Greetings to you all! I am not new to Jeeps, the U.S. Army taught me to drive (as in never driven anything B 4) in one, '77/Germany & it was a pleasure to dive it places even a Gama-Goat couldn't go! My next Jeep was a new AMC Cherokee in '83, nice while it lasted, @ 37K (1K over the 3-yr/36K warranty expired) the carb died and the fix was close to $1K! Crap! So I traded it in for a '87 Wrangler Sport (boys-toy) & put 150K on it, then major components started to fail; new engine time, more cost in parts/labor than trade-in/resale value. O.K I dogged it and thought it would take the beating the Army Jeep had no probs with. Wrong! Loved the shift-on-the-fly, until the tranny turned into grind/stall-on-the-crawl off-road :-( Current ride is a '96 Suzuki 4-door Samurai Sport JLX on it's last legs, and it did me O.K. on road. Now thinking about an '06 Jeep Liberty Renegade 4x4 manual tranny, w/minor upgrades: 6-CD changer, Infinity speakers, cruise control, A/C, off-road group/skid plates, but an online owner review I read said it has 9" ground clearance per Jeep, he measured just over 6" on certain under-body parts. I don't need parts ripped off or me stuck on small stump/rock with a Honda Civic ground clearance. Another guy complained about loud interior noise @ freeway speeds, a given in a soft-top Wrangler. Not looking for silence, but would like to hear my tunes, not the wind rush if I'm slapping in Jeep's 'best' audio package. Local sales rep was IMHO a tad too pushy & blew off my valid questions as: "You'll learn to love it, trust me!" A kid who thought the best feature was the frigging GPS gizmo, & told me side air-bags add-ons: "Seldom save lives!" As a retired Army medic who has peeled plenty of (dead) drivers out of wrecks, he lost my trust right there! B 4 I sink $27K+ into a Jeep that I've taken for a test dive around town, nice spin, but was warned about not taking a new model off anything but a dry flat graded/compacted trail. I would be VERY thankful for some honest Renegade owner feedback. I'm new to this newsgroup, and I AM sorry if I'm asking a question that has already been covered in depth, but please choose to answer or ignore/kill-file me if your answer is going 2 B a flame-me-out (buy a Honda Element!) reply. Thanks in advance for your pros/cons feedback.
Loner