TexasAG90
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Drew
- Joined
- May 31, 2018
- Threads
- 6
- Messages
- 48
- Reaction score
- 65
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
- Vehicle(s)
- 2018 JLUR
- Occupation
- VP of Sales
- Thread starter
- #1
I purchased my first (note first as that is an important aspect of this thread) jlu Rubicon (6 speed manual trans) at the end of May. Within a week I had it on a 2.5" Mopar lift and 37's. Fast forward 2 months and 2,500 miles later and I ran into "the" issue. At the end of July I was taking an overnight trip with some buddies to Harrahs Casino in NC from Atlanta. An hour or so out from NC I started hearing a disturbing metal on metal sound coming from the jeep while in 4th gear. I first noticed it while climbing a fairly steep hill and having to transition between higher RPM's in 3rd and lower RPM's in 4th to maintain my speed up the incline. I also noticed a sudden lack of power while in 4th gear. It's important to note that I had made a similar type drive (in relation to hills and steeper climbs) to Nashville and back to Atlanta a few weeks prior without issue.
I was able to drive it back home but the sound persisted and never went away. I took it to my dealer who kept it for a week and, while acknowledging the sound and lack of power was certainly there, could not determine an issue. They gave it back to me to drive for a week after installing a program on the jeep which they claimed would tell them what was causing the problem. I took it back in a week later and they kept it for another week and replaced the transmission entirely. That still did not fix the issue at all.
The service manager told me it was normal and would not hurt the jeep. My argument to that was two-fold. One, I did not have this issue for the first 2,500 miles with the jeep and it had been lifted the entire time. If it was normal, the sound and lack of power would have been present the entire time. Second, if it was normal, why would they replace the entire transmission?
Anyways, I was left with two options. Go to war with Chrysler and try to get them to take the jeep back as a lemon. Which would have taken months and most likely would have required a lawyer. Or trade it in and buy an automatic. Luckily for me, I worked at this dealership years ago as it was my first sales job. The managers and most of the same sales reps are still there and I am still good friends with them. They sold me the original jeep at employee cost and have always been good to me and my family (my family as a whole has purchased more than 10 vehicles from them over the last 5 years). I decided to trade my jeep in and get an automatic. They actually gave me a thousand more dollars for the jeep than what i paid for it, the only bad pat of the situation is I had to leave my lift and tires on it. Ended up with another black Rubicon and went with a fully loaded option this time around as there were some things I realized I would like to have after I got the first one. It's back at the dealer today after buying it on Monday getting lifted again. I only ended up losing the money sunk into the lift when it could've been much worse financially. There is one silver lining to this story, I had bought my first house about 10 months ago and it hit my credit hard. My credit had climbed back to the 725 range by the time I bought the second jeep this past week so my interest rate was significantly better. I bought a jeep that cost $10k more than the original but my payments only went up about $100 a month so thats a win of sorts.
I posted all this just to make other jeepers running the manual transmission aware of the issue and that there really is no fix coming from Chrysler at this point. I could've kept the original Jeep but my fear was either being back in the shop every two months with this issue or putting a bunch of miles on it and the issue, overtime, building up and causing a massive failure while driving (most likely after my warranty had expired with my luck). So I chose to bite the bullet and not take the risk. I've had 3 JK's as well and my last one was a stick on 37's and I never had an issue so there must be something going on with the manual trans Jeep is putting in these new JL's.
Sorry for the long post but thought the Jeep community should be aware. Safe Jeepin' everyone!
I was able to drive it back home but the sound persisted and never went away. I took it to my dealer who kept it for a week and, while acknowledging the sound and lack of power was certainly there, could not determine an issue. They gave it back to me to drive for a week after installing a program on the jeep which they claimed would tell them what was causing the problem. I took it back in a week later and they kept it for another week and replaced the transmission entirely. That still did not fix the issue at all.
The service manager told me it was normal and would not hurt the jeep. My argument to that was two-fold. One, I did not have this issue for the first 2,500 miles with the jeep and it had been lifted the entire time. If it was normal, the sound and lack of power would have been present the entire time. Second, if it was normal, why would they replace the entire transmission?
Anyways, I was left with two options. Go to war with Chrysler and try to get them to take the jeep back as a lemon. Which would have taken months and most likely would have required a lawyer. Or trade it in and buy an automatic. Luckily for me, I worked at this dealership years ago as it was my first sales job. The managers and most of the same sales reps are still there and I am still good friends with them. They sold me the original jeep at employee cost and have always been good to me and my family (my family as a whole has purchased more than 10 vehicles from them over the last 5 years). I decided to trade my jeep in and get an automatic. They actually gave me a thousand more dollars for the jeep than what i paid for it, the only bad pat of the situation is I had to leave my lift and tires on it. Ended up with another black Rubicon and went with a fully loaded option this time around as there were some things I realized I would like to have after I got the first one. It's back at the dealer today after buying it on Monday getting lifted again. I only ended up losing the money sunk into the lift when it could've been much worse financially. There is one silver lining to this story, I had bought my first house about 10 months ago and it hit my credit hard. My credit had climbed back to the 725 range by the time I bought the second jeep this past week so my interest rate was significantly better. I bought a jeep that cost $10k more than the original but my payments only went up about $100 a month so thats a win of sorts.
I posted all this just to make other jeepers running the manual transmission aware of the issue and that there really is no fix coming from Chrysler at this point. I could've kept the original Jeep but my fear was either being back in the shop every two months with this issue or putting a bunch of miles on it and the issue, overtime, building up and causing a massive failure while driving (most likely after my warranty had expired with my luck). So I chose to bite the bullet and not take the risk. I've had 3 JK's as well and my last one was a stick on 37's and I never had an issue so there must be something going on with the manual trans Jeep is putting in these new JL's.
Sorry for the long post but thought the Jeep community should be aware. Safe Jeepin' everyone!
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