Jeep Liberty (1 Viewer)

[Bill Balcziak]

Quote: "If I wanted the opinion of people who just test drove one (or looked at one) or people who had a tester for a week, I would have stuck with the people's opinions from rockcrawler.com."
Nice. Hope you get lots of compliments on your new rig.

 

[Charles J P]

American cars are not known for reliablilty, but I don't know about the Xterra. Still, you shouldn't let this be the deciding factor in your purchase.

Huh? Are you saying reliability shouldnt be a factor if it has a good warranty?

I dont know about you, but I have to drive my vehicle until it falls apart, and I would rather have that be after 170,000 miles (like my current car) rather than 70,000 like some Jeep owners are reporting here. I guess you have never owned a truly unreliable vehicle. My mom drives a 95 Ford Windstar that has a "design" flaw in the engine/transmission as well as the electrical system. It is in the shop all the time, and the loaners they giver here are shit... truly abused cars with major features that dont work. One loaner she had, the seat was stuck reclined all the way back and she had to drive it for a week with nothing to lean back against. And of course the van is so riddled with problems, that the mechanics cant even fix it. They have no idea what to do! I am not sure how you think reliability should not be a deciding factor. This is possibly one of the stranges comments I have ever heard.
As for Bill Balcziak... Yes, I did ask for opinions, and I dont "have a problem" with his post. I realize that my comments about "design" may have ruffled some feathers and sounded like I was picking a fight, but that was truly NOT my intention. I really was trying to figure out if you meant there was something wrong with the way the car was built or just the way it looks. I really hope there is no hard feelings, and I admitt again that this car probably doesnt have a lot of fans in the looks department (but at least its not an Aztec

)

 

[Derek Bang]

I wouldn't rip on Jeep overall for build quality. Their V-6 and especially their V-8 are known to be extremely reliable. Just stay away from the 4 cylinders. My 5.2L Grand Cherokee has been rock solid. I've talked to many folks who have 280,000 plus miles on theirs with no major repairs. Take care of the transmission, follow the maintenance schedule, and you should be fine. My mother-in-law's Cherokee 4.0 is almost at 200K and has had no major repairs either. Same for my brother's Wranglers. Check out:
Link Removed
for more info from Jeep owners...
[Edited last by Derek Bang on November 15, 2001 at 03:45 PM]
[Edited last by Derek Bang on November 15, 2001 at 03:46 PM]

 

[Scott Strang]

But does the Liberty have the option of the 318 or 360 Chrysler V-8's?
8 cylinder engines is one place where Chrysler does well.

 

[Jared_B]

Charles,
Let me clear this up.
I should have said reliability should not be the "only" factor in deciding between cars. I do understand, though, that for you it might be a higher priority. Sorry for any confusion.
I chose my current SUV based on several criteria: Best looks, best handling, best safety, fastest acceleration (well, second fastest), highest top speed (well, second highest, even though I'll never use it), comfort, features, and cargo space. If I also wanted the best reliability, I would have had to compromise too much on the other things.
It just sounded like you were going to discount the Liberty just because a few people have said that their older Jeeps have broken down after xxx miles. Personally, I would not discount it for that reason alone. I actually owned a '93 Wrangler with the 4 cylinder engine. It was totally trouble free for years, with the sole exception of an oil leak that was easily fixed.
Jared

 

[Charles J P]

Hey Jared_B, I'm glad we cleared that up. I agree, that after listing all the "traits" of a car, unless your a millionare, something has to be sacrificed. Just like the subwoofer formula. With any any giving amount of money and power, you can have extension, SPL, and size, but once you pick two of the three, the third one will be dictated for you. ie pick extension and SPL, and the size will most likely be large. Pick size and SPL, and you will most likely not get low extension. Thanks for all the comments guys, and keep the real stories coming.
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My Website: Link Removed
e-mail me: [email protected]
My DVD Profiler
Paradigm Lover

 

[Steve Schaffer]

The best warranty in the world is no match for a vehicle that's reliable in the first place.
The jeep Liberty may well prove to be ok as far as reliability, but it comes from a mfr that is not known for high reliability in the first place, and is also a brand-new model, to me that's 2 strikes against it. Chrysler and Ford are both famous for ignoring design defects for many years--both have produced the same cellophane transmissions for years on end, and the Neon is famous for blowing headgaskets.
Japanese makes like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, sometimes screw up but at least don't continue to build the same crap year in and year out. If a problem crops up, they don't leave owners hanging out to dry. Toyota actually recalled hundreds of thousands of V-6 trucks and SUVs to correct a headgasket problem.
I happen to like the front end styling, btw.
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Steve S.
I prefer not to push the subwoofers until they're properly run in.

 

[Reginald Trent]

A few weeks ago Car and Driver TV rated the Jeep Liberty the best and most off road worthy of all the small SUVs. And better than many full size SUVs in off road capability. They used the one with the 3.7 litre engine for their test.
[Edited last by Reginald Trent on November 15, 2001 at 11:48 PM]

 

[Drew Bethel]

Well, I just checked consumer reports online and there are consistent unreliable issues with all of the Jeep SUV models. If you can get a decent warranty up to 70,000 miles I'd say go for it. I once bought a Pontiac Sunfire which had a spotty reliabilty record so I purchased additional warranty via my insurance for only $50 per year. It had a $250 deductible but it's good for 5yrs/100,000 miles. Plus I didn't have to purchase the insurance until I hit 10,000 miles.
PS I did have a big $800 fix around 45,000 miles with my Sunfire and the insurance was nice to have! I'm now at 60,000+ and no problems (though it's in storage until the new year).

 

[Drew Bethel]

Bad news for the Liberty:
Liberty rolls over in 'AutoWeek' test
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...berty-roll.htm
http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=02945750

 

[MickeS]

It doesn't surprise me... although it feels really good in corners, I wouldn't want to do any really sharp turns in 40 MPH, like in the test. There are signs in the car warning that the vehicle is more prone to rollovers than other cars.

But then again, I feel the same thing about ANY SUV...

/Mike

 

[Aurel Savin]

Drew ...

I didn't know there was an Autoweek test ... but I was ready to post that from the look of the Liberty ... it looks very unstable.

Tall and narrow wheelbase ... just looking at it I think ROLLOVER.

This is the first thing that popped in my head when I first saw one on the road.

As far as the body design .. I kinda like it ... it's certainly no PT Cruiser ... but it ain't as ugly as an Aztek!

 

[Chris Derby]

If you read the article, it states that the rollover was most likely caused by the surface that they were testing on. Corner loaded while transitioning to a higher traction piece of track. Not neccessarily something your would come accross anywhere except on a racetrack.

 

[Peter_A]

Who cares that it might only happen on a race track? Who's to say that it won't happen on the street?

Autoweek has conducted hundreds of those tests and no car has ever flipped. A couple SUV's(BMW X5 and Land Rover) have gone up on two wheels, but the Liberty is the first to actually flip.

 

[Chris Derby]

Right, but they couldn't reproduce the flip when they tried. I don't know too many people (read: none) that do 40mph slalom courses on the street. Thats a pretty extreem situation. We're talking about basically gong down the street @ 40mph and basically jerking the wheel from right to left to right again. If you do this on the street in any vehicle you deserve to flip.
Again they tried to reproduce the flip and couldn't. From the article:

What did this rollover prove? AW didn’t set out to prove anything; there was an accident under extreme conditions that don’t parallel those seen in daily driving. The incident demonstrates yet again that SUVs handle differently than do cars at the limits. It makes us nervous to see such SUVs driven as they typically are, like normal compact cars. As Pete Albrecht appreciates, drivers ignore the repeated warnings at their own peril.

I don't own a Liberty, nor have I driven one. I just don't think a vehicle should be labeled because of a single incident. And as far as SUVs go, use some common sense while driving them. With one exception (the X-5) they really aren't meant to be drivin in this manner.

 

[Charles J P]

I don't know too many people (read: none) that do 40mph slalom courses on the street. Thats a pretty extreem situation.

Actually they do a lot of these types of tests to duplicate real world emergancy manuvers. If some jackass cuts you off and you have to swerve violently, do you want your tires to squeel and your car to spin a 360, or do you want it to flip. They dont just pull these tests out of their arses.

 

[Chris Derby]

I agree that they do some of these tests to simulate real worl emergencies. However, if some jackass cuts you off, are you going to swerve one direction to get the vehicle up on two wheels and then swerve the other direction? I know, you don't know what the situation would dictate.

You can read a lot into the article. I still can't get over the fact that they couldn't reproduce them flip when the were trying to. Its obvious that the tester was on the edge of the vehicle's handling limit. He spun the Liberty on the previous run. I still have to say that this is probably a fluke and the most likely culprit is the surface they were on. On normal streets/freeways/roads under "normal" driving circumstances, I would think that the tire most likely would have slid instead of grabbing and throwing the vehicle.

 

[MickeS]

The test result doesn't really surprise me, any car with a high center of gravity is going to be more prone to rolling over in extreme situations. The Liberty feels pretty good to me in the corners, compared to other SUV's I've driven. I would however be very cautious about doing sharp turns back and forth in 40 MPH, especially since there are stickers in the car saying that it's a high risk for rollovers in this car... if they could duplicate it, it would of course be more valuable. I'm not too worried about it though.

/Mike