clearly liked it but wasn’t the right fit. And he had only put 900 miles on it while he owned it and probably only 100 miles in total were highway miles.

Either way, you’re correct that I got lucky with the seller. I consider myself an alright guy that treats others how I would want to be treated. And he seemed to me like a genuine, just good guy, and he said as much about me when we were having the money issues. Like you bring up, I’m not sure if the situation was flipped I’d be willing to do the same, but if it were someone like me, buying from me, I think I’d make the same decision lol. After we agreed to call it even(there was a tiny bit of push back, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna pay him the rest of the money for a lemon, so maybe I called his bluff) I thanked him and told him I appreciated his understanding and working with me and he basically said he felt bad for apparently selling me a time bomb and hoped I’d be able to get it home soon.

Either way I’m considering it a good deal. Way way more hassle than I wanted but money wise? I definitely got a deal
 
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