Once I was employed after I had gotten out of college, I visited a dealer of my dream car. My intention was only window shopping. However, I ended up driving a '95 Grand Cherokee Limited home. The SUV is a 4.0L, I-6, 2WD. I leased the vehicle for three years because I had no idea how good had the quality of domestic cars improved. My parents, friends and relatives all owned Japanese cars. I remembered the horror stories of domestic cars made back in the '80s, but I thought quality may have had significant improvement. Yes quality has improved dramatically since then. However, it is ill in comparison with its current foreign competitors, such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Acura. My SUV has 100K miles after 5 years. So far I have no engine or transmission problem. However, keep in mind that every year, I have the followings changed or replaced: transmission oil, transmission filter, coolant flushed, brake fluid flushed, differential oil, fuel filter, air filter, and engine tune up. These are the things that I do on top of my religious engine oil change. The nice thing about this SUV is that wheel alignment do not get unaligned much even if I hit the curb. I had it check three times total, and each time was after the time I thought that I had damaged the tires. This SUV does not have timing belt, so I don't have to replace it every 60K miles like my parents did with their Toyotas. Now are the bad things. Once my lease was up, I bought the Jeep with my fingers crossing, hoping in vain that that I had made a right decision. At 46K miles, I already spent $200 to replace 2 nuts for engine mount. Immediately after my purchase, I had to replace the battery because it kept on being drain over night. Then my water pump went out on me at about 70K miles. I had it replaced with an original manufacturer part at an auto repair shop for slightly over $200. At the dealer, that would have cost me over $300 easily. I did not ever recall my mother's 1984 Toyota Corolla having the water pump changed due to the out-of-commission. That really made think about the engineering design and quality of domestic car vs. Japanese car. A sixteen year-old car has been running without ever having a water pump changed, and it is still in commission. With more convincing testimonies, none of the Toyotas owned by my parents, siblings, friends or relatives has ever required a water pump replaced, and I am referring to cars that are over ten years old, cars that were manufactured back in the 80s. Therefore, think about the advance technologies and engineering that the Toyota has had since then. Any how, back to the domestic water pump story. 11 months later, the replaced water pump leaked again. This time it was a mixed feeling. I didn't have to pay for another water since it was still under warranty, but I had to pay for the labor charged. There was a tiny hold in the molding where the water coolant leaked through. Usually, an old water pump would leak through the gasket due to normal wear and tear. But this tiny hole was in the molding of the fairly new water pump, which allowed water coolant to leak. That really made me tick. What kind of quality was this? The labor charge did not come cheap, people. I had no choice but to pay for it. At 95K miles, non of my power windows operate. The wire jumper harness for the light on driver side door and and windows got cut off. With 95K miles, I had to get in and out of the car a lot, meaning that I had to open and close the driver side door quite many times, and those many times made the wires folded and eventually cut off. Poor design. My friends has an Accura Integra with 167K miles on it, and the windows still operates as good as the first time she bought it. The dealer said that they would replace my car's jumper harness for $250 ($100 for part plus 2 hrs of labor). An electrical technician recommended by a friend said that he could do it at home for $150 total. I just went home, stripped the wire and soldered them. They work perfectly again. So would I recommend a $30K plus Grand Cherokee to a friend? The answer obviously is no b/c you can spend few grands more to get a luxury SUV like LEXUS RX 300 and get much better quality. The ride on the RX 300 is much smoother than my Grand Cherokee. I know b/c my brother has one. Financing few grands more over five-year typical car payment for a luxury car, you can't feel the impact of these payments since it is spread over 60 payments. Seriously, I do not expect to get these types of problem from a luxury SUV.
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I am back again to update some more problem. It's been a month since I first wrote the article. My car has 100.8K miles on it right now. The most recent problem is that the radiator leaks. I brought my car to local Pepboys for inspection. They said that it was the radiator and would cost $600 to replace. They said that I was lucky to have a radiator lasting me this long. Typically, a Jeep's radiator lasted about 65K miles. Pepboy's mechanic explained to me that the Jeep's radiator was made of aluminum, but the clamps that held the radiator and pipes together were made of plastic. The plastic was what cracked. Unlike Japanese type which made entirely of aluminum, no torch or soldering can be done in my case. I brought to another autoshop for second opinion. They pressurized the radiator and found the leak from the radiator, and they would do it for $300 w/ Modine radiator, which has lifetime warranty offerred from its manufacturer. I called other radiator shops to inquire about Modine, and the warranty was true. So I am spending $333 to have the radiator and two hoses replaced -- $200 for parts and $100 for labor. My coworker here has a 1990 Accura Integra. His car has 110K miles on it. No water pump ever cracked and no radiator ever needed replacement. He only had the water pump changed recently because it was time to replace his timing belt, and his mechanic explained how he could save the cost of labor by changing the water pump then. My mother has a 1984 Toyota Corolla, and as I remember, no water pump or radiator ever was replaced. Normally, when you change your timing belt, it is recommended that you change your the water pump as well since the belt is already taken out. However, in my mom's case, I don't think she knows much about that. My mom is probably driving around in her old Corolla bought used with 90% water and 10% coolant currently because I don't remember hearing her talking about flushing the radiator ever. All she did was just adding water when it gets low. Japanese cars' radiator, as I understand, can be either torched or soldered to fix any crack or holes. I thought such engineering was pretty good. I do not know why our domestic engineers design radiators inferiorly. Another friend has a '90 Infiniti 220 w/ 137K miles on it. No water pump, wire jumper harness, radiator, or timing belt has been replaced. Yes, timing belt has not been replaced.
Boy, what does that tell you about the quality of domestic cars? If you have the cash to burn when your Jeep reaches around 65K miles, then you can afford to buy a Jeep. Other than that, I do not recommend you to do so because around 65K, you will need to replace all four tires ($300 at least), radiator ($300), water pump ($200 and possibly another $100 for additional labor like my case due to poor molding quality of the recent replaced unit). When your Jeep gets up 80K miles, I'm sure that you will have changed your brakes twice since the ratio of weight to pad size of SUV is much larger compared to that of a sedan, so don't be surprised if you have to change your brakes more frequent than the sedan. If you change your brake, I suggest you get the ceramix type or get it from dealer and ask for 10% discount before taking those to an autoshop for cheaper labor. Most dealer will let you have discount when you ask. Do no let autoshop charge you retail price on dealers' part b/c they always buy them at whole sale w/o tax, and they never pass that saving back to you unless your uncle owns the shop. I had my brakes done once at the dealer. Part is less than $50, yet labor is $150. On the second replacement, I took it to a local autoshop. Got the best pad from dealer for $150 (after 10% discount), and pay $35 for labor.
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After all these ordeals, I thought that the car was back to normal. Nope! The glove compartment had a latch. It was the type that I have to pull out before the door woould pop out. It was not the squeeze-at-both- end type. Guess what the latch was made of? Plastic. I rarely open the glove compartment. However, the plastic was not durable enough. What happensed was that all the lock, spring and hinges were made of metal. On the back was a thin strip of plastic which was supposed to be pulled until it poped the metal spring to open the compartment. That was a very poor design. The plastic strip was so thin that it had no chance to stay durable against the metal hinge and the spring as well as other metal components. I virtually called all the local dealers and found prices ranged from $29 - $59 just for a piece of plastic. I decided to go to car junk yard instead -- hoping to find a Grand Cherokee that was total. No luck, so I had to pay $25 (after requesting discount) at a dealer. I order Drift wood color (slight darker than champagne) just like the original to match with the rest of the glove compartment. The part came in black a few days later. I asked why, and they told me that color code was not available since the car was such an old model. I just had to pay $25 for a piece of plastic, that I knew was low quality, yet it did not even match the car interior. Since the part came in a plastic pouch without instruction, I asked the sale rep. to place the original lock from the old latch into the new latch for me, and he was nice enough to do it.

My next suspicion is my shocks, struts and transmission since the ride is starting to feel bumpy and the engine roars while it slowly accelerates. I will let you know how much it will cost to replaced those.
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Well, I am back again. My car has 106K miles on it now -- 6K more miles since the last time I spent over $300 to have my radiator replaced. Guess what happened now. The power antenna does not go up and down any more. I called and asked the dealers how much it would cost to fix it. All dealers said approximately $330 -- $172 for parts & the rest were labor. I called local autoshops, and they said that they could do for slightly less. Some said that I would only need to replace the mast if the motor was still operatable, which would cost me about $100. However, no autoshops knew for sure unless I dropped my car off for them to dismantle the parts, which would cost money. If the motor was damaged, I would have to replace the whole unit, which would be closed to $300. The irony here was that all dealers' service advisors told me that the power antenna came as a whole assembly unit, i.e. mast and motor together. However, autoshop said otherwise. And it is true that dealers' part departments do sell mast by itself for $55. I'm just confused. Well, every body wants to get my money on this poor quality car. Whenever I have $300 cash, I'll go to an autoshop to have the antenna inspected. Hopefully, only the mast needs to be replaced, yet I never know.
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A month later, I had my antenna fixed. The mechanics replaced the mast for $90, but I had to spend extra $30 to have them spray a lubricant onto the bushing b/c the car was making noises every time I turn or go over either a speed pump or a dip. However, since the shop does not open on Saturday, I have to spend extra $65 to rent a car. My total spending for that day was over $200. Like I said, if you have money to burn after your car has more than 65K miles, you can get this low-quality luxury SUV. In my case, I made a mistake. So instead of making new monthly car payment approximately $800, I just have to keep on spending about $300 about every moths. Well, by looking at the tire tread, I know that I have to spend another $300 or more soon for the tires since the car is approaching 120K miles, and SUV tires do not come cheap. Woala!

Keep tuning in for more diary details of this poor quality yet luxurious SUV.
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I'm back again for the update. My car currently has 125K miles on its odometer. I just spend $240 to replace the oxygen sensor. Otherwise, the red check-engine light on the dash board kept going off. The oxygen sensor was burned by the exhaust manifold, which had a crack in it. The dealer explained this to me. Two years ago, I was informed by an auto mechanic about the manifold when the car had about 95K miles on it. The guy said that he would replace it for $800 back then. The part by itself costs $500, plus labor and tax sum up to $800. I asked him what kind of damage would it do, and he told me not much. Well, I have learned lesson, i.e. it would damage the oxygen sensor which cost $240 to replace. Now I have learned that the dealer would replace the exhaust manifold for $900. The lesson here is that if I don't replace things immediately, it would damage other parts, thus, increasing the repair expenses. I try to convince myself that the $900 is equivalent to 1 luxury car payment if purchased or 2 lease payments. Once I have made the payment, I would not have to make more payments for a while. I have tried to convince myself that I'd save more money by keeping this junk. I will let you know when I will get rid of this junk. I am not thrill about this domestic car. Again, every time I think about my mom's 1984 Toyota Corolla or my dad's 1990 Lexus ES 250 (discontinued), I don't ever recall them complaining how expensive it is to replace exhaust manifold on their cars. I doubt that they even know such terms exist. In the mean time, I'll save up the money to have the manifold replaced soon before it ruins my new 240-dollar oxygen sensor.