Ok, In another thread we were asked to offer opinions on the "best" wrangler to own. And as you might expect there are a number of opinions on which one is best and which ones to avoid all for various reasons and all of them valid opinions. Of a continued and reoccurring focus throughout this and other forums is the 05-06 models as ones to avoid. Now I have an 05 and don't take any of it personally but it did get me to thinking on the "actual failures" vs "someone said it on the internet so it must be true" sorta thing.
So to the point, I have read of the OPDA doom for some time but do not know anyone that has personally had an issue and I freely admit that I do not know everyone with a TJ let alone the 05-06 models...not even close. I can also only think of a couple members here that had the issue, but out of approx 160,000 units produced in 05-06 you would think you would actually experience it more if the doom lived up to the "hype".
A 10% failure rate of production is 16k units and it sucks if you are in the 10% but that rate is not bad over time and as we move away from mfg'er date I suspect failure rate is much, much less. Now this is not to suggest that an OPDA failure is potentially on par with other items in terms damage that is possible (but its only possible) but I suspect there just may be more cracked exhaust mans in the population than OPDAs. So just as with a rad, thermostat, or exhaust man, you replace it and move on right, I mean its just another part that went bad, right? So why is the OPDA any different?
I suspect that some of the broader exposure is due to many of us being on multiple forums so that a thermostat replacement gets double or even triple the exposure if we post the issue to more than one forum. Even within the same forum if we continuously post our issue it can be disproportional in some minds to the single event that occurred.
So to my question; how many of you have actually had to replace the OPDA in you ride. NOT "I knew/heard of a guy" or "A friend of mine" or "I replaced mine out of fear" but how many of you actually replaced it due to failure? Surprise me but I suspect it is less that radiators, thermos, or somesuch.
This is not scientific at all but is a show of hands of those who 1) have an 05-06, 2) are on this forum, 3) see this post, 4) had this issue. So you see that is a very small pool to begin with.
Oh and please don't reply if if you disagree with the premise unless you personally had a failure.
[edit: corrected decimal point in math]
So to the point, I have read of the OPDA doom for some time but do not know anyone that has personally had an issue and I freely admit that I do not know everyone with a TJ let alone the 05-06 models...not even close. I can also only think of a couple members here that had the issue, but out of approx 160,000 units produced in 05-06 you would think you would actually experience it more if the doom lived up to the "hype".
A 10% failure rate of production is 16k units and it sucks if you are in the 10% but that rate is not bad over time and as we move away from mfg'er date I suspect failure rate is much, much less. Now this is not to suggest that an OPDA failure is potentially on par with other items in terms damage that is possible (but its only possible) but I suspect there just may be more cracked exhaust mans in the population than OPDAs. So just as with a rad, thermostat, or exhaust man, you replace it and move on right, I mean its just another part that went bad, right? So why is the OPDA any different?
I suspect that some of the broader exposure is due to many of us being on multiple forums so that a thermostat replacement gets double or even triple the exposure if we post the issue to more than one forum. Even within the same forum if we continuously post our issue it can be disproportional in some minds to the single event that occurred.
So to my question; how many of you have actually had to replace the OPDA in you ride. NOT "I knew/heard of a guy" or "A friend of mine" or "I replaced mine out of fear" but how many of you actually replaced it due to failure? Surprise me but I suspect it is less that radiators, thermos, or somesuch.
This is not scientific at all but is a show of hands of those who 1) have an 05-06, 2) are on this forum, 3) see this post, 4) had this issue. So you see that is a very small pool to begin with.
Oh and please don't reply if if you disagree with the premise unless you personally had a failure.
[edit: corrected decimal point in math]
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