4.0 Cherokee Engine Noise

I've been offered a 1998 4.0 Jeep Grand Cherokee running on LPG. It's done

160 k miles, it's in good condition and absolutely everything works. The missus loves it and I've been offered if for £500 (MOT until next April, tax til December).

The only problem with it is that there is an engine rattle. I know without hearing it it's hard to diagnose, but if anyone can offer any pointers it would be helpful. The noise..

Is much louder when the engine is started from cold Goes quieter after about a minute of ticking over, but never totally disappears. Is quieter under load - for example, if I am in neutral and rev the engine to around 2500 rpm it rattles on the overrun as the revs drop. The noise is barely audible at tickover.

To me it sounds like a bottom end rattle or maybe a small end bearing. It's a harsher noise than tappets drained of oil and seemed to be coming from the lower end of the engine when we had a listen with the stethoscope thingy.

I *KNOW* whatever it is is probably going to be a big job to sort. I'm more worried about how long it will last like this - a week? a month? Years? It's not as though it'll get caned. If I can get six months out of it, then repair/replace the engine I'd be happy. We're moving house in a couple of weeks and it would be ideal for lugging stuff up and down the motorway cheaply. Cost me £22 in LPG to drive up to Manchester from Wycombe yesterday, cheaper than my diesel Xantia.

Thanks for any tips

Mike P

Reply to
Mike P
Loading thread data ...

Even if it is £500 - the engine is knackered and the existing owner probably knows what is wrong and fainted at the repair quote. It's difficult to say how long it will last. It depends on how long it has been like that. Don't buy it because it's cheap and runs on LPG. A diesel car will give better economy than LPG when you work out the costs. LPG is like half the price for half the distance so it's not that good, especially not with price hikes and hardly any garages selling it now. You could hire a large van for less than £500 if you just want to move house.

Other people have trouble with the Jeep, you should at least try Google first, then look on YouTube.

formatting link

Reply to
Rob

We have a P reg 4.0 LTD as the works mule. Apparently, the water pumps are the weakpoint (ours has done similar=20 miles) and cost about =A31300 from Jeep. This was advised by my bosses=20 back street mechanic mate who checked it over after buying.

They aren't much cheaper for a pattern one, but can be rebuilt.

On diesels it is the diesel pump that goes, and not surprisingly costs=20 similar to the water pump on the petrol (one weak point, one big price).

Ours was fine, only weakness was the steering has a little play, but the=20 adjuster is seized, and it has a little too much weight over centre, so=20 it may be over adjusted as it is. Still well within the MOT tolerances=20 though. Just a little weird compared to rack and pinion steering.

And yes, it is comfy, all leather, and soft suspension is nice.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

formatting link
formatting link

Reply to
Elder

'Rob', you're a knowledgeless prick who should have been strangled at birth. You know f*ck all.

Reply to
Pete M

at 500 quid just take a chance. it will make 150 weighed in for scrap

Reply to
Mrcheerful

Scrap is £170 a tonne at the moment. I got £131 for a Pug 106 the other day (couldn't be bothered fixing it). The LPG kit would probably fetch a couple of hundred.

Reply to
Pete M

then it (scrap) has almost doubled in the last few months as I got 80 quid for a metro with some extra scrap in the back about 6 or 8 months ago ! even better though, as the jeep must be a couple of tons or a fraction more, and as you say the lpg kit is worth sensible money so it is worth 500 as a scrapper, I'll bet it would break well through ebay as well.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

Yup. even softer than my old Celsior. And you know how much that wallowed. Ours isn't raised but it does seem higher than some of the others I've seen arround.

Reply to
Elder

Cheers Chaps. I'll take a chance. It runs ok, the noise seems to have got quieter the last day or so strangely. The rest of it's in that good condition I'd be tempted to find a decent engine for it when it finally dies.

Mike P

Reply to
Mike P

That doesn't sound good, the Shite Old Diesel Cherokee we've got is stiff as anything. Ridiculously so, the 4.0 we had last year was the same.

I've just towed a 25ft boat behind the turbo Rangie and it honestly didn't feel like there was anything behind. Slight increase in exhaust note, but even the induction noise sounded as normal. Astonishingly good tow car.

Reply to
Pete M

Wranglers tend to be soft & bounce all over the place.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

The one I've got is pretty stiff. It bounces over bumps but if you set it up for bends properly, it actually corners quite well for what it is, not much roll at all..

Mike P

Reply to
Mike P

Seconded. I tend to be quite easygoing with people but whenever there's a post that seems top know what it's talking about but which I know from my own experience is plain wrong, I look at the name.

For the last month or so *every* time it's been 'Rob'.

He's either a subtle troll or an idiot.

Reply to
PCPaul

Hey, what's wrong with both :-)

Reply to
Clive George

Nothing, but he's always on about LPG costing half as much but the engine using twice as much. It's just complete bollocks. I drove a 1.8 Vectra estate to Glasgow a couple of weeks ago, four up, average motorway speeds, 220 miles each way, and it cost the grand total of £28 in LPG. The car averaged 35 mpg (on gas), on petrol that would have cost a minimum of £60.

Yet the gobshite still disagrees.

Reply to
Pete M

There is that, even for the roll, I don't corner at town speeds much slower than in the Saab.

Reply to
Elder

I'd advise against flushing it, especially as it has done a fairly high mileage. It could dislodge crap, shellac type flakes etc, which might then block oilways. Safer to leave the crap stuck where it is, where it isn't doing any harm. Mike.

Reply to
Mike G

formatting link

LOL not one French car in that lot, makes for an interesting read.... especially as the hybrids/eco friendly cars are costlier. Obviously only at the moment and given some time their production costs will come down and make them more competitive against the IC cars.

Pete M where is the original of that article? I'd like to see if it is just cost to the consumer or includes manufacturig costs too.

-- Chris

Reply to
Chris Dugan

It definitely isn't the cost to the consumer - that's the entire point of it :-)

Original is here:

formatting link
They won't make their methodology public, so I'm a bit doubtful about their figures, and I suspect some of the conclusions people are drawing from them aren't actually correct. Eg by their methods, driving 5000 miles/year is worse than driving 15000 miles/year. Per mile, it does mean the manufacturing cost is amortised over fewer miles so it looks worse in that measure, but the total cost still ends up worse for the latter. They're also based on averages, so cars which get crashed more because they're driven by fools hurt the costs, even though that average shouldn't affect an individual driver's purchasing decision. What would be interesting to me would be the same simple data split into manufacturing and running costs. Hmm - might ask them for it.

The answer is of course to run vehicles for as long as possible. Bonus points for getting a vehicle which would otherwise be scrapped for easily-fixed reasons.

cheers, clive

Reply to
Clive George

And their energy costs for scrapping cars seem to be an order of magnitude higher than making them in the 1st place.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.