Blake Noble

And I'll point you to ... I really don't mean to be a complete a-hole, but ... seriously, though, a Prius? You can't be much older than I am, dude, and I wouldn't wish that sort of punishment on anyone.

Trade me places, please. And welcome aboard!

I've got a feeling this probably won't go over in VW's favor, sadly. Someone will see to it that they'll be sent home packing.

Are the videos working?

The first video is of a rattle inside of the Jeep whenever it's sitting at idle in drive (in the video, I shift the Jeep into neutral to demonstrate that it quits if you shift it out of drive when the motor is at idle). The second video has the afformentioned engine noise, although it is somewhat faint. I think that, somehow, the two noises are linked.

I decided to stick with good old Mobil 1 High Mileage Synthetic. That engine noise, though, still haunts me. It was initially quieter after running Seafoam through it, but it's as loud now as it used to be. There is a catch, though. If you drive the Jeep for about an hour, it gets quieter or almost goes away (but not totally). Listening to the engine idle, the noise certainly coincides with the exhaust note at idle. Is it a lifter? A bad wrist pin? Piston slap? I'm stumped. I have two videos I'll put up in a bit.

Yeah, there's nothing remotely Mad Max about that ... thing.

Shame. If they didn't chop the top, someone could strip the peel off of this banana and have a solid MJ. Indeed, this is why we can't have nice things.

Happy New Year.

Shut yer pie hole. If you don't want to throw your Monopoly money at your computer screen like the rest of us, then you can just geddoudt. Build this car right, people will buy it. I don't give a damn what you think, an S-Class coupe looks like a Toyota Solara next to the Elmiraj.

Jezebel, Elephant, Chinese Take-out, Renix ignition, Xarelto? Miraj, Evoq, Imaj, Ciel, Converj ... all of these names work and sound great.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the crosshair grille became Dodge's emblem. It's interesting to note that the wreath and vee sort of merged to become the edge around the new Cadillac crest. Look close and you can sort of see what I mean.

Refreshed my memory, corrected my post.

I can't remember if Wix filters are basically the same as Purolator or Motorcraft.

I prefer Wix filters. I don't waste money on anything branded "Fram." Since cooler temperatures are just ahead, I may go to 5W30. Dunno yet.

Forgot to mention that the flexplate was fine. The rattle at idle that made me think the flexplate was bad? Well, the exhaust downpipe literally sits at the bottom of the bellhousing, so that's probably what I intially heard inside the Jeep at idle in drive. That "clacking" sound I mentioned is still there, but it's quieter after giving the engine and fuel system the Seafoam treatment (this isn't a ticking sound that is typical to Jeep inline-sixes). It runs fine, isn't down on power, and idles smooth so I'm not going to worry about it for quite some time.

Update: the stalling and sputtering issues came back after the exhaust upgrades, so I decided to weed out the possible parts that could cause the problem. I bought a new crankshaft positioning sensor from O'Reilly and had it installed ... only for the Jeep to run worse. It no longer stalled or sputtered, but there was a horrific loss of power, terrible bucking while kicking down to accelerate, and the CEL was on with a "Loss of Camshaft Crank" code. Turns out, the cheap Chinese crank sensor O'Reilly sold me was defective out of the box, so I returned it. Luckily (?), they were out of stock of that particular brand of sensor and gave me the better Borg-Warner one. That fixed the problem for good. I think within the next 5,000 to 10,000 miles I'm going to go ahead and replace the camshaft positioning sensor for good measure as well. After that, I used a can of Seafoam to clean out the upper part of the motor, the block, and the fuel system (one-third of the can to each location). It runs a lot smoother now, it's improved the fuel economy, and there's a noticble power gain. I was expecting a massive half-hour smoke show, but it only took 5 to 7 minutes for the Seafoam to clean everything out and the smoke to go away. I guess the old 4.0 wasn't as dirty inside as I had expected. Of course, since I ran the Seafoam through the crankcase and drove it for about 50 miles, I need to change the oil. It certainly isn't reading as full as it did before the Seafoam treatment and it's pretty filthy. I started to do that this morning only to find out that whoever changed the oil last over torqued the damn drain plug down. That also brings me to my next open question. I've read from dozens of XJ owners that Shell Rotella 10W30 is an excellent motor oil to use in the 4.0 and the additives in it helps to quiet down noisy lifters and so on. I have also heard that some people will run it in gasoline engines built for racing. However, Rotella is an oil designed for diesel engines. Think it would be wise to stick with a good synthetic motor oil or would it be worth giving the Rotella a shot? Anyway, I think the old 4.0 will make it for at least another 20,000 miles before it's time to tear the motor down and rebuild it. I've driven the Jeep for a total of 1,200 miles since I bought it last month (roughly 150 miles on the new sensor) and I feel 85 percent confident in its reliability (100 percent when it comes to durability, that's for sure). I think it's time to get on with restoring the old girl. In other news, disaster struck the Charger a couple of weeks ago. Okay, so it didn't get totalled, but it was still enough to boil my blood. A simple spray off at a local car wash sprayed off more than just dirt. It took two nice strips of paint off of my front bumper. I have very good reason to believe someone repainted the front bumper at some point in this car's life and did a crappy job at it. After I got home that night, I ran my hand over the front bumper and felt the texture of the paint. It was rough as sandpaper, which leads me to believe someone resprayed the paint but didn't bother with clear or anything else. Anyway, I had it properly fixed for $100 bucks by the shop that painted the Cutlass. See? Good as new.

Wonderful design, GM. Build it. Not tomorrow. Not ten years from now. Now. Build it now. There's nothing else left to say, really. Am I the only one that's sort of disappointed that Cadillac doesn't use their concept names on production cars? Converj sounds worlds better than "ELR." ELR sounds like a brand of drain cleaner. Evoq sounded better than XLR, which again sounds like a brand of drain cleaner. Provoq and Vizón are both better names than SRX. SRX sounds like a brand of cheap gas station bathrooom condoms. Although they never built it as-is, the Imaj again had a cool name that should've been used on its production benefactor, the STS. Drop the "El" out of the name of this lovely concept car (I get it, it's a nod to the classic late '60s Eldorado, but it makes the entire name feel stupid when you roll it off of your tongue) and I can guarantee "Miraj" will certainly sound better than whatever moronic alphabet soup name GM manages to pull out of their hat.

You don't want anything to do with a 2.2 liter equipped S10 paired up with a five-speed manual transmission. It can't haul much of anything, and it's like driving a steam shovel up the grade of Mount Everest regardless if you're on level highway.

when i was cruising a dealer yesterday, i saw they had just taken in a fresh trade, an 08 astra 5 door, red, dual panel moonroof, automatic. 44k miles. very nice shape! what sort of gas mpg did you see with your automatic? I was contemplating telling offering to trade them my cobalt straight up. My Astra averaged around 26 to 27 mpg. Long trips (250 miles plus) would net a 30 mpg average. Not bad, but I've managed to average 25 to 26 with the Charger since I've had it. Don't get me wrong. The Astra -- at least here in the States, anyway -- is a neat car. It's handsome, about as common as a Corvette (seriously), and it will handily outpace a Cobalt or second-gen US Focus. But I just don't know if I would own one again, given the chance.

Uh, welcome aboard my European doppelgänger? Seriously, though, welcome.

I don't mean to be a complete douche here, but I'm not buying this either. For example, I've driven a good handful of XJ Cherokees that cost double what I paid for mine (in other words, we're punching that three-grand mark you mentioned smack dab on the forehead) that needed just as much reconditioning with fewer miles and weren't any more trustworthy. Inexpensive cars are out there if you know how to look, and that really isn't difficult.

I like how this discussion always completely ignores the "rural" part of the equation, as well as the "used car" part of the equation. Or how about the whole "Mommy and Daddy buying Junior a car to go to college in or go to work in because he has no credit" part of the equation? If new car sales (especially new cars sold in large urban areas) are the only thing that equals "the youth's interest in cars," then ... well, yeah. I'll just let stupid speak for itself on that one. No one bothers to mention that this chicken little bull$h! mostly applies to new car sales where "expert industry analysts" are too goddamn stupid to read the fine print and carry the one in an equation. Someone shut these morons up, please. If I read another "Wah, wah, wah, kids hate cars!" article I'm going to puke blood. The discussion never changes. We know that new cars are outrageously priced if you want something that hasn't been fashioned out of two-by-fours and tin cans. We know insurance on a new car will cost you a kidney and ninety-nine cents after the insurance company is finished bending you over a barrel. So what? Better yet, what's the solution? Just for the record, I live in a rural town with yuppies and a liberal arts college. As a result, we have bike paths in town. In fact, we gave up the chance to have a nice, new grocery store to have them. We gave up the chance to have an alternative to the sin of Wal-Mart. No one uses them. No one. We also have one taxi company with a hodge-podge fleet of cars that includes a Buick Century and a Cadillac Deville. No one calls them, either, and I don't think it's because they have an odd taste in taxis.

Forgot to add, I am getting very close to getting into "the good stuff" for this Jeep. My rear leaf springs look pretty saggy, sooooo ...