Jeep Problems- What should we do?

mellowy7 · 04-14-2008, 11:00 AM

Okay, to catch you up on what we have been dealing with. So my Fiancee bought a 2002 Grand Cherokee Jeep (Limited) from his Dad. He fianced $12,000 for it. He has to drive a lot so we decided that we should get an extended warranty to give us peace of mind. Well a few months later something went wrong and we took it to a Certified Dealership. They informed us that the two problems were the Radiator had a crack and the fuel pump needed replaced. We gave them all of the warranty information and we left. They called us and told us it would cost us $3,500.00 to replace it and the warranty place is only willing to cover $700.00. We decided that it would be better to try to get it done for cheaper and just discontinue our warranty (that is a whole other discussion "Don't buy 3rd party warranties!&quot

Anyways, so we found someone willing to do it for a total of $400.00. We had to pay $180.00 to the dealership for the assesment. So we had the "Mechanic" come out and work on it. It took all night and he finally was through. My Fiancee felt so bad for it taking all the night that he even paid the guy $500.00 instead. Once he had replaced the two things it still would overheat. So he recommended that we replace the heads on it. Saything that could be a big part of the problem. So everynight we met up with the "mechanic" day after day for all night after work and most of the days on the weekends. He took the engine apart and took the heads to be machined by a shop. He put everything back together and it was much worse. Not only had we already paid $1,786.00 and invested a lot time for it, it wasn't running enough to drive at all. He said that he would be able to fix it and messed with it a few more nights. When things seemed to be getting worse, my Fiancee decided to take it to a shop. The shop said they couldn't work on it because it requires special tools, so we had to drag it over to another shop. The shop specializes in working on Jeeps, so we thought we could finally get it fixed and have a second car again. We paid them $80.00 to look at it. Now, we found out that the "Mechanic" cracked one of the heads and it will cost $3,700.00 to fix it. The problem is we don't have the money for it. Also, we can't even give them 2 payments for it, they said they need it paid for in full.The Jeep car loan costs us $305.00 per month, we still owe around $11,000 on the Jeep. When we had a chance one time we looked up the Jeep on Carfax and found that it says it has frame damage. We don't know what to do, because either way we are losing so much money. The Jeep has a lot of miles on it somewhere around 110,000 miles.We have been trying so hard to not spend money and save it. This has not been helping. I suggested that we sell the Jeep before all of this got out of hand, but my Fiancee believes we can't because of the Carfax report saying there is frame damage. Now we have spent all this money and still can't use it.Should we sell it and take what we can get and cut our losses?Anyone have a suggestions of what to do?

arkadofbabylon.org · 04-14-2008, 11:28 AM

Oh my gosh! This is terrible! You may want to call the 1st mechanic that couldn't fix it properly and let him/her know that you are going to report them to the better business bureau due to the cracked heads. Hopefully they will refund some of your money instead of having you report them to the BBB. Good luck!

72Tiger · 04-14-2008, 03:14 PM

Is there anything else wrong with it? The money you have spent so far is gone regardless of what you do, so the only decision left is whether you can spend another $3,700 to repair the jeep, or to spend $3,700 plus whatever you can get out of selling it (probably not much) to get something as good or better than it.

Good luck. I have had terrible luck with vehicles a lot too, so I know how frustrating these things can seem.

happysmileylady · 04-14-2008, 04:51 PM

Oh yuck. We had a similar situation about two years ago, though with much less money involved.

About two years ago, my 7 year old car on which there was only $1500 left began to spew oil. At the same time, I lost my job. The repairs would have cost the same as the car was worth, $1500. We didn't know what to do. We didn't have the $1500 and at $200 a month, we still had almost a year left. If we had the $1500, we would have just paid it off and like donated it to goodwill or something.

On top of all of that, we were just swimming in debt payments. Our monthly inome was something like $3500, but our montly debt payments, in addition to our house, were something like $1800. It was just crazy. There was no way we could come up with the money to fix the car or pay it off, or the money to buy a new car, particularly when we had just lost half of that $3500 income too.

What we ended up doing actually was getting a home equity loan to pay off both cars and consolidate all our debts, saving us almost $1000 a month in payments to credit cards etc etc. It also gave us enough to put down a down payment on a new car. But, what we ended up doing on the car situation was getting a free car from my IL's. They had one just sitting in their driveway, not using it. They thought it wouldn't run, but my dad looked at it and it just needed a new water pump. And I did find a new job, for better pay so the additional money was going towards paying off the home equity loan sooner.

Getting a home equity loan wasn't one of your options and I am not even sure if it's an available option for you, and even if it was I am not sure if I would recommend it for your situation. For us it worked because it solved several of our problems at once. For others it might cause more problems than it solves and for others it may not even be an available option in the first place.

Of the options you did list, the best one in the long run would likely be to sue the mechanic. However, that will probably take a long time and does nothing to solve your short term need of a car. If you can get a cheapo clunker to solve that, then I suggest the lawsuit route. If not, then leaving the car at the shop until you have the money to fix it might be the better route. I don't recommend selling it because you probably won't get what you owe on it, leaving you to still make payments on a loan for a car that you don't even have anymore.

View Poll Results: What should we do?
Sell it and take the loss?	0	0%
Buy a cheap car for cash and keep paying it off?	1	20.00%
Sue the "mechanic" and pay for it to get fixed?	0	0%
Sell it and buy a cheap car for cash with the money and then pay it off?	2	40.00%
Leave it in the shop until we can come up with the money?	0	0%
Scream!	2	40.00%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 5. You may not vote on this poll

04-14-2008, 11:00 AM	#1
mellowy7 Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 1 Reputation: (10)	Jeep Problems- What should we do? Okay, to catch you up on what we have been dealing with. So my Fiancee bought a 2002 Grand Cherokee Jeep (Limited) from his Dad. He fianced $12,000 for it. He has to drive a lot so we decided that we should get an extended warranty to give us peace of mind. Well a few months later something went wrong and we took it to a Certified Dealership. They informed us that the two problems were the Radiator had a crack and the fuel pump needed replaced. We gave them all of the warranty information and we left. They called us and told us it would cost us $3,500.00 to replace it and the warranty place is only willing to cover $700.00. We decided that it would be better to try to get it done for cheaper and just discontinue our warranty (that is a whole other discussion "Don't buy 3rd party warranties!&quot Anyways, so we found someone willing to do it for a total of $400.00. We had to pay $180.00 to the dealership for the assesment. So we had the "Mechanic" come out and work on it. It took all night and he finally was through. My Fiancee felt so bad for it taking all the night that he even paid the guy $500.00 instead. Once he had replaced the two things it still would overheat. So he recommended that we replace the heads on it. Saything that could be a big part of the problem. So everynight we met up with the "mechanic" day after day for all night after work and most of the days on the weekends. He took the engine apart and took the heads to be machined by a shop. He put everything back together and it was much worse. Not only had we already paid $1,786.00 and invested a lot time for it, it wasn't running enough to drive at all. He said that he would be able to fix it and messed with it a few more nights. When things seemed to be getting worse, my Fiancee decided to take it to a shop. The shop said they couldn't work on it because it requires special tools, so we had to drag it over to another shop. The shop specializes in working on Jeeps, so we thought we could finally get it fixed and have a second car again. We paid them $80.00 to look at it. Now, we found out that the "Mechanic" cracked one of the heads and it will cost $3,700.00 to fix it. The problem is we don't have the money for it. Also, we can't even give them 2 payments for it, they said they need it paid for in full.The Jeep car loan costs us $305.00 per month, we still owe around $11,000 on the Jeep. When we had a chance one time we looked up the Jeep on Carfax and found that it says it has frame damage. We don't know what to do, because either way we are losing so much money. The Jeep has a lot of miles on it somewhere around 110,000 miles.We have been trying so hard to not spend money and save it. This has not been helping. I suggested that we sell the Jeep before all of this got out of hand, but my Fiancee believes we can't because of the Carfax report saying there is frame damage. Now we have spent all this money and still can't use it.Should we sell it and take what we can get and cut our losses?Anyone have a suggestions of what to do?

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04-14-2008, 11:28 AM	#2
arkadofbabylon.org Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Bay Area, CA Posts: 20 Reputation: (10)	Oh my gosh! This is terrible! You may want to call the 1st mechanic that couldn't fix it properly and let him/her know that you are going to report them to the better business bureau due to the cracked heads. Hopefully they will refund some of your money instead of having you report them to the BBB. Good luck!

04-14-2008, 03:14 PM	#3
72Tiger Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Knoxville, TN Posts: 291 Reputation: (33)	Is there anything else wrong with it? The money you have spent so far is gone regardless of what you do, so the only decision left is whether you can spend another $3,700 to repair the jeep, or to spend $3,700 plus whatever you can get out of selling it (probably not much) to get something as good or better than it. Good luck. I have had terrible luck with vehicles a lot too, so I know how frustrating these things can seem.

04-14-2008, 04:51 PM	#4
happysmileylady Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 28 Reputation: (11)	Oh yuck. We had a similar situation about two years ago, though with much less money involved. About two years ago, my 7 year old car on which there was only $1500 left began to spew oil. At the same time, I lost my job. The repairs would have cost the same as the car was worth, $1500. We didn't know what to do. We didn't have the $1500 and at $200 a month, we still had almost a year left. If we had the $1500, we would have just paid it off and like donated it to goodwill or something. On top of all of that, we were just swimming in debt payments. Our monthly inome was something like $3500, but our montly debt payments, in addition to our house, were something like $1800. It was just crazy. There was no way we could come up with the money to fix the car or pay it off, or the money to buy a new car, particularly when we had just lost half of that $3500 income too. What we ended up doing actually was getting a home equity loan to pay off both cars and consolidate all our debts, saving us almost $1000 a month in payments to credit cards etc etc. It also gave us enough to put down a down payment on a new car. But, what we ended up doing on the car situation was getting a free car from my IL's. They had one just sitting in their driveway, not using it. They thought it wouldn't run, but my dad looked at it and it just needed a new water pump. And I did find a new job, for better pay so the additional money was going towards paying off the home equity loan sooner. Getting a home equity loan wasn't one of your options and I am not even sure if it's an available option for you, and even if it was I am not sure if I would recommend it for your situation. For us it worked because it solved several of our problems at once. For others it might cause more problems than it solves and for others it may not even be an available option in the first place. Of the options you did list, the best one in the long run would likely be to sue the mechanic. However, that will probably take a long time and does nothing to solve your short term need of a car. If you can get a cheapo clunker to solve that, then I suggest the lawsuit route. If not, then leaving the car at the shop until you have the money to fix it might be the better route. I don't recommend selling it because you probably won't get what you owe on it, leaving you to still make payments on a loan for a car that you don't even have anymore.