Attn teachers: Jeep Liberty

A shop I take unfixable fixes to say they have 2-3 a week in for engine/trans problems.

Ranger50 wrote: Water pumps and misfires. If you get a misfire that a new plug and swapped injector don't fix, you need the heads need a valve job. Oh and the usual Chrysler junk, ps pumps, bearings, & rearends.

Glad someone mentioned the misfires. For some stupid reason it's more prevalent on the drivers' side cylinder bank. The valve rotators crap the bed, the valves then leak and you get misfires. Magic juice in the intake or fuel (Seafoam etc) does not fix it. I also saw several just spit rocker arms out for no reason. FWIW, 4.7's did the same rocker arm thing but not the valve rotator thing. Same basic motor, wonder why...

Early ones had a weird problem with the dash warnings which will go on and off randomly. It might do it for a week steadily then not do it for 6 months then it would happen again. There was a TSB out to reflash and/or replace the body control module (BCM), I saw several which this did not fix. CAN circuit problems abound.

The ball joint recall was allegedly due to the ball joint boots being heat damaged. The 'fix' was to add a little heat shield and a ball joint with a different boot composition. But on the later ones (IIRC 2005 and up) the knuckle and control arm were redesigned so the lower ball joint was inverted. The damn things were just plain designed wrong to begin with, the load path on the ball joint had the socket trying to pull itself off the ball. I saw two which were driven a good ways with a bad ball joint, the drivers finally stopped when the ball joint stud machined the wheel in half. You'd think they would notice something was wrong long before that happened.

The real turnoff for me: it's nearly as big as my ol' Trooper (really!) but has much less interior space.

Oh and I forgot to add window regulators, very common Jeep malady.

That's right, they eat rear window regulators like they are made of rock candy.

It needs 2 things to be livable:
1. a Hemi
2. new seats

The 3.7L engines are GARBAGE!!!!! And very expensive. The later ones aren't as bad, but the early ones are horrible. They've got a 16 tooth crank trigger wheel, and the later ones have a 32 tooth wheel, so they're not interchangeable. I sell used ones for $1,500-$2,000 as fast as I can get them. If you are shopping for a Liberty, go for an '04 or newer, and preferably with lower mileage.

Just in case you are thinking of looking into it, the CDI diesel wasn't a solution. Almost bought one this year instead of my Element, but apparently there have been numerous problems with the turbos failing, various necessary workarounds to problematic emissions equipment, and many stories of major parts taking months to find, if not being altogether totally unavailable already. The timing belt is also a major PITA. I think they only made about 1000 of the diesel models or so, which is making life difficult for owners whose Jeeps are approaching 100k miles.

The CDI engine was from VM Motori, I had never heard of them before. The engine itself was pretty stout but as bastomatic mentioned the electronics and emissions stuff was spotty at best.

The worst part: the torque converter was simply not up to the job of transmitting the diesel engine's torque and they would disassemble themselves internally. Jeep's fix? Replace the torque converter with the exact same piece and (here's the best part) reflash the PCM to lower the engine's torque output to prevent reoccurence! It's a very noticeable difference, people complained about it all the time after it was done. I suppose a manual transmission would take care of that, but I don't think that combo was ever offered (at least I never saw one).

The injectors are pretty reliable, they are a piezoelectric design. The down side: they do NOT take well to homemade biodiesel. If they barf, they are ~$1k apiece through Jeep.

rob_lewis wrote: My wife had one and really liked it, but the gas mileage is pretty low with the automatic. Like 18 on the freeway and 13 around town. I think it's because they are very heavy and probably needed a small V8. Other than that, it was trouble free and very nice to drive. -Rob

My girlfriend has an '04 with the 3.7/auto and the shiftable 4wd system with high and low ranges. She bought it when it was less than a year old with 9k miles. Her mileage has been much better than that. Usually around 17-18 mpg in town, and around 25-26 mpg highway.

Hers is somewhere around 75k miles, without any problems so far.

On the comments about the seats, I fully agree. I really dislike the seating and driving position in the car. After a few hours in the car, I am in pain.

The comments on heft vs. power output are all pretty spot on. This is a machine that could use a nice little torquey V8. I doubt the mileage would be much, if at all, worse. Alternatively, an SRT-4 version of the 2.4L might be a nice option in my parallel fantasy world.

It also feels ridiculously top heavy and tippy. She and I both have made the observation that despite being more bigger and more comfortable inside than the last year Cherokee she had (and the one my brother had), it was in many regards a better vehicle.

On the plus side, oil changes are super easy, and there is a little slide for oil run off from the filter. Once I discovered that spout, and (more importantly) where to find the filter, it's been one of the easiest oil changes I've ever done.

16vCorey wrote: The 3.7L engines are GARBAGE!!!!! And very expensive. The later ones aren't as bad, but the early ones are horrible. They've got a 16 tooth crank trigger wheel, and the later ones have a 32 tooth wheel, so they're not interchangeable. I sell used ones for $1,500-$2,000 as fast as I can get them. If you are shopping for a Liberty, go for an '04 or newer, and preferably with lower mileage.

I'll agree to being expensive, but garbage? I disagree. Most of the owners out there, especially nowadays, FAIL to MAINTAIN jackE36 M3 on a vehicle until it breaks. The 3.7 is especially sensitive to oil change intervals, what you put into the crankcase, and what is on the end of the filter housing.

16T vs 32T is all in the change of PCM configuration, SBEC vs NGC. Of course not interchangeable to the layman, but if you wanted to you could do some rewiring and make it work.

Well I appreciate your input, but I am afraid it was all in vain.

They sold it.

We weren't even sure what the bank will apprive us for, so I still am yet to know what my budget is.

But after reading this, I think I may stay away from a liberty, atleast an early one.

Curmudgeon wrote: The CDI engine was from VM Motori, I had never heard of them before. The engine itself was pretty stout but as bastomatic mentioned the electronics and emissions stuff was spotty at best. The worst part: the torque converter was simply not up to the job of transmitting the diesel engine's torque and they would disassemble themselves internally. Jeep's fix? Replace the torque converter with the exact same piece and (here's the best part) reflash the PCM to lower the engine's torque output to prevent reoccurence! It's a very noticeable difference, people complained about it all the time after it was done.

torque limiting a diesel in 1st gear is chryslers modus operendi.. I can't think of a modern 98+ dodge ram that didn't have the same thing programmed into the ECM(Auto trans only)..

Ranger50 wrote: Water pumps and misfires. If you get a misfire that a new plug and swapped injector don't fix, you need the heads need a valve job. Oh and the usual Chrysler junk, ps pumps, bearings, & rearends.

Oh, and the cam and crank position sensors are very failure prone, causing misfires and weird overall runnability issues. Cam sensor is cake to replace, crank sensor is a bit more troublesome. Always replace both when you get a code for either one.