Is the JL the worst Jeep ever?

[somedude922]

LOL. Traded a jeep for a Audi. Nuff said.

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[mackh4x0r]

LOL. Traded a jeep for a Audi. Nuff said.

LOL yeah, an Audi is 10x more expensive to fix than a Jeep and over-complicated at that.

 

[ChattVol]

I bought my wife a 2018 Audi A4 when I bought my 2018 JLU. She is tired of it and wants new car. It has 18000 miles on it and is loaded. Paid 45k. Trade in value is 24k in mint condition. Good cars, just don't hold their value like a jeep Wrangler.

Wow...you'd be getting taken to the cleaners on the A4 trade-in at $24k. Even a German sedan shouldnt depreciate 47% in 2 years with 18k miles and in mint condition. I bet that dealer would relist it for around $34k.

 

[Zandcwhite]

Wow...you'd be getting taken to the cleaners on the A4 trade-in at $24k. Even a German sedan shouldnt depreciate 47% in 2 years with 18k miles and in mint condition. I bet that dealer would relist it for around $34k.

According to kbb an A4 in excellent condition trade in value is between $19k and $29k depending on if it's a base model premium or a fully loaded prestige. Being he paid $45 it's likely the later. Still a 34% depreciation in a few years. For reference our 2019 with 23k miles has only depreciated by 10% according to kbb. I could cut that to 5% by going private party (which is what I paid new). With the lift, low mileage 37's, winch, sliders, etc. I could likely sell it for more than the original msrp. You'll never get that out of an audi.

 

[COBill]

I bought my wife a 2018 Audi A4 when I bought my 2018 JLU. She is tired of it and wants new car. It has 18000 miles on it and is loaded. Paid 45k. Trade in value is 24k in mint condition. Good cars, just don't hold their value like a jeep Wrangler.

At that age Wranglers depreciate just as fast as other cars do.

In my experience, it's only in the longer term that Wranglers tend to hold their value.

KBB's listed trade-in values are a joke; without access to Mannheim values, generally KBB trade-in - 10% seems about right, or swing by a CarMax sometime to find your vehicle's actual market value.

 

[ChattVol]

According to kbb an A4 in excellent condition trade in value is between $19k and $29k depending on if it's a base model premium or a fully loaded prestige. Being he paid $45 it's likely the later. Still a 34% depreciation in a few years. For reference our 2019 with 23k miles has only depreciated by 10% according to kbb. I could cut that to 5% by going private party (which is what I paid new). With the lift, low mileage 37's, winch, sliders, etc. I could likely sell it for more than the original msrp. You'll never get that out of an audi.

I'm not sure why you're comparing it to a JLU when I didn't talk about it. In his post, he said it was a loaded 2018 Audi A4 in mint condition with 18k miles. KBB Trade-in value is $30K and private party is $35k.

 

[jeepoch]

Why do more people not see the bigger picture?

One of the reason's FCA and most other north American Auto Companies struggle with quality issues are not specifically design problems but rather manufacturing flaws during the actual assembly process.

Who runs almost all facets of most American automobile manufacturing? Not car company employees, but rather the United Auto Workers Union (UAW).

No car company can either hire or fire an assembly plant worker unless it's negotiated via a union Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Real interesting, no car company can even fire any unionized worker for cause. The unions take full advantage of this fact.

UAW workers could care less about the product, to them it's all about the job. It doesn't matter whether they're building Cadillacs, Camrys or Jeeps. Manufacturing quality is but another tool in their toolbox towards future trade negotiations.

If they all did their jobs perfectly (even just properly with little mistakes) there would be no need to renegotiate more resources (a.k.a. more jobs) to increase and improve said quality. So it is a never ending extortion racket.

The union must provide a certain percentage of flawed assemblies in order to have the position that more effort (jobs and workers) are required in the next round of contract negotiations in order to make things better.

Both Vehicle Management and Union Bosses understand this silly stupid dance. They all factor this into the overall cost of doing business. Managers get bonuses for attempting to fix things, Union bosses typically do get more jobs at contract negotiations, but nothing ever really improves (except falsely on the shareholder paperwork).

Until there is entirely no incentive to (almost have good quality), we consumers will ultimately always suffer the 'acceptable' number of lemons produced to keep this dance going. It's so unfortunate that assembly line people can't reliably produce the exact same output on every unit made.

Sure there are design flaws such as the steering box, ESS Battery and clutch assembly problems on the majority of JLs. These issues affect nearly every vehicle produced. These are common problems. Rightly blame the Company design engineers for this type of dysfunction.

But for the onesy-twosy type of problems like CAN Bus issues, unseated fuses, fit and finish issues on some (but not all) units, this is a function of poor assembly craftsmanship and not a design defect. If almost all vehicles produced behave as advertised, but some way smaller percentage do not, blame the Union not the Company. After all the union workers are only doing what's in their best interest, growing the bureaucracy. Not the reputation of whatever vehicle they happen to be lucky enough to be working on.

Unfortunately they don't understand the long term damage that they are truly doing. I personally believe that this is exactly why Detroit lost it's manufacturing dynasty. Labor costs just got way too prohibitive from doing this dance and the companies moved these jobs elsewhere.

Why is it that the UAW gets blamed for NOTHING. Ever?

So go ahead and give up on Jeep and FCA. Roll the dice and buy a potential lemon from a different assembly plant.

The highest quality will only be found where the workers themselves take pride in the product and not the bureaucracy. My claim that this can only happen in a non-union shop.

There are a few assembly operations that have non-union employees. My bet is that these vehicles will be your best chance of not purchasing a lemon.

For reference and full disclosure, I was a Software Engineer at a major (Big Three) automotive company. I could list thousands of instances that I either personally witnessed or had first hand knowledge of the ways the union would stifle production, sabotage or hinder quality in order to almost always just punish big bad management over some minor local grievance. The overall general incentive of any unionized shop is to be ordinary rather than exceptional. Their unofficial motto is 'stop working so hard, you're making the rest of us look bad'.

This was also a very big factor in why I moved away from Michigan. That mentality is truly pervasive there, at least within the automotive industry as a whole.

Jay

 

[Ray Pezzi]

This was also a very big factor in why I moved away from Michigan. That mentality is truly persuasive there, at least within the automotive industry as a whole.

Jay

I think you meant pervasive, not persuasive, but as a lifelong resident of Michigan I know exactly what you mean. I've heard so many stories from people who work "in the plants" and had such bad luck with American made cars, that I've probably owned more "foreign" cars than the average Michigan resident. I still remember a bumper sticker I used to see around Lansing in the '80's: "Hungry? Eat your rice burner." Ah, yes, the good old UAW.

I think things are better with the Big 3 now, with so much production having been moved out of SE Michigan to escape the UAW. My late father-in-law owned a stone fabricating shop in Flint, Michigan and when I'd half-kiddingly ask, "Good heavens, why did you establish a stone yard in a place like FLINT???", the answer was that back when he started it (mid-50's), GM had 85,000 employees in Genesee County alone...and now it was about 8,000.

My wife's ex-husband wrote a best-selling book (Ben Hamper, "Rivethead") about life on the assembly line in the bad old days. Read that, and you can understand why the manufacturers have been so eager to get out of Michigan and escape that mindset.

 

[jeepoch]

Thanks Ray. You are correct, damn spell check. Perhaps even a Freudian slip. Most people are in fact persuaded into this mindset. However, I just edited my post.

Also yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I grew up in the Metro Detroit area and this outlook was so normal that this mentality was rarely noticed by the people living within it. This was just the way life is.

However, after serving in the Marine Corps then earning a Physics degree and accepting a Software Engineering position at Chrysler, my eyes became sorely aware of just how ubiquitous this mindset had become.

Unfortunately, I do also sense the younger generation are being even more indoctrinated into this 'be ordinary' and not 'be exceptional' attitude. More than any lemon produced, this holds my highest disappointment.

Jay

 

[rickinAZ]

Thanks Ray. You are correct, damn spell check. I just edited my post.

Also yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I grew up in the Metro Detroit area and this outlook was so normal that this mentality was rarely noticed by the people living within it. This was just the way life is.

However, after serving in the Marine Corps then earning a Physics degree and accepting a Software Engineering position at Chrysler, my eyes became sorely aware of just how ubiquitous this mindset had become.

Unfortunately, I do also sense the younger generation are being even more indoctrinated into this 'be ordinary' and not 'be exceptional' attitude. More than any lemon produced, this holds my highest disappointment.

Jay

We've all heard stories about the work effort and can-do attitude of American citizens during the war and on into the 1950s. That work ethic, and pride in one's work, is largely gone. And...I'm not sure how that changes back - ever.

Here is a minor example of not caring about one's work - even if the job is boneheadedly simple.

 

[Ray Pezzi]

Thanks Ray. You are correct, damn spell check. Perhaps even a Freudian slip. Most people are in fact persuaded into this mindset. However, I just edited my post.

Also yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I grew up in the Metro Detroit area and this outlook was so normal that this mentality was rarely noticed by the people living within it. This was just the way life is.

However, after serving in the Marine Corps then earning a Physics degree and accepting a Software Engineering position at Chrysler, my eyes became sorely aware of just how ubiquitous this mindset had become.

Unfortunately, I do also sense the younger generation are being even more indoctrinated into this 'be ordinary' and not 'be exceptional' attitude. More than any lemon produced, this holds my highest disappointment.

Jay

Me, too, Jay. I grew up in Milford, Michigan (home of the GM Proving Grounds) and back when I graduated from high school (1974) you could go a few miles down the road and immediately start working at the big Ford plant in Wixom, making a heck of a lot more money than I did as a poor kid working my way through college. When I was going to school at Michigan State, I had a buddy who was a millwright at Oldsmobile. He carried a backpack with a pillow and books so he could find some quiet spot in the plant to hole up and read...and he typically came home after lunch (on the midnight shift). He'd just have somebody punch out for him at the end of the shift.... and meanwhile he was making about $100K/year, even back then. He said the only time he ever really worked steadily was model changeover, the rest was just hiding out from the boss.

That's just the way it was...a VERY pervasive attitude that the companies were there to be taken advantage of. That Ford plant in Wixom is now a mall and Oldsmobile, of course, no longer exists. Somebody apparently forgot to tell those guys about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

 

[Ray Pezzi]

LOL. Traded a jeep for a Audi. Nuff said.

Yeah, you're right -- I never should have bought the Jeep. The other thing that I was considering at that time was a Toyota 4Runner and I've had AWFULLY good luck with Toyota vehicles over the years (2 Tacomas, 1 Land Cruiser, and a 2000 4Runner Limited). But I just couldn't pull the trigger on a 4Runner -- they're just so ugly now (IMHO). The Wrangler, though, made me smile every time I looked at it.
The good news is that my 19 months with a Wrangler made me take a hard look at my needs. I live where it typically snows a lot from November thru March, so I definitely need 4WD/AWD -- but 98% of my driving is on-road. I can always park my Audi at the trailhead, throw my waders over my shoulder, and hike in to my fishing spots - and I get something that's much nicer on the road in the bargain. For you guys who are hard-core off-roaders, the Wrangler is an awesome vehicle, but it was a bad fit for me (and that's my fault, not Jeep's).

 

[jeepoch]

Me, too, Jay. I grew up in Milford, Michigan (home of the GM Proving Grounds) and back when I graduated from high school (1974) you could go a few miles down the road and immediately start working at the big Ford plant in Wixom, making a heck of a lot more money than I did as a poor kid working my way through college. When I was going to school at Michigan State, I had a buddy who was a millwright at Oldsmobile. He carried a backpack so he could find some quiet spot in the plant to hole up and read books...and he typically came home after lunch (on the midnight shift). He'd just have somebody punch out for him at the end of the shift.... and meanwhile he was making about $100K/year, even back then. He said the only time he ever really worked steadily was model changeover, the rest was just hiding out from the boss.

That's just the way it was...a VERY pervasive attitude that the companies were there to be taken advantage of. That Ford plant in Wixom is now a mall and Oldsmobile, of course, no longer exists. Somebody apparently forgot to tell those guys about killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Ray,

Small world. While working at Chrysler we lived in Grand Blanc. Nice quiet little town until Tiger Woods would play at the Buick Open. Gridlock every time he did. Times do change and certainly not always for the better.

Early in my career before the internet and centralized computer management when the honor system had to be absolutely relied upon, I ran into this: (One of literally many hundreds of stories I could share of all the unionized graft):

I had worked for an automotive testing contractor that engineered a product that physically tested various electrical harnesses throughout the vehicle for either shorts or opens by measuring the impedance of various things within the harness and cable bundles. We did this for just about every wire and cable assembly throughout the entire vehicle.

During one stretch we were getting blamed for mis-analyzing a higher than normal amount of bad harnesses. So the auto company (GM) allowed me to 'blend in' to the assembly process in order to observe. No suit or tie, no clipboard or note taking of any kind was allowed. Otherwise the union would believe their productivity was being improperly monitored against their current collective bargaining agreement.

So I spent the next week observing. Looking exactly like any other ordinary lazy line rat. No one said a thing. Not a single worker inquired what the new guy was doing. If they did ask, I was instructed to say I was just "hiding from the boss."

It turns out that a couple of guys on the line took turns at the repair bay for the engine harness assembly station. Each guy took turns. One day on the line, the next in the repair bay.

I had noticed however that both of these guys while on the line would run the same test on the same engine multiple times every few hours on different engines. At the end of the test, a printer would spit out either a passed or failed label with the detail of what wasn't correct upon any detected problem.

However, they always ran the multiple tests on a good engine harness. From the outside, they could just state they were repeating a test on a suspicious harness. All seemed normal. However, they were very inconspicuously hiding the good labels under the printer.

It turned out that whenever a bad harness was legitimately detected, rather than attaching the bad label to the engine block, where that particular engine would eventually then be routed into the repair bay, they would take a previously stashed away good label and use it instead. Crumpling up and then destroying the bad label.

This had the ultimate effect that the defective engine harness would not make it into the repair bay but would instead continue on down the assembly line as if nothing bad happened at all. Whatever was wrong would hopefully then be detected later where repair would be much more difficult. If unfortunately the problem was a high impedance short, the poor soul end customer would have purchased a 'lemon'. To these two workers, that mattered absolutely nothing to them.

It turned out that these individuals simply made an agreement to not route any work into the repair bay while on-shift. Thus allowing that guy in the repair bay a guaranteed day off (with pay). They could read a book, sleep or do whatever. As long as nothing was routed in for repair that workers job (yes job) was to simply just sit there and wait for a bad engine to show up.

Interestingly, once I informed management what was happening, all they did was to put a placard over the printer that said simply: "one test per engine only".

As it turned out neither worker was disciplined but simply reassigned to other duties somewhere else around the plant.

I resigned from that testing company the following day, Our bonus packages were based upon accurate problem detection and that was being thwarted by union thugs. I'm certain the next two workers likely continued to do the same thing but at a much more randomized frequency to keep from getting caught so easily.

I'm sure over time the test results were no longer being printed but instead sent to some centralized managing computer that was way more monkey-proof. I would also estimate that over 50% of the company's overall manufacturing effort (and cost) is to make every facet of the assembly process as monkey and tamper-proof as possible. And the union will continue to try and thwart anything they can. Spy-vs-spy sort of gamesmanship. With never any discipline or negative consequences to anyone but the poor unsuspecting consumer stuck with a lemon.

I have hundreds of stories similar to this one. Literally. Ask me over for a beer sometime, I'll give you the 'everything you wanted to know about working for the union, but was afraid to ask'. Really sweet gig until the auto company simply can't tolerate all the graft any longer.

Jay

 

[Zandcwhite]

Yeah, you're right -- I never should have bought the Jeep. The other thing that I was considering at that time was a Toyota 4Runner and I've had AWFULLY good luck with Toyota vehicles over the years (2 Tacomas, 1 Land Cruiser, and a 2000 4Runner Limited). But I just couldn't pull the trigger on a 4Runner -- they're just so ugly now (IMHO). The Wrangler, though, made me smile every time I looked at it.
The good news is that my 19 months with a Wrangler made me take a hard look at my needs. I live where it typically snows a lot from November thru March, so I definitely need 4WD/AWD -- but 98% of my driving is on-road. I can always park my Audi at the trailhead, throw my waders over my shoulder, and hike in to my fishing spots - and I get something that's much nicer on the road in the bargain. For you guys who are hard-core off-roaders, the Wrangler is an awesome vehicle, but it was a bad fit for me (and that's my fault, not Jeep's).

I try to warn people all the time, and I'm a huge jeep fan and have literally owned a dozen or more over the years between the wife and I. The wrangler is the best off road vehicle on the market, but that comes with huge compromises on the road. The high center of gravity that comes with that ground clearance. The solid axle that is great off road for both strength and articulation will never ride as well as a quality ifs. The narrow body with wide fender flares is great for tight trails, but that means cramped interior space compared to a traditionally designed vehicle of the same overall width. Some people just love the look and/or the ability to take the top and doors off enough to accept those compromises. Even within the jeep family the grand Cherokee or even a compass or a Cherokee will be a better daily driver, bad weather, dirt road rig for most people who don't wheel.

 

[WilhelmSR]

LOL. Traded a jeep for a Audi. Nuff said.

I did the opposite in '07. Traded in my '04 Audi S4 for the JK in when they came out. Best decision I ever made. Audi was ALWAYS in the dealership for problem and had my JK for 7 years and never had a single issue the whole time.

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