The engine was pretty dirty, and it still needs an oil change, but everything has obviously been "dealer-maintained" and it's been taken care of for sure.....
I cleaned everything up with rags and q-tips for about an hour the other day and it came out pretty nicely....
BEFORE AFTER
I'll definitely do more when I have some money to buy new hoses, and new plug wires, and a Cold-Air Intake.....
It runs pretty well and does what I ask of it, so there's no sense in changing it too much. I've averaged 17.1 MPG in just city driving back and forth to school, which is a strong improvement over the 10 that my Mustang got, and the 12 that my old truck got, and the 14 that my OTHER old truck managed....
I love driving this Jeep, I get out of class and run to the parking lot, because I just want to get home, and after sitting in a plastic chair all day, I just love slipping into the comfortable cloth seats that this thing has.
The tires are almost new Toyo Open Country A/T's........ they're sized P235-75R15. They handle pretty well and are pretty wide compared to what is on other Jeeps I've seen..... eventually, I will go up to 30" BFG All-Terrains, but that won't be for a while, since these tires were installed about 8 months before I bought the Jeep, and they look like they'll last for a few years.
I do know that it will need an exhaust soon, since the stock muffler is finally beginning to rust out.... I think I'll get the Dynomax cat-back... that it what I had on my Explorer Sport and that sounded pretty good.
The stock exhaust.....
October 2008....
I finally bought the Dynomax exhaust and put it on, but I didn't like the oval shaped tip that they put on their kits, so I cut it off with a die-grinder and bought a 3A racing tip from Advance Auto Parts.
It sounds pretty good, and the aftermarket tip makes it sound a little higher pitched....
About 2 days later, I was bored at school and went to PepBoys down the road and bought a Spectre cone filter and put that on, making my own cold-air intake.... the sound is incredible, after about 3,000 RPM, the Jeep sounds amazing. I wasn't sure which one to get, so I walked in and out of the store about 4 times taking measurements of the stock airbox and the intake tube and just making sure things would fit right. I ended up with the red filter and it looks pretty good too.
The next day, I had to go back and get the mini breather for the crankcase, right on top of the valve cover, that matches the color scheme too, and it just looks really cool.
I haven't noticed that much of an improvement in gas mileage, since I'm always flooring it now to hear that sound, but it hasn't gone below 16.0 MPG in only city driving yet, so at least that's good.
