>Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
(The information is listed consecutively and contains partly very interesting details. Just scroll through for more details).
19 October 2020 / Km 63’828; Cases d’Alcanar (Ebro Delta / E)
The rubber boot of the steering damper (OME) was damaged, i.e. partially torn, by an upper OME retrofit component.
Because such spare parts are not immediately available in Spain, I mounted half a plastic bottle between the metal bracket and the rubber sleeve, so that the sleeve can continue to protect the piston rod – more or less – and is not further destroyed.
After a little more than 3’000 km, many of them off-road passages, the handicraft work still holds and half of the 1-Euro-bottle withstood the stress.
5 October 2020 / Km 60’779; Vitoria-Gasteiz (E)
After more “cracking noises” in the front left, both on the off-road terrain and on the road, we went to the jeep workshop in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
The vehicle was immediately examined by the workshop manager and a mechanic. We were afraid that the front left wheel bearing might be defective. This was discovered during a vehicle check in Shrewsbury (GB). After about half an hour the all-clear was given; according to the Spanish diagnosis, the “cracking” came from the steering gear and not from the wheel bearing and this would be a mechanical noise that could just happen. We need not worry about this!
The play at the wheel bearing is absolutely normal and within tolerance. They wished us a good journey and a lot of fun on the trails.
Very friendly and helpful workshop boss, although the language barrier was very high. The vehicle check was free of charge for us.
28 September 2020 / Km 60’276; Donaldson prefilter to snorkel
Above Santa Fe/Navarra (E) in the forest the pre-filter on a tree is smashed! 199 Euro were still a pile of useless plastic parts!
Still in the forest the original inlet head from Safari (snorkel head) was mounted.
18.September 2020 / consumption check
After more than 38,678 kilometres we calculated the consumption of our Rubicon. The vehicle is fully equipped, tank and water supplies full; 3’300 kilograms on the scales.
For the distance travelled we needed 4’646 litres of diesel, which corresponds to a consumption of just over 12 litres per 100 km.
This also means that our new Jeep Wrangler with automatic transmission consumes 1.5 litres more than the old Wrangler, vintage 2007 with manual transmission with the same equipment. The automatic transmission is very poorly graded for the diesel engine – a purely personal sensation – in first and second gear. On mountainous roads the transmission often shifts back to first gear and even then the clutch opens, so that the engine always “howls” out of a tight curve. This never happened with the manual gearbox; the diesel always steered the whole load with sovereignty and a lot of power through such situations!
In this question the owner and importer of the jeeps should think about the essentials and offer the diesel engine with manual transmission again. Many off-roaders would be grateful and this version would be even cheaper than the automatic transmission.
