Wrangler Wrap Up

Instead of just hosing the Rubicon off, I actually gave it a proper washing. I also cleaned off the the Weather Tech rubber mats along with vacuuming it out. Even though I am 6′ tall and have fairly long arms, I had to go inside the house to bring out the 2-Step Steel Folding Step Stool Ladder to get the roof clean. 🙂

If I have one complaint with my experience with Crazy Dave’s Rental Cars, it is, it would have been nice when renting to someone whose car had shut off inexplicably leaving him stranded on the side of the road twice in the last couple weeks that the vehicle he would now be driving had a stop/start system. The first time it happened was a heart fluttering moment. So, in spite of that little hiccup, I will be giving Crazy Dave’s a 5 star rating, because where else can you rent a new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon for 2 days with unlimited mileage for the cost of a half a tank of gas.

Stray observations in no particular order:

  1. It is a chore to drive on straight roads. There is a ton of play (compared to the Miata) in the steering wheel at top center making it a full time job. It does feel good in curves though with the wheel turned some, all the slack is gone.
  2. It is a half a foot wider and a foot longer than a Miata, but I quickly figured where my corners were and felt comfortable driving in traffic.
  3. It had the government mandated backup camera, but even with the hard top on the all around visibility was excellent.
  4. The way high seating position was really nice in certain spots, especially when leaving parking lots and entering streets. Other vehicles and street-side landscaping were much easier to see over.
  5. I don’t know specifically what our gas mileage was for the 100-125 miles we put on the Jeep, but the running average for it showed 19 MPG. This is only 2/3rds of the Miata’s 28 and only slightly over half of the Mini’s 36. The cost is somewhat offset by the fact that the Jeep uses regular grade gas compared the the Miata’s & Mini’s premium.
  6. The low beam headlights included in the LED Lighting Group Package nearly make the high beams redundant. In my few miles behind the wheel at night it didn’t seem like the highs gave you much more down the road visibility, the only thing it seemed to do was light up the trees.
  7. It was nice to have the satellite radio, so I could catch up with what was playing on The Coffee House channel compared to 8 years ago when we had it free for a year with the Purple Whale. While that channel is as close as I can get to Radio Paradise, it is definitely not worth the $15 a month they want for the service.

That’s enough for now, I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but our experience with our extended test drive hasn’t made us want to go right out and buy a Jeep, but neither has it totally dissuaded us from buying one either.

Not Crossing the Rubicon


When mulling Option #3 from Wednesday’s post I thought, hey wait a minute, I know someone who has one, I’ll ask him. So on my morning walk on Friday I walked over to his house. I got a quick Jeep primer and then a surprise; he offered to let me have his for a couple days. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said, “Mmmm, OK.”

First off, this jeep is practically brand new, with a mere 9300 miles on the odo, and still has that telltale scent. It is also optioned very nicely too. With the hardtop on, the A/C on, SiriusXM playing and ensconced in some comfy leather seats you are in a very modern vehicle. Definitely not your father’s Jeep. Make no mistake, this is a very large ride. When in traffic you look down on cars and see eye to eye with today’s 4-wheel drive 1/2 ton pickups. In spite of the size it can feel very car-like in its handling though, with its fairly short wheelbase and 4,000 lb weight it feels quite planted on everything except very sharp corners.

Donna and I have put it through the paces. We tooled around some county back roads listening to Channel 14, The Coffee House from outer space for hour or so. We did our weekly grocery shopping in it, in the afternoon. We took the front 2 panels of the hardtop off, rolled down the windows, opened the back window and went for an evening drive. Not Miata-like, but it did feel fairly open and was an enjoyable ride. Probably a lot more convertible-ish if we could have taken the whole top off…

Today we went over to Goodwill to get rid of some stuff that has been collecting dust in the attic for the last dozen years or more. Almost all of it would have fit in the Mini, but two trips would have been necessary. The Goodwill folks didn’t want all of it, so we just drove the Jeep to one of the local County Drop-Off sites. Tonight we are going to take another opened up evening drive.

Tomorrow morning I’ll hose off the dead bugs, vacuum the dust out of the back and fill up the tank before returning the Jeep back to Crazy Dave’s Car Rental. We did learn that the Jeep really isn’t for us, at least not this Jeep, it is too big and too refined. If we do ever get to Oregon, we might get one from a couple generations back (a later year TJ maybe) when they were a bit smaller, then we can use it to bomb around on Forrest Service roads and get out in nature.

CTBNL Update

When they got around to looking at the car in the shop on Monday it would not start for them either. The first thing they did was take my trusty backup Cam Angle Sensor out of the trunk and put it in. What do you know, the car started right up. With the car not showing a Check Engine Light nor having a stored code in car’s Engine Control Unit the tech suspected it was the main engine relay or the ECU itself. Because the ECU would be expensive and a nightmare to replace they opted to change the hundred dollar relay first.

After replacing the part they parked it outside and left it running for about 30 minutes and it never shut off. Then in the afternoon the tech drove it around for 25-30 miles. It never quit. He repeated the process again the following morning with the same positive results. I picked up the car on Thursday afternoon and Donna followed me right home.

Since then it has been backed out of the garage and parked out under the awning twice. Once yesterday and once today because we had some looky loos visit the house and we wanted to make our paltry one-car garage look large. Full testing will be on Monday morning. After I do my morning walk, and with Donna at the gym, I’m going to take the car on an adventure tour of about 40 miles. she is suggesting that I just circle our one mile block 40 times, but I’m going to throw caution to the wind and venture out into Aiken County.

Even if it passes that test, both of us, one more than the other, will still not trust the car to get us to Hilton Head and back at the end of the month. There are just too many places while travelling through South Carolina’s Lowcountry where the road is two lanes with no paved shoulders, just maybe a half a car width of soft grass, bordered by water (and possibly gator) filled ditches of indeterminate depth.

We have started doing some of the pre-prep work on our alternatives, tune in tomorrow for details.

Alternative Daily, Alternative Daily, or Alternative Daily?

Ok, so what if we chuck the whole ‘has to be a Miata’ thing? Really, the biggest thing we would miss would be the convertible aspect. What other convertibles are out there that are around the same price as a Miata?

Option 1) How about a Mini Cooper? We’ve already own one, they’re small, fun to drive, good on gas, so a sort of known quantity. The least expensive model is called Classic and like the Miata’s Sport model only comes in roughly the same 4 colors; Pepper White, Chili Red, Moonwalk Grey and Midnight Black, with grey being the only color that doesn’t cost extra. Adding just heated seats and a wind blocker gets us to a list price of $28,500.

Option 2) Pony car maybe? This is a large car compared to the Miata, it is more than a half a foot wider, nearly 3 FEET longer and weights one and a half times one at 3,600 lbs. A Ford Mustang comes in 10 colors though with only 2, Ruby Red & Orange Fury, with a $500 up charge. I’ll take my Eco-Boost in Velocity Blue. Still, even with adding zero options, the car is listed at $32,385.

Option 3) If we do end up living in Oregon, how about something more attuned to the open spaces of the wild west? Maybe a little 4-wheel drive action to handle the 12″ of snow they average in January? A Jeep Wrangler is the answer. It comes in 11 no cost colors, I’ll take it in Bikini Pearl thank you very much. Adding only the black tubular running boards to the Sport model brings the list price to $29,935.


–I’m actually starting to dig this option–

Daily, Daily, or Daily?

Ok, here is where we are at, the CTBNL is still in the shop. I don’t know if they are still trying to fix the ‘I don’t like to run in the heat’ problem or they just haven’t got to it yet. Either way, with Donna’s complete lack of faith in the car and her vow never to get back into it, what am I to do?

Option 1) I have actually been given permission to go ahead and price a shiny new 2019 Miata. A base car runs around $27k and comes in 4 “colors”; Black, Ceramic (a semi shiny really light gray), White and Red ($600 extra.) My thoughts would be to get the white and add some stripes, similar to the CTBNL, only red instead of blue. The little negatives are no glove box, unusable cup holders and the droopy looking rear view. The BIG negative is a $400 car payment for the next 5 years.

Option 2) Buy a used NB. There was a nice 2003 Shinsen Edition for sale in Huntsville, AL on the M.net Forums, but between when I looked at it this morning and now, it must have sold. Should I try to recreate the Emperor? There is a very stock looking 2003 Garnet Red for sale in North Carolina on the forums as well. Only $5k. The big negative with this one is it has 108,000 miles on it. But if the ad is to be believed it has been very well taken care of.

Or Option 3) Just keep the CTBNL if the fix turns out to be another bad Cam Angle Sensor or another random $100 sensor and slowly try to get Donna (and me too) used to trusting the car again?