Ben and I have been talking about selling the Jeep because it’s just not a practical vehicle to use in commuting back and forth to college or to leave things in while the vehicle is parked in the parking lot. So this afternoon, I posted the Jeep for sale out on the local Jeep club forums. Within 40 minutes, I had a call from a guy in Janesville, WI saying that he would be down this evening. About 6:30 p.m., he showed up, looked at the Jeep, drove it, then handed me $2500 cash (our asking price) and drove it away…that quick! As he was coming down, I had two other frantic calls, “Please hold it for me! I’ll be right down!” I had to tell them that someone else was first in line. I also have the two Jeep engines in the garage that everyone was fighting over as well. This guy wants the engines as well and will be back for them.
This afternoon, I went over to the high school for track practice and caught Ben in the hall. I told him to get the Jeep home because I had just sold it without him knowing.
Now we’ve got to find Ben a car. He wants a car this time so we’re on the lookout. I don’t know why we’re doing this during my unemployment but life doesn’t stop, eh?. We have about $2000 to work with. That should buy Ben a half-way decent car.
According to the Jeep world, Tom, Jeeps aren’t bought, they’re built. Our Wrangler was a lot of fun, especially in the summer. But they are a toy and a lot of work, a lot like a…well, never mind.
I can’t tell you the number of people that called my rig a J**p back when I had my International Scout II. Nothing against Jeeps but it’s like calling a Uni a B*ke. The masses need 4x4 education, I’m sure older Landcruisers and some others suffer from the same identity crisis.
I still have my '99 grand cherokee. It’s pushing 200K miles.
Honestly, If it was possible to swap it for something more fuel efficient, that would last me as long, I would do it in a second, but since I expect at least another 100K miles on it, and at that point I hope hybrid tech is a bit better, I’m going to stick it out.
Jeeps are fun, but I feel like chrysler is shooting themselves it the foot by not really stepping up their MPG game.
Dad had a '61 International Scout, his little black box, when I was two years old in the U.P. Mom and Dad ran a motel and Dad used it to plow the snow from the parking lot. I saw an identical one recently and wished that I could have purchased it, but didn’t have the means at the time.
If your looking for a good used car at a good price, maybe you’d want to find an older Jetta Diesel. Their motors can be good for 400K miles if the maintenance is kept up. There’s also a cool kit that converts them to biofuel. It has a 3 gallon diesel tank under the hood for the warm up, and then it’ll switch to the 10 gallon bio fuel tank after everything is warmed up. It routes the coolant through tubes in the bio tank to get that fuel up to a good operating temp. The computer also will route the regular diesel from the small tank through the system before it shuts down to purge the system so the bio won’t gel in the lines. I’ve seen older Diesel V Dubs on eBay with less than 100K go pretty cheap. Jetta and Rabbits plow through the snow really well and are pretty good trail cars. Another car people don’t tend to think of are older Ford Festivas. They sell for really low prices, get around 45mpg, and are stone simple, rugged little monkeys with really good tough engines.
We found the replacement vehicle. As soon as we saw it, we knew it was right. It’s a 1998 Ford Escort ZX2 with a 4-cyl. engine and a manual 5-speed trans. The little car’s got zip! We found a 10-disc CD changer in the trunk all wired with a remote up front and the works. Neat thing is that the car is from Manitoba and the speedometer and odometer are in km/hr and km. Bennie’s going to have to get used to that. The car’s got just over 100,000 miles on it (converted km’s) and we took it home for $2000. Not a bad deal, eh?
We’re impressed and very happy for Ben. He’s got a sporty little car all to himself. Most importantly, it’s got a fair-sized trunk and fold-down rear seats to hold lots of computers and computer repair equipment. He does a lot of work on the side and is what he’ll be studying in college in the fall.
i like the old ww2 jeeps, i dont like the new ones because in english and like land rovers:p i cant remember ever not having on my drive way, my dad has had them since he could drive. and i even go to the land rover shows (because my family is rather odd)
and they get called jeeps all the time which confuses me as they are completely different
The word jeep came from the military designation GP. A few different manufactures built the GP’s and even though A Jeep is a Jeep, a jeep, including the ones made by Minneapolis-Moline, Bantam, Willeys, or Chrysler can also be lumped together with any 4WD in the looser sense. The GP probably not standing for general purpose but rather G… Gov’ment and P for the 80 inch wheelbase cause that was in the specs when the gov’ment was seeking bids.
