Episode 575 – Drummond Island Jeeping 101

This Week In Jeep

Will Jeep Be Held Responsible For Little Girl’s Death?

In 2015, in an area of North Phoenix Arizona, an accident occurred between several vehicles. Ordinarily, this isn’t a big deal, and life goes on. But in this accident, involving a Jeep, life did not go on for one little girl. 4-year old Vivian Varela was securely strapped into her car seat in the middle of the back seat of her mom’s Lexus car. A 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee was approaching the slowing and stopped traffic at a rate of 70 miles per hour, and suddenly changed lanes as if to take the exit. The driver of the Jeep clearly didn’t see that the exit ramp was backed up with traffic and hit her brakes and swerving way too late, the Jeep slammed into the back of the Lexus crumpling the car like a wet paper bag, killing the little girl instantly. Seven years later, The Arizona Supreme Court ruled this week, that the lawsuit filed by Vivian Valera’s parents can proceed after a lower court ruled that a Federal law preempted Varela’s claims that Fiat-Chrysler, who owned Jeep at the time chose profits over safety. The lawsuit alleges that FCA, Jeep’s parent company at the time had taken a safety feature- in this case, called Automatic Emergency Braking, a safety feature that helps prevent rear-end accidents – and used it only in the higher end models of this vehicle

AEB was only available on higher-priced models of the 2014 Grand Cherokee.  For instance, to get Automatic Emergency Braking, shoppers would have to buy it in a package with other non-safety-related upgrades, such as premium wheels or an upgraded entertainment system. FCA’s response was basically that they extend their deepest sympathies for the family’s loss and injuries suffered from an inattentive driver and that they look forward to presenting the automaker’s defenses to the trial court.

Likely this suit will be thrown out, dismissed, or settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.  The family filing the suit will have a lot to prove in order to win a case like this. And since The 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee in question fully complied with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standards at the time, it’s going to be a hard case to prove for sure. Combined with a likely defense from the automaker that no technology at even today’s current standards would have prevented the 2015 accident from happening. At the time of this recording, no trial date has been set. 

47-year-old Jeeper Killed Thursday Morning by Front-End-Loader

An Auburn Hills, Michigan city employee is on paid administrative leave after crashing into a Jeep Thursday morning, killing the driver. At about 6:03 a.m. Thursday, a 47-year-old woman was driving on Brown Road, just west of Giddings Road, when she was struck by a Caterpillar front-end loader. The woman, a Lake Orion resident, was reportedly unresponsive and declared dead at the scene. Video from the scene showed the woman’s vehicle, a 2021 Jeep Wrangler, completely totaled from the crash, which had thrown the Jeep up on the lawn of a nearby business. Auburn Hills police say the front-end loader was being operated by a 42-year-old man who works for the city. The man was reportedly pulling out of the city’s department of public works property and onto eastbound Brown Road when he collided with the Jeep. City police say the man was not injured in the crash and has been cooperating with authorities during their investigation. Officials say that neither alcohol nor drugs appear to be factored in the crash. The investigation is ongoing.

It Takes 120,000 LEGO Bricks To Make a Jeep

Like many kids my age, I grew up playing with LEGOs, and they are probably responsible at least in some part, for the way I am today. I love LEGOs and how after hours or days, or even weeks of work, it can all come crashing to a brick exploding end in seconds. Or as engineers call it, an unplanned rapid disassembly. A new video has surfaced the interwebs this week, and it shows The Sheffield Lego User Group in time-lapse, building an actual life-sized Lego Jeep, which mimics a WWII-era Willys Jeep, and it took the group over two years to complete. However, all that work didn’t last long as two builders attempted to climb inside for photos. The first person was successful, carefully slipping in and out of the driver’s seat without issue. It’s the second person that will never live the next few moments down. He delicately climbs in, clearly worried about the Jeep holding his weight, but he does…eventually get in. However, he is unable to sit down, but the LEGO Jeep holds while people off-camera take a few photos. Unfortunately, it is at that moment a shift in his weight collapses the entire thing, his feet punch through the floor. Sending a cascade effect that ruins the entire two-year build. The firewall disintegrates, the engine liquifies as it crashes through the crumbling frame and onto the floor. Nothing is spared, save for maybe the radiator, whose fall was broken by the front of the engine turning to a waterfall of bricks. It’s sort of sad to see any Jeep destroyed, even if it is one made of tiny plastic bricks, but I suppose it would have been even worse if the destruction had happened before completion. At least the guys got to finish the build, and even have the pics to prove it. The Jeep held up long enough for a few photos with each of the builders sitting in the life-sized toy, and they even got one heck of a video out of the whole thing too. 

Tech Talk with Jeep Talk

TOPIC/QUESTION: Test Your Jeep’s Coolant With a Multimeter

How long has it been since you’ve done a coolant flush? Do you even know the condition of your Jeep’s antifreeze? Well, if you have a digital voltmeter, I’ve got a way you can test it yourself. To test your Jeep’s coolant with a voltmeter, set your digital voltmeter on the lowest DC setting possible, and dip the positive probe right into the coolant. It’s ok to let it sit there… Touch the negative probe to the negative battery terminal and have someone rev the engine to 2,000 rpm. If the reading is over one-half of one volt (.5) your coolant is toast. Obviously to do this test you will need a digital voltmeter and someone else that can push the gas pedal while you dip-touch and read. I shouldn’t have to say this, but you’ll want to have the Jeep cooled down so you don’t burn yourself opening the radiator cap with a hot engine. Coolant plays an important role in preventing corrosion inside the engine caused by electrolysis. Electrolysis occurs when two dissimilar metals start swapping electrons, causing the metals to corrode. Since A Jeep’s engine can have all sorts of metals in different parts, things like aluminum, copper, cast iron, steel, and magnesium alloys, can all be present, and electrolysis will slowly eat away at its different metal components. Coolant has additives to prevent all of that electron swapping from happening. But, as coolant ages, the additives are depleted and can’t do the job anymore. When this happens, the coolant becomes more conductive, and you’ll see that in the reading on your voltmeter. 

Jeep Talk Show Interview

Brette Crane – Drummond Island Tourism Association

https://www.visitdrummondisland.com/

https://www.facebook.com/visitdrummondisland/

Coming up next week… 

Matt Feldermann from American Expedition Vehicles

Jeep Life – With Jeep Momma

What To Expect When Stepping Up To 35” Tires

Before I get to part two of What to expect when you upgrade to 35” tires on your Jeep, I wanted to share an email sent to us here at the Jeep Talk Show.  

Jeep Talk Show Listener Dean from Illinois reached out to share a tip to help anyone having issues removing their shifter knob as I mentioned in episode 569. 

 

 

Dean says: 

“I was listening to Tammy talk about removing the shifter knob on her jeep and thought I would pass along this tip. After my own trials of trying to pull, tap, tease, yell various obscenities at it, I went to the U Tubes and hoped to find an answer. 

Here’s what I found: One, Remove your freedom top or soft top. (I’m sure this all sounds silly, but it worked) Two, Put a 2×4 across the roll bars over the shifter. Use it on edge not laid flat, It’s stronger that way. Three, get out a ratcheting tie-down strap and loop one end over the 2×4, and wrap the other end around the knob.

Four, Start tightening the strap but hold down the knob so that when the knob pops off it won’t fly off and hit you and lose an eye. Think about holding onto the cork on a bottle of champagne. Five, have a beer because the damn thing finally came off. I hope this can help one of my fellow Jeepers. Dean from Illinois.

Thanks, Dean. What a great tip. I wish I had heard this back then because I totally would have tried it. I don’t think most people realize how difficult those Wranglers can be. Unless you have tried to remove one yourself you don’t get it. 

Okay… On to part 2 of What to expect when you upgrade to 35” tires on your Jeep wrangler. When you upgrade to bigger tires of course you almost always are going to need to do a lift on your Jeep. That won’t be the only upgrade or changes you will need to make. Sure, maybe for the short term it will be good but eventually, those bigger and heavier tires are going to wear on those factory components as they did to mine. I already mentioned the front driveshaft and ball joints. Also, while we were changing the ball joints they welded C Gussets for more strength. . There are many more places you should shore up or upgrade, or eventually you will need to replace the parts. When you add that lift and those bigger tires your geometry can be off. The inner tie rod ends can go bad. And those control arms, on the Jk’s and JKU’s, especially if your wheel. Those control arms are low hung and you most likely will at some point come down hard on them, which can alter them. Like I did. Strengthening your shock mounts and control arm mounts with beefier brackets is a good idea. I bought mine from Core 4×4. It’s a good idea to watch the tread wear on your tires and make sure you get regular alignments, a good way to detect bad geometry, or you can do a home check to make sure everything is holding up.   Inspect the movement of your tires.  You would need to make sure you can unload the Jeep’s suspension. That means getting your Jeep up on Jacks so your front tires can freely move. Moving your tires in different directions will give you an idea of which issue it may be. Putting a big pry bar under the bottom of the tire and trying to move it up and down… This could be bad ball joints. Take one hand at the 12 o’clock position and the other at the 6 pm position and move your tire back and forth, feeling for movement and play. If you have the movement that usually means wheel bearings. The 3 pm and 9 pm positions doing the same thing would most likely be bad inner tie rod ends. Do your due diligence though…research though. It may not always be a bad tie rod end. Look closely at that tie rod movement. It could also be your steering knuckle. Just like mine. The hole got wallowed out. So, I had to replace my steering knuckle. Again be careful when you replace yours. Those aftermarket ones could require a certain size lift and certainly upgraded steering. Good routine maintenance and visual checks along with the tire check can hopefully find problems before they become catastrophes. Like I said in part one Bigger isn’t always better.

Some may think bigger is better but I can tell you for sure Bigger drains your bank account. 

Links Mentioned in this Episode

NEXEN Tires USA https://www.nexentireusa.com/

Trails 411- POWERING Your Adventure https://www.youtube.com/user/backcountrydriver

The 4×4 Radio Network http://4x4radionetwork.com/

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