JL Hits and Misses

Ok...So our first taco is more than welcome here. Honda ATV is a blast too huh? Some where you at? 15 acres?? You dont mind if i borrow like 5 of them?? Promise ill leave it in better shape than i found it. Lol. Welcome to the forum Joe. @JoeInOh .

 

Thanks for the welcome! My wife gave me the "go ahead" today to order a Punk'n Sahara, soft top. I see two dealerships on eBay listing JLs for about 10% under msrp. I may also try the Costco Auto buyer program. I am a little west of Cleveland, and our parents are further west, near Cedar Point. Which is really close to the Toledo plant - so I am going to look into a factory tour for our kids.

My acreage is pretty primitive but you could find some sweet mud holes. Please don't mess up my pristine fields of poison ivy though.

I've been working on building a 35 yard pistol range and a 110 yard rifle range. But my eyes are always bigger than my budget.

 

You have a great understanding wife as my JK just showed up on the driveway like a big FedEx delivery ! The Costco auto program simplifies the purchase process and can be a few hundred above invoice. The Ebay lising you stated sounds interesting if they pan out. Good luck and take us along on your JL purchase plans.

 

Dammit. You from West Virginia also??

 

Umm....@LYFZGOOD. I think you clicked your heals by mistake and ended up on this thread by mistake. No one from WV here dude. .

Awesome @JoeInOh. If you let me tear up your poison ivy field. I could help with your dreams of a pistol and rifle range. No charge to you of coarse. Lolll.

 

I am excited about the 2018 JL improvements and how the red Rubicon looks but this red base JL did not look very interesting today. Plenty of red 4 dr JK Sports to visually compare. Bit discouraging but maybe some better bumpers, wheels, etc.

 

So i went to a dealer to dig deep into a JL. The base models look really, umm, inexpensive. I like some of the options that are available, the cold weather package with heated steering wheel. But to make it a decent looking ride i felt a Sahara or Rubicon was a must. The price was coming in at $44k with a manual trans. Not very enthusiastic about that. A miss - The door handles are a pull out type. They seem very cheap. My 7 year old was pulling them down and they looked stressed - i don't foresee them lasting. Finally, the salesman basically told me not to buy a first year FCA retooling of a new model.

I ended up buying a new jku which was heavily discounted. I'll keep it for 30 months or so and check out the 2021 JLU. I didn't get all the tech and specific packages i wanted but i got a really good deal on a proven and desired JKU. I'm happy. My JKU stickered at 37,300 and i got it for $33490.

 

Congratulations on the new JKU! Sounds like a great price for a JKU as they are more $$ than a JK. Post some pics of your new ride.

 

Pics to follow, the Jk is buried in my garage as I finally got finalization from Toyota's attorneys about my buyback, 2016 Tacoma Double cab off road. I will have the Yo for a couple more weeks and I am driving the shit out of it before I give it back.

 

The third gen Tacomas are having issues with their 6 spd automatic trans and the pairing of the high-revving 3.5 liter engine. Generally the engineers mapped the shift patterns for peak mpgs, so it calls for upshifts way too early in the torque curve. We're talking 6th at 39mph. With this engine there is no power at 1100 rpm in 6th at that speed.

Toyota has released two TSBs to correct the shift mapping, throttle flares, rpm surges, low transmission fluid issues and gear hunting that so many owners have complained about.

Most people are happy with the ECU flashes that the tsb calls for. It didn't "take" in mine. Nor the second time I took it in. When I picked my truck up from the dealer after its second visit, I started to drive home and it was still a shit-show. I drove for about 5 miles while writing down all the erratic and crazy ways it was shifting etc. I took it right back to the dealer. I showed them my specific complaints and had them type them out in my work order. The service manager suggested a certain tech do a test drive with me as this tech had gone to the factory for "specific training for this issue". As I drove with the service tech, he told me that he was noticing other issues with my truck and told me that "this is the worst one he has seen". He told me that they were going to open a "service claim" (or something to that effect) with Toyota USA. He also told me that I had a very early build date per my VIN.

After 37 total days at the dealer they called and told me "that my truck was performing as engineered and manufactured".

Now, I didn't mind that they had it so long, I was driving a Tundra loaner, and I put 1500 miles on it. But it was their attitude, they went from nice and understanding, to dickbags. When I drove the Tacoma home it was still a complete mess -nothing had changed.

I had been looking into my states Lemon Laws and the elements required. I met with an attorney and he felt that I had a great case, although he was not ecxited about dealing with Toyota because "Honda and Toyota never admit fault". Within three weeks of filing my case with Toyota they agreed to buy it back. My attorney was shocked. Toyota obviously knows that my truck is a mess - but they still tried to feed me the "truck is performing as engineered and manufactured" line.

During this Lemon law process, my truck was just over a year old, it had 5k miles on it. I hated to drive it, I was driving my parents 2008 Chrysler Sebring instead. Let that sink in - I preferred to drive a ten year old Chrysler vs a one year old, $38k Tacoma.

But my attorney told me to drive it since I was paying for it. So I drove it from CLE to Tampa, to visit my parents for a week, do some light maintence on their winter place. It is a 1100 mile drive, one-way. This transmission is so screwed up, I estimate that it made 3000! shifts during that drive. It rarely went into 6th gear, it constantly shifted between 5,4th and occasionally 3rd. In the mountains of KY & TN it was shifting about 8x a minute. It was beyond ridiculous. I finally made some videos of it on my cell phone for my attorney. I posted one of the shorter ones on YouTube. I will find the link if you want to see it.

On that trip, my 23 mpg highway rated Tacoma got 14.7 mpg. And untold excess wear and tear to the trans.

It's a shame because it is a very nice riding truck -especially with the Off Road package. It's the right size-it fits in my garage. And this was my fourth Toyota pick up, I've had them all my life. Had awesome luck with them all before this one.

Oh well, back to the Jeep!