WahooSteeler

"Free" is a fightin' word around here, I'll re-stake my claim as 3rd in line :D WahooSteeler Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MJ87, do you have 2 or 4?? Walrus, so are you taking them, didn't seem clear. MJ, I'll take them if he doesn't. PM me.............

Ok, got the replacement ignition, got in touch w/the free lance locksmith, he said @$80. Just looking for some support to suck up the $80 and be done with it, I guess that's a hell of a lot better than the $150 I started out w/the other guy. I just hate it because my brain fart is gonna cost me $100 (including new lock set). :wall:

i thought TJs were square, but there you have it gibbs!

I look at it this way. Imagine the liability of any retread operation that cut corners. Uhh, your children's children's children will still be paying for it 150 years from now. Anyway, most reputable retreaders use some pretty sophisticated equipment these days that laser scans the casing for even the slightest belt or integrity issues in the casing. The best, or "A" casings are the ones capped for over the road use and your school buses etc, the "B" casings are used for non-hwy use etc., particularly trash trucks, dump trucks etc.. Also, a lot of your companies like FedEx, UPS etc. will only take "virgin" casings, meaning it's the first time it's been capped, if the cap was not put on one of their own casings. That's what I did with my fleet. Most big fleets will set up a true wheel and tire program where their tire dealer already has tires mounted up such that when a truck needs "new" tires put on, the mobile service truck shows up w/4 in the back, just swaps 'em out, and takes the others back to be capped and put back in that company's private inventory. Next to fuel, tires are a truck's most expensive operating item, so it's big business.

I'm sure you could find one on a CJ at the JY in a NYM. That's New York Minute. Got a little crazy on the initial thing there........ :D And I believe it's official name is the Fuel Filler Neck Support Thingamabob

x2 on Eagle and deziped. I was going to suggest compression check first. and as noted, if your rings were "shot", it would definitely smoke. x2 also on Eagle's comment about the likely condition of your engine. at only 100k, your block/cylinders are probably clean as a whistle or you would have commented about a lot of other problems. I'm not trying to repeat others comments, I'm adding my "vote" for the "you're probably ok" analysis vs. the "you might be in trouble" one. Please keep us informed of what you do and the outcome! :popcorn:

Wildman, nice link. Like the saying goes, a picture says a 1000 words. :cheers:

I love the Brute's, but no matter how hard I try, I just don't like the raised roof on the cab. I think it has more to do with the skylights.

Pathkiller, good job on your homework on the study of retreads and that they were actually found to make up less of the discarded casings and gators laying around the highways than original tires. Why? Tire pressure. The number one cause of tire failure, period. I used the same report several years ago to get retreads approved for a commercial truck fleet I managed. You are both right, and wrong, on a couple points. First of all, tires are governed by the Fed. Hwy Admin. Safety Regulations. States can create additional regs or stricter regs, but obviously they can't have a reg that would "lessen" the federal reg. Commercial tires are made to allow retreads, in fact, the top brands actually warranty their casings to stand up to a certain number of caps to be put on. I.E. if a casing fails inspection to accept a cap (retread), and it is determined it is structural failure and not a result of abuse or misuse, the mfr will pro-rate the cost of replacement. For example, Michelin warranty's that their commercial tire casings can be capped 7 times under normal use. Yes, like all tire warranties, a lot of it is very objective and can be somewhat easy for the mfr to deny, but the mfr's are much less likely to do this on a commercial claim than a passenger car claim because the money and competition is too great. Think large truck fleets. Retreads are definitely allowed in VA on passenger vehicles. On commercial vehicles, they are not allowed on a steer axle if the vehicles are intended for highway use. As a matter of fact, you cannot even run a patched or plugged tire on the steer axle of a commercial vehicle, it has to be replaced. BUT, if the vehicle is registered for local and/or delivery use etc., i.e. UPS, FedEx, Post Ofc, Trash trucks, school buses, they are allowed to run caps on the steer axle. The reason is, since they do not run at sustained speeds on the hwy, they are very unlikely to have a blowout because it's not specifically low tire pressure that causes the blowout, but the heat generated because of low tire pressure. So hey, check your tire pressure on a regular basis everybody! :chillin:

Cool, well I'll be sure to start looking to you for OE parts and hopefully put a little change in your pocket. Have you put the word out to the rest of the club? FYI, another 20 secs of digging, www.newjeepparts.com is: **This site is operated by the wholesale division of Allen Samuels Chrysler/Jeep 1 800 950 7105** Ft Worth TX

Taz, you are correct. I bought some stuff from there and I think I put Rockstar on to them. They seem to have a pretty good inventory of older parts. How is your inventory on older items for MJs? That's pretty cool of you to offer your discount to everyone here. With the reduced markup, do you still get a commission? If so, I'll definitely run all my OE orders through you. Also, there is another site I found like Wholesale Mopar called newjeepparts.com, do you know who/where that dealer is? Just curious.

MJ87, do you have 2 or 4?? Walrus, so are you taking them, didn't seem clear. MJ, I'll take them if he doesn't. PM me.............

How do you remove the shifter handle on an auto w/center console?

you'll catch them on ebay every once in awhile, but i've seen them go for as much as $50

As a huge MX fan, that was the BIZZZZOOMMMBBB!!!

During our recent snow, and the 2 or 3 other times I've engaged 4wd since buying my truck in 9/07, it has been very difficult to shift in to 4-hi. Once in 4wd, it seems to have operated fine. Any other truck that i've ever had or driven w/shift on the fly was not near as hard to engage as this has been. Is the linkage easily accessible to lube and/or what other items should I check that could affect this? Thanks

Safety ratings, cost to repair, theft history, etc. I am surprised it's that much though. :eek:

As always, it's not as simple as just the monthly payment. You could apply the same formula as I mentioned above after you break down what your monthly cost for ins. and gas is. In the end, the Escape is still going to look better on paper, because you can't replace the 30 months of "equity" (ha!) you have in it. The other option not mentioned is finding a good value on a used car, especially for the size/type of car you are talking about. You've got a ton of choices from $10-16k and will still have a relatively low mileage '06-'07 car. Best of all, you're payment could be in the range of your $400 +/- goal and if you buy something down on the $10-13k end, you'd be paid off in 4yrs for sure, even as little as 3. The biggest challenge will be getting out of your Escape. It takes about 3yrs to "break even" on a new car, and that's if you sell it yourself. On trade in values, about another 6-12 months. My guess is it's worth $16k on the open market, and you'd probably get @$13k on trade-in, all of this depending on miles and condition. But even if you are upside down $2-3k, you can still come out ahead with a good value used car. It's not the best idea to roll negative equity from a car over to a new loan, but in your case you would recover some of that through your lower cost to own (pymnt, ins, gas). Most people when they do this are actually going up in cost to own, so the hole only gets deeper. Anyway, I can highly recommend going to visit the guys at Enterprise Car Sales. They are agressively priced below book value (they do "no haggle" pricing like at Saturn dealers), have lots of financing options, and their customer service is the best IMO. Don't think "ugh, a beat to hell rental car", they are very selective on what they pull out of the fleet to sell, and believe it or not, most of the cars are very well maintained. They also buy cars from the leasing dept. and from auction, but they go through all of them pretty extensively, if that makes you feel any better. Check out what they have online and give them a call if you want. I'll PM you the name and # of the head of retail car sales there, tell him I referred you and he should have someone take good care of you. http://www.enterprisecarsales.com/carsales/home.do

JT, economics.........

Is the $113 savings going to be used to reduce other debt or build up savings? If for debt, just crunch the numbers in how much faster it helps you eliminate some other debt. If for general savings, is there a goal you are trying to reach, i.e. a certain amount of money put aside for something else or emergency fund etc? Point being, if you are halfway in to owning the Escape, and you are happy enough to hold on to it for a few years after payoff, you might be better off keeping it. A simple way to view it, what will be your situation in five years under both scenarios: Buy the Focus: $113 savings x 60 months = $6780 saved + a fully paid off 5yr old Focus Keep the Escape: $503 available to save once current car paid off x 30 months = $15,090 saved + a fully paid off 8yrd old Escape Hope this helps.......

Uh, yeah, that's why I put ADVERTISED in caps....LOL :brows: The simple solution would be to call Skyjacker and all of the others and confirm the @NET amount of lift each one's shackel SUPPOSEDLY provides. Or better yet, just get the overall length of the shackle.

Skyjacker has some 2" shackles in their budget Manche lift, so by 2" I assume that is there ADVERTISED net lift. I figured I'd wait to find a used pair of those (or similar) and hopefully still be able to get some coils and spacers from MJeff to complete the job.

Thanks. That's a big help because there are a lot of 2" XJ shackles floating around for sale and now I know I'd only net 1".

Ok, I know that XJ and MJ leaves are not interchangeable, but what about the shackles? Also, what are bar pin eliminators? Thanks for the education.......

TJ, that would be cool. I actually want to go down to Lynchburg soon to find that guy that has the private yard full of MJs. I've got his number, just need to find a weekend to go down there. AND, I can relive the college days and go have a kick @$$ gut-bomb lunch at the Texas Inn! :brows: