We purchased a new Retreat Macquarie towards the end of September from Luxury RV’s in Melbourne. We towed it back home to Canberra via the coast with our Ford Territory AWD diesel, and whilst it did it well I was aware that each time we hooked up we would be close to its limits. The van has a tare of 2222 kgs and an atm of 2700 kgs. We looked at what we would like to replace the Territory with. We still wanted a “car” rather than a twin cab etc. We settled on the Jeep Grand Cherokee as we knew that our van would be well within its limits. Our daughter was looking at upgrading her car so she took the Territory of our hands, at dad’s rates of course. Our next issue was finding a Jeep within the price we were willing to pay.
We purchased a second hand 2013 WK2 (December) Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo diesel from a local Jeep dealer and a week later hooked up the van to go for a test run. Headed up towards Cooma as this has some flat and undulating country. Got about 50kms away and the temperature gauge went up to the red area, bells and whistles went off and a friendly female voice told me to stop the car asap. Had to get NRMA to tow the van back home and the car to the dealers. As this was a mid Friday afternoon they couldn’t look at it until Monday when they told me that they couldn’t find anything wrong. Handed me a printed form from Jeep Australia stating that it was normal for the temperature gauge to go up as it is a combined, oil, water and transmission gauge. Not happy with this I took it for another run with only myself in the car and the gauge went up again, back to dealer and after a very long discussion they agreed to look at it again. Three days later I was informed that there was a blown head gasket. Short story is that the only way Jeep Australia would agreed to fix the car was to replace the motor. Luckily it is still under new car warranty. Bad luck was that it took three weeks for the motor to arrive from the good old USA and another 2-3 weeks of farting around before we got the car back, over 6 weeks in total.
We got the car back a week before we were to head off to Brisbane for Christmas and as I had to put some kms on the new motor we didn’t have a chance until last week to try towing. Again we went up to Cooma and while I am very pleased at the way it towed the van the temperature gauge still moves around more than I am used to. Even on the slightest incline it would move up from the normal section to the next. Never got into the top (high) section. At least it would quickly drop back down to normal. It was about 28 degrees that day and I sat on 100 km/hr.
So far I am happy with the Jeep ( we loved the Territory so it has big shoes to fill), averaged 7.4 l/100 km for the trip up and back to Brisbane. The torque pulling the van is impressive. I have it booked in next week to have a replacement transmission oil cooler fitted which hopefully will assist in keeping the engine cooler. When I was towing my transmission oil was about 97 degrees and engine oil was about 103 degrees.
We purchased a second hand 2013 WK2 (December) Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo diesel from a local Jeep dealer and a week later hooked up the van to go for a test run. Headed up towards Cooma as this has some flat and undulating country. Got about 50kms away and the temperature gauge went up to the red area, bells and whistles went off and a friendly female voice told me to stop the car asap. Had to get NRMA to tow the van back home and the car to the dealers. As this was a mid Friday afternoon they couldn’t look at it until Monday when they told me that they couldn’t find anything wrong. Handed me a printed form from Jeep Australia stating that it was normal for the temperature gauge to go up as it is a combined, oil, water and transmission gauge. Not happy with this I took it for another run with only myself in the car and the gauge went up again, back to dealer and after a very long discussion they agreed to look at it again. Three days later I was informed that there was a blown head gasket. Short story is that the only way Jeep Australia would agreed to fix the car was to replace the motor. Luckily it is still under new car warranty. Bad luck was that it took three weeks for the motor to arrive from the good old USA and another 2-3 weeks of farting around before we got the car back, over 6 weeks in total.
We got the car back a week before we were to head off to Brisbane for Christmas and as I had to put some kms on the new motor we didn’t have a chance until last week to try towing. Again we went up to Cooma and while I am very pleased at the way it towed the van the temperature gauge still moves around more than I am used to. Even on the slightest incline it would move up from the normal section to the next. Never got into the top (high) section. At least it would quickly drop back down to normal. It was about 28 degrees that day and I sat on 100 km/hr.
So far I am happy with the Jeep ( we loved the Territory so it has big shoes to fill), averaged 7.4 l/100 km for the trip up and back to Brisbane. The torque pulling the van is impressive. I have it booked in next week to have a replacement transmission oil cooler fitted which hopefully will assist in keeping the engine cooler. When I was towing my transmission oil was about 97 degrees and engine oil was about 103 degrees.
