My little jeep is getting up in miles.

[Chris142]

I bought it new June 02. It's had a few issues over the years but has never been on a tow truck. I did have a major mechanical malfunction about 2 years ago. The bearings in the rear Dana 44 axle go bad. Had about 180000 miles at the time.

Guess changing the axle oil with synthetic every 20k was not enough.

I had to pull the entire axle out and took it to a rebuilder as I'm not comfortable doing that myself. I bought it with the HD axle hoping to not have issues.... Oh well.

Engine and transmission are still working as designed.

w/s spraying motor is bad and it has a broken mode door in the dash so the HVAC is stuck on vent. Something I can't find.

 

[350Rocket]

I bought it new June 02. It's had a few issues over the years but has never been on a tow truck. I did have a major mechanical malfunction about 2 years ago. The bearings in the rear Dana 44 axle go bad. Had about 180000 miles at the time.

Guess changing the axle oil with synthetic every 20k was not enough.

I had to pull the entire axle out and took it to a rebuilder as I'm not comfortable doing that myself. I bought it with the HD axle hoping to not have issues.... Oh well.

Engine and transmission are still working as designed.

w/s spraying motor is bad and it has a broken mode door in the dash so the HVAC is stuck on vent. Something I can't find.

View attachment 203726

I assume it's the Rubicon since it has the Dana 44? My dad had an 05. Is this a common problem? His only had 125k miles or so.

 

[Chris142]

I assume it's the Rubicon since it has the Dana 44? My dad had an 05. Is this a common problem? His only had 125k miles or so.

No. The Rubicon did not come out till the 03 model year. Mines an 02. The 44 was offered from 97-06 but you had to know what to look for to get one. I also got the steepest gearing available at the time... 3.73.

 

[350Rocket]

No. The Rubicon did not come out till the 03 model year. Mines an 02. The 44 was offered from 97-06 but you had to know what to look for to get one. I also got the steepest gearing available at the time... 3.73.

Oh okay. I used to know that but forgot. I remember when he bought his new in 2005, first new vehicle since a 1981 Jeep CJ.
Hopefully they didn't cheapen out the d44. I did blow one up in our 78 Chevy k10 (front diff) but it sat stuck underwater for a couple days and didn't get the oil drained out until it blew up a few years later.

 

[Allaneddie]

198K miles: that 4.0 is just well broken in.

 

[Chris142]

Oh okay. I used to know that but forgot. I remember when he bought his new in 2005, first new vehicle since a 1981 Jeep CJ.
Hopefully they didn't cheapen out the d44. I did blow one up in our 78 Chevy k10 (front diff) but it sat stuck underwater for a couple days and didn't get the oil drained out until it blew up a few years later.

The bearings in the axle were koyo. I thought they would have been timkin. But the jeeps never been out of my sight so it was built with those.

 

[Nick1994]

I had my front axle bearings go at 145k on my XJ. Not sure of the service history of the first 100k as it was government owned. But I changed it at around 120k or so. I replaced the rear end around 130k thinking it was my vibration issue, turns out it wasn’t. But the outer rear bearing was apparently bad because when we pulled the axle shaft it was scored really bad.

 

[AZjeff]

Is your Jeep a 5spd Chris? The 02 Sahara I bought last March is a 5spd with the rear 44, it came with 3.73s but a previous owner put in 4.10s. I like it so much can't believe I didn't own a Wrangler years ago.

 

[Chris142]

Is your Jeep a 5spd Chris? The 02 Sahara I bought last March is a 5spd with the rear 44, it came with 3.73s but a previous owner put in 4.10s. I like it so much can't believe I didn't own a Wrangler years ago.

Yes! I don't do automatics!

 

[Chris142]

I had my front axle bearings go at 145k on my XJ. Not sure of the service history of the first 100k as it was government owned. But I changed it at around 120k or so. I replaced the rear end around 130k thinking it was my vibration issue, turns out it wasn’t. But the outer rear bearing was apparently bad because when we pulled the axle shaft it was scored really bad.

My front bearings are still original. I've had to rebuild the front drive shaft,ball joints,bushings and tie rods. But this jeep has seen more dirt and off road than normal.

I did have the throw out bearing fail at 175k. Odd cause I don't ride the clutch. Infact I don't usually use it to shift. I float gears. The clutch it's self still had tons of lining but I replaced it anyway

 

[meep]

Odd…? Nah. That’s a good life for a throw out bearing. That’s 175 thousand miles for a spinning part with only its original grease as lube. You drive it very well.

 

[redhat]

Awesome, I’m sure under your care it has plenty more miles to rack up.

You say broken mode door — have you ever looked on maybe Thingiverse or other 3D print websites if someone has designed a part? Maybe that is an idea if it’s something that you’d like to replace.

 

[Chris142]

You say broken mode door — have you ever looked on maybe Thingiverse or other 3D print websites if someone has designed a part? Maybe that is an idea if it’s something that you’d like to replace.

Never heard of such a thing

 

[jeepman3071]

Is your Jeep a 5spd Chris? The 02 Sahara I bought last March is a 5spd with the rear 44, it came with 3.73s but a previous owner put in 4.10s. I like it so much can't believe I didn't own a Wrangler years ago.

+1

I have owned a few XJ Cherokees in the past which I loved. My dad has always had Jeeps from back when I was a little kid, mostly Grand Cherokees. I have owned my 1998 Wrangler Sahara since 2019. It has the 4.0L/5 spd with 3.73 gears, 1" lift with 31" BFG KO tires. It is probably the most fun vehicle I have owned.

 

[IndyFan]

I bought it new June 02. It's had a few issues over the years but has never been on a tow truck. I did have a major mechanical malfunction about 2 years ago. The bearings in the rear Dana 44 axle go bad. Had about 180000 miles at the time.

Guess changing the axle oil with synthetic every 20k was not enough.

I had to pull the entire axle out and took it to a rebuilder as I'm not comfortable doing that myself. I bought it with the HD axle hoping to not have issues.... Oh well.

Engine and transmission are still working as designed.

w/s spraying motor is bad and it has a broken mode door in the dash so the HVAC is stuck on vent. Something I can't find.

View attachment 203726

Congrats! I just sold my 2008 with 198,500 miles. Lots of life left in it and it gave me very little trouble over the years. I hated to see it go.

 

[svtrit]

My 95 had 253,000 miles on it when I sold it. At that point, the 2.5L was worn out and needed replacement.

Nice job maintaining it!

 

[Donald]

No piston skirt cracks? #331 casting head issues?

 

[AZjeff]

Congrats! I just sold my 2008 with 198,500 miles. Lots of life left in it and it gave me very little trouble over the years. I hated to see it go.

Most Jeep people say run from that 3.8 in your JKUR. Did it give you any problems? Big difference in drive-ability from the 3.8 to the 3.6 in the 18?

 

[Chris142]

No piston skirt cracks? #331 casting head issues?

Nope. Mine has the upgraded "tupy" head.

 

[IndyFan]

Most Jeep people say run from that 3.8 in your JKUR. Did it give you any problems? Big difference in drive-ability from the 3.8 to the 3.6 in the 18?

I never had a problem with that 3.8. It ran like new when it drove off. It did use some oil, but it was random and did that since 40k miles. But everyone I know who had a 3.8 said they used oil. My brother had a mini van that he ran past 150k with that engine and it used oil but always ran like new. Mine also felt just as powerful as new. It had not lost any power or torque, from what I could feel.

An old 65 year old mechanic at a dealership in Ashville, NC, went through it when a coil pack failed. He said he loved the 3.8 and thought it was one of the best engines Chrysler made. He said he saw many of them with 300k miles on them still running well. (It was nice they checked it, but I found later that I could replace a coil in 5 minutes and with $35 at Autozone. Dealer charged much more than that, but did thoroughly check it)

So some of the rep was from people who didn´t check the oil, ran them dry, and broke them or sized them up. I know of a guy who did exactly that. I had the lifetime warranty and they told me if it was at or more than 1 quart of usage per 1k miles, they´d replace it. A few times it was very close, but it never quite got there. Other times, it used none. Weird. Lots of theories out there. Most popular is ovaled-out cylinders, but that doesn´t explain why sometimes it did not use oil. Another popular one is that the gaps in the piston rings would line up. I´m not so sure about that, but it would explain the randomness of it. Others say it is the PCV valve/system. I thought about testing that with a catch can, but never got motivated enough to do it. I did replace the PVC once and for about 3k, it used no oil. But then started again. I replaced it again and no change. The old PCV valves still functioned fine. They were not stuck.

Anyway, I found it to be an excellent engine. I loved and trusted it. So much so that with 190k, we took it on a full-on trip to Moab. It handled it with flying colors. My brother drove it and absolutely loved it. It barely used 1/4 quart of oil on that trip. It was probalby 2500 miles, total, or near that. with many hours of rock crawling and over 50 hours of highway driving.