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Jeeps Down

Wayne Sihler

NAXJA Member
NAXJA Member
Location
Maurertown,Va.
Both of my XJ went down ----98 went down yesterday morning with a starter issue,And this morning the 96 died from a fuel pump issue. Both without warning.

Then there was a Deputy Sheriff in the door at 7am,but that's a different but related story.

Wife wont drive hers, afraid it will die too.
 
Dang.

At least if anyone is prepared to deal with a fuel pump issue on a '96 I think it is you.

Sheriff in the driveway though... I will take Jeep issues over that any day of the week.

I hope tomorrow is a better day.
 
Well I'll add to the story....
Friday morning I go to town (Woodstock Va) to get gas for the lawn mowers,At local 7-11. get gas 98 Jeep wont start-no spin just clicks-get a jump -still nothing. This is 11AM .So call AAA for a tow to garage that's just down the street. Tow company is on other end of town 5 min away if they catch all the lights(4). So AAA says 1hr wait. Ok call wife to come get me and wait.

Waited the hour,,,no show. Called AAA again...wait another hour. NO .key is in it they can pick it up unattended and we go home.Message on home answering machine says pic up at 1:45, So ok get on with my day.
7AM Sat morning Dog goes off with knock on door Sheriff is standing there, Asks if I drove my jeep last night, No... Jeep was to have been towed to local garage for repair,,well it wasn't.Town cops worried that it had been sitting there all night.Got everything answered to all the LEO,s satisfaction. I was PO,d.

Another call to AAA same runaround,,,will pick up at 9AM Sat morning.

Waited awhile, as I had other chores to do.,drove to town where I expected the 98 to be sitting at the shop. NO. Mechanic was there tending to the car Wash,he is close friends with the tow company drivers, told him what was going on, then drove to the 7-11 to see if the 98 was still there,,it was.Went back to the garage where the mechanic was on phone to his friend. They were in a meeting ,bu would be on the was soon. They had not been notified about the tow until 9am this morning.So I leave to go home (in my 96 XJ).

Go about 1 block and it dies in front of the Hospital,fuel pump..done it before.could not get it off the road,Another sheriffs deputy stoops .I try to get it going by hitting the tank/pump area No Joy. So then town cop shows up must be moved because its in the road,OK. you call for tow ,maybe get faster service,Also tell them Jeep at 7-11 is mine too.We all get a laugh at that. So tow showed up.puts 96 on roll back.cops and I leave, go to garage to wait for wife to pick me up.Other wrecker shows up with the 98. so all is good,Roll back driver does not charge for tow,Said he was at 7-11 three times for fuel yesterday and did not receive call to pick up 98.I believe him.
Wife did not drive her 99XJ to pick me up was afraid .
AAA want me to rate their service.....:flamemad:
 
I wish I could show you my "shocked" face. NAXJA doesn't have the emoji for it.

Sadly, your experience is not much different from mine.

We had the whole family stuck on the side of I-5 in the central valley with triple digit temps for hours. Multiple calls to AAA to try get to someone with two synapses to rub together.

Lets just say anybody with the said two synapses is working somewhere else.

Sorry for your challenging day. I hope the repair bills aren't bad.

And as visits from the sheriff go, that is about the best it could possibly be. I am glad you at least get that degree of service and consideration from your public officials. Maybe they could teach AAA a lesson or two.
 
My luck with AAA is usually good, but I did have an interesting experience once when I needed a tow from a campground inside Kings Canyon National Park. The operator I spoke to clearly had no idea what a National Park is. She could only find Kings Canyon Trailer Park, and kept asking me to confirm that as my location. I explained it again and again, but it was like talking to a wall. Finally, the tow truck shows up and the driver tells me he had been dispatched to the trailer park down the hill from the National Park, but he ignored that and drove up the mountain to the campground instead. Good man.
 
I hope you gave that driver a good review if AAA sent you a survey asking how the service was - clearly he knew the area well.

I've had pretty good luck with AAA too - they never even batted an eye when I called years ago to get my Jeep towed out of a junkyard parking lot to a repair shop when my starter fried...
 
Rob, The Tow truck drivers did a tremendous job.....after AAA finally got around to telling them.AAA dispatch was crap.They have (AAA) have been replaced by another company.
I have the local company's # and card on file .

What really bothers me, is in both cases a couple strong guys could have pushed either one to the shop I deal with,Even some one with a tow strap could have handled the job......if the fuzz was looking the other way:rolleyes:
 
Cool.

Don't they put "push bars" on police vehicle bumpers for things like that?
 
Yes, But this was not their "Emergency". Due to towns rules I could not ride in the Ford with them, only one cop to a car, and they couldn't,t tow anything either.
Best they could do was sit & watch until roll back showed up.
 
I've always said that one of the potential "benefits" of owning multiple Jeeps is the excitement they cause when one breaks down on its way to rescue another that has already broken down!

Because my fleet consists solely of Jeeps I keep the tow company card in my wallet and the repair shop in my phone.


Oh, I also had a similar situation with police once in Glendive, Montana on a 4th of July weekend. I was at a hotel and locked the keys in the rental car. I was able to flag down a city cop, but because my car was parked outside city limits he wouldn't pop the lock. I asked him to call the county guys, but they aren't allowed to unlock vehicles. No locksmiths were working that weekend due to the holiday (this was a sleepy town in the mid '90s) and the nearest GM dealer was 150 miles away. It is Montana. I eventually talked the city guy into loaning me his lock popping tools.
 
Last edited:
Up date on the XJ,s...98 = bad battery it was 5 years old and just quit.

96 was fuel pump, only about 15# pressure instead of 48+/+so new pump in (under warranty), 3yrs old and 11,000 miles.
Jeep still in shop for some AC work, leaking condenser at the radiator, can see the oil and dye.
 
I've always said that one of the potential "benefits" of owning multiple Jeeps is the excitement they cause when one breaks down on its way to rescue another that has already broken down!

Because my fleet consists solely of Jeeps I keep the tow company card in my wallet and the repair shop in my phone.


I am just now trying to bring a second Jeep into operation in the family fleet and I am already getting a taste of this.

Yesterday morning I took the recently acquired ZJ out for its first spin and found that the transmission doesn't shift quite right: https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?p=246700488#post246700488

In the afternoon I drove my XJ (my usual daily driver) and it decided to play games with me when I turned it off: https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?p=246700530#post246700530

I am wondering if Jeeps have jealousy issues.

:rolleyes:
 
It's really fun to drive a 31 year old XJ around, but it is nice to be able to have it as an extra vehicle so when there are issues like a bad starter or a bit of a wobble I can work on it when I want to.
 
Well now there's more.....Wife made me go to the beach with my daughters and grand kids mostly as a baby sitter. She has bee driving her 99XJ because the AC is better than in her car, Anyway on the way home from work last week "she" told me when I got home Sunday that her XJ overheated and was towed to the shop,

I go to the shop on Monday to find out the problem.....The power steering pump had come apart.The shaft separated from the pump,which threw the belt thus the overheat.Pully was still attached to the shaft. A new one for me.....

So all three have been for a roll-back ride in 2 months.
 
That is an interesting failure mode.


Did the bearing come apart? Casting crack?


I would be curious to know how that happened.
 
Mechanic only showed me a quick picture. Part has probably been trashed. Will ask for details later today
 
Well, if all three have been towed in for issues now, maybe once they're all fixed you'll be good for a while...
 
Failure of the PS pump was caused by the front bearing failing. Shaft worked out of the splines in the rotor (?) and exited the pump.Pulley was still firmly attached and had to be pressed off.The drive belt was shreaded and was on its way to take the radiator with it.I,ve never seen or heard of this failure before,
 
I have not heard of it happening in a power steering pump, but I have seen bearings fail that way.

I would expect it to make some noise on the way there however. Bearings don't tend to fail that way suddenly. However, for the sake of marital harmony that subject might not be worth broaching.
 
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