Hi - Brand new meat for the grinder here and might as well start off by getting everybody mad at me - I'm a lifetime GM owner as well as a retiree. However, I am here because my daughter is currently in her student teaching and is getting ready to graduate so we decided to update her ride as her graduation gift. Since my wife knew I would gravitate to the General's products she whispered in my ear "I think she would rather have a Jeep" meaning Wrangler. So my loyalty to GM gets trumped by my loyalty to my family and I start researching. We are not in the financial position to buy her new and don't know that I would even if I could so I started looking at mid-teen model years and one of my first revelations was "wow these are expensive". So rather than abandon ship I dug a little more into Jeep lore and then started looking at TJ's even though they were older. I stumbled into an '05 Black on Silver with 98K on the meter that was one family owned listed for $10K which seemed fair and decided to check it out. When the girl and I went to see it it looked like a top 10% care and condition and not only that it turned out to be a TJ Unlimited - which I now know is an LJ. Now realizing what it was and at that price while we were test driving it 2 other guys showed up to see it waiting to jump if I turned it down. So after talking him down a whole $250 we drove it home. Since the seller had cancelled his insurance on it when we drove it he asked us to keep it short and local - normally a red flag for me - but the girl was with me and emotions ya know. Now this guy didn't outright lie to me but since then I have come to find a few things that he embellished a little. Not going to waste your time bellyaching as I still think we got a fair deal, although not a great one. First eye-opener was death wobble. I am 64 and have been on many development rides with GM that might make you change your shorts but I have never thought that I was going to lose control like that. So several Benjamin's later that is greatly improved to the point that it is quite acceptable. Next was trying to remove the soft top for some open air fun - nope those old zippers are never gonna work. So more Benjamin's for a new soft top which was money well spent. 20 years out of a soft top and it was time for a change. But now I find rust holes in the rear seat foot well and as I climb under some concerns with the frame that were concealed with black spray paint and black duct tape. I would have preferred honesty from the seller but you know the saying so I'm gonna be shelling out more Benjamin's to make sure this thing is gonna be safe for my girl. She's still thrilled with it as I haven't revealed everything I know and like I said this is not a hole to throw money into - it's still the unicorn of Wranglers - it's just not the deal we thought we were getting when we drove it home. I'll see if I can post a couple of pics on here before posting. So what do you guys think? Was I too naive or still worthwhile or jury still out on it? Hey - postlude - thot I could post pics of the girls ride but the link wants a URL rather than browse to a pic - any suggestions how to crack that nut?
