How did you end up with your KJ?

[tommudd]

I had an 1996 XJ with 265,000 on it I bought new. Was moving 250 miles away and was going to have to use my own vehicle for work. So thought it was time to upgrade.

Looked at the Liberty's on the lot, thought I'll buy one since it didn't look like you can do much to them ( everything I owned for the last 30 plus years was modded way too far) so called a friend of mine who sells Jeeps, told him what I wanted on one and the color, black of course.

Two days later he called said he had one and would deliver it to me. Cool he brought it up, I signed the papers, installed the hitch and light wiring, hooked a loaded trailer to it and took off for our new home.

Up to this point I had not even driven one yet, although I already owned one!

My wife is reading as we go down the road how to turn the fog lights on!
That was September 21, 2004 , sorry to say mods started a few weeks later. Now 136,000 miles later still running great.

 

[jimymc]

My wife and I travel in a motorhome. We use it as a home base and travel out through the countryside. The last motorhome we had was only rated to tow 3500 pounds so we passed on a Jeep because of weight. We bought a Honda CRV and drug it all over the US including Moab, UT. It wasn't long before we realized that we needed something a little more robust. We now have a bigger motorhome that is capable of towing 10K pounds and we wanted a real 4X4.

We were in Waycross, GA visiting family and noticed a Liberty Renegade in a used car lot. We came back later that day and stopped to look at it. Took it for a drive and decided right then that we wanted it. That was two months ago and we are still lovin it. Can't wait to get back out to Colorado and Utah and do some of the trails that we had to give up with the CRV.

 

[jeepmedic46]

Bought my soon to be ex wife a 02 limited, Then I bought a 04 sport and never looked back.

 

[Robsama]

Thanks for sharing guys/girls. Some good stories out there.

In addition to my initial post, here's even more how I ended up with my KJ. Before I even drove that stick Libby I wanted a GC. One of the sister dealers had a nice bright red GC with leather, sunroof, etc... that was owned by some old lady and never driven. So I had him call up the other dealership and see if it was still available. They said it was off the lot because someone had tried to break into it and shattered a window or two. They were in the process of repairing it but once it was "back on the market" the price would be $1000 more! They were tacking on the repair bill even though it was broken into on their lot! I ended up getting the owner of the dealerships (three in total) involved and he said THEY are covering the repairs and if I wanted it I could have it at the advertised price. I ended up not buying it anyway.

There was another '05 all black GC I wanted really bad at another dealership clear across the state. Priced right where I wanted it but it was in for repairs because one of the CV boots was torn. I waited (and didn't look for another vehicle) for over a week while they replaced it. Finally, an hour after I signed the papers for my Libby, the owner of that dealership called me an apologized up and down for someone not returning my call. He said he would have his sales manager in the Jeep and driving to my house over an hour away if I still wanted to look at it. If I had received that phone call an hour earlier, I'd be driving a black GC.

 

[Ry' N Jen]

Long story...
Quick answer!

I screwed up my body working...
Went from $7K per month down to $1800.00 per month.

My Pa bought us our 2004 KJ...

 

[05liberty]

I had a Ram 1500 that my company was paying me $400/month to use for work .. Only problem was it was a lease & I was quickly eating up the miles on it ! My boss assured me that they would come good for the over mileage or buy out the lease ... well with about 15000 km & 2yrs left on the lease they were not acting fast enough for me so I went to the dealer to try to dump out of the lease .
I was looking at the Nitro but the $$ didn’t work out so the sales man suggested the 2005 Libby limited that was just turned in from lease .. I got it for $12000 plus the remainder of the ram lease .. The best part is they never took my vechical allowance away and gave me a company ½ ton to drive !!!
I do miss the power of the ram but not the gas mileage!!! If you think the Libberty is ******* gas drive a ram for a week !!!

 

[HoosierJeeper]

Actually my Hemi Durango does better on mileage than the KJ.

 

[Marlon_JB2]

Yawn.

I drove a KJ before Tom?!/! Wow!

Anywho, which one do you want the story to? I'll summarize both.

'04KJ - Mom won lottery. Knew I wanted a Jeep. Went to dealership, leased '04 Red KJ Sport for 2 years. Was gonna keep it but unrelated emotional issues (PM Me For Details if you want) got to me and I started to hate to drive it.

'06KJ - Went to dealership since lease was almost over. Saw silver KJ Sport CRD. Test drove it. Father suggested WK. Said no, too big. Leased the KJ CRD too a day later. Didn't sign papers before it was modded with 245/70 Toyo Open Country A/Ts. Dumped it 6 months early due to high miles.

I'm just now paying off the upsidedownedness 3 years later. Never doing that again. Oh and I ended up with the vehicle my father suggested I get back in '06. Go figure.

 

[mag03kj]

I had a 02 ford ranger edge 2wd. The ac went out in the dead of summer/ trany and engine was about gone with 115k on it..so i was talking to daddy and he said sell the ranger and ill sale you the 03 Jeep liberty and so i said ok..sold the truck and now have the KJ.

 

[The Fixer]

When my wife and I came back from our honeymoon in Sept. of '02, she decided it was time to replace her '93 Buick Regal - she owned it for 10 years, can ya blame her? We've had good luck with Jeeps (my mom owned an '87 XJ from '88-'99, and a '99 WJ from '99-'08 or so) and my dad was friendly with a salesman at the Jeep dealer, so we went down to look at Libbys. We test-drove a brand-new '03 Limited and my wife bought it that day. I think it had 10 miles on it when we picked it up. It's got all the good stuff -leather, heated seats, moonroof, EVIC, upgraded stereo, NP242, and no ABS. It's been great to us, and just rolled over 35K miles. We're planning to keep it for a long time since it's barely broken in!

 

[osufans]

funny you should ask....first thing you should know is i've owned about 20 vehicles in my 16 years of driving...so i'm not necessarily fickle....but i'm not known for keeping anything for too long either....haha

i had just bought a ford focus svt about 6 months prior, sweet car. it was the zx5 (five door hatchback), 6spd manual, very tight and quick car....but alas, i live in the country and knew i was gonna be in for it come winter....and boy was i ever right.

i'm going back to school and realized the foolishness of my prior purchase. so i figured i needed to get a replacement. to be honest, i was only looking for the cheapest 4x4 i could find, and figured something about this size would be nice to have.

i was originally looking for a ford escape, or saturn vue (3.5 honda engine kicks a$$!!!), but when looking for something in my price range and keeping the miles down, there was one liberty in particular that came in a few thousand less than the other vehicles. i checked it out, it was very clean, had 4 new-ish tires on it, and didn't look like it needed a thing. drove good, carfax was clean, no leaks....what the heck. got what i wanted on trade, and left a few hours later with my liberty.

i was never really fond of the liberty body style....too girlish if you asked me...but this thing is really growing on me. when i first bought it i had the mindset "eh...i'll keep it because i have to, and it'll do for now...." but just today i had the inkling that this is a pretty fun vehicle, and maybe i'll keep it after all.

 

[ferraricheals]

You guys & (few) gals all have the jump on us - our KJ is still waiting for us to choose it!! So to speak.

The story runs like this - we both retire in December (actually, 62, so no need for anyone to ask) and will be relocating from Italy back to my hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. Only 18,500km, give or take. We also both work for CNH, the ag equipment part of the Fiat Group (which is how we met in 1993 via fax when I was working for the NZ Fiatagri distributor) and had planned to ship our Fiat Panda Cross 4x4 back in the container with our household effects, but the NZ Land Transport rules have just changed and it is no longer possible to import a left-hand drive vehicle of this class.

So; Fiat Group......Chrysler.......Jeep......what's a suitable substitute for the Panda?? Gotta be a KJ!!

First and most obvious solution is to buy a used one in NZ, right? Just sell the Panda in Italy and use the cash to buy the KJ in NZ. Only problem is that we (well, mainly, I) want an auto CRD, having driven mostly turbodiesels here in Italy for the last ten years and being sold on the advantages of the megatorque at much lower rpm, to say nothing of the much better economy = range. At any given time there will be a choice of ONE vehicle for sale in the whole of NZ (today it's a 2006 Renegade, for example), whereas if we cruise over to the UK we can choose from ten or twelve pretty good examples.

So, we buy one with a verified service record, drive it back to Italy, pack it into the container later this year with the furniture and we can have it on the road in NZ for at least 20% less than the cost of buying that single example available locally.

Well, that's the first part of the plan.

Once we are in NZ the fun begins!

 

[richardkay624]

My wife and I purchased a 2002 Limited with literally every option new in 2002.
The 1992 Cherokee Laredo got passed on to the son in Seattle. We purchased the Laredo new also and gave it to my son in 2002 with 163,000 miles. He put another 50,000 miles on the vehicle, before upgrading to a 2004 Grand Cherokee. The 2002 Limited was replaced by the dealer after it was totalled at the dealership by them.
(They backed it into a light pole at 40mph in reverse.) I still have issues over that.
The 2004 Limited was our "replacement" vehicle. The 2002 had 29,000 miles on it before it was wrecked. The 2004 now has 71,000 miles and we love it. Actually,
we love Jeeps!

 

[BigRich201]

well it was the day after graduation. my parents wanted to buy me my own vehicle. i had 2 vehicles on mind. a 96 impala ss or a 98-01 xj. wasnt too successful on finding that year impala. and all the xjs i saw were too beat up. so we finally went to a toyota dealership. i was lookin around and didnt like anything there. then my mom called me and told me to go to the back lot and there it was. i wasnt really liking the color but i liked the brushguard and black leather seats. so i picked it up did all the necessary paperwork the next day because we were just lookin around and took her home.

 

[journeyjim]

Had a 98 GC with a 4.0, used it for off road and bad weather, had an '05 Passat TDI wagon that was my DD, decided to move no dealer for the VW so it was sold, the GC had a lot of miles, sold it and bought an 05 GC WHAT A POS, kept it six months and traded it on my CRD. Picked it up 06-06-2006 don't know if that was such a smart idea. At 36000 miles later still enjoying it.

 

[sugarmamaspickle]

The wife and I moved out in the sticks where the roads hardly get plowed. Our vehicles were a Pontiac Sunfire and a Dodge Avenger, they both suck in deep snow.

I decided we would need 4WD before the snow started flying, the next day I see a commercial for Dodge's new lifetime powertrain warranty. So I went to the Dodge dealership with my eyes on a club cab Dakota. There was only one 4WD on the lot, and they were already writing it up. The salesman told me that Jeep also had the same warranty and he still had an 07. I took it for a ride, loved it and bought it the next day.

 

[flair1111]

bought new at jasper jeep in jasper georgia. had 20 miles on it when i tested it out. paid 20k for it brand new.

 

[trophyslayer]

bought new in october 02 for about 22k in fredericksburg va

then moved to albany ga for 5 years, now back to fredericksburg

it sure was nice not having to deal with the road salt when I was in ga

 

[indieaz]

Wife and I wanted a new car with a warranty and it needed ot be something with some utility. We camp a lot so we wanted some offroad ability (we weren't really planning on doing much wheeling...but were thinking occasional 4x4 needed to get through some mud etc.). Also wanted some towing capability for making runs to the dump with my dad's dual axle trailer,a nd possibility to tow a smaller camper/tent trailer. We didn't want a full size truck or half ton SUV becuase we didn't want to get 14 city/18 highway.

We looked around...only vehicle that fit the bill was the liberty. So we test drove a few, one salesman at a dealer here in Tucson took us out and showed us some great examples of offroad capability (he got one wheel in the air on a ~30-35* incline for example and stopped, then proceeded to go upt he hill). We bought it after that, and have had the jeep on quite a few trails since, and towed plenty.

That was march of 2006...it now has 50k miles on it.

 

[indieaz]

'04KJ - Mom won lottery.

Awesome! Was it a scratchers thing or number picking deal?