**UPDATE** New guy in the Austin/San Antonio Texas area

thebigtman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:52 am

Hello everyone. I've been lurking on the board for a while now and doing lots of homework. I'm at the point where I'm ready to pull the trigger on a CRD and I've got my eye on a few. I was considering a few SUV's but after some careful consideration, I've settled on the Liberty CRD. I really liked the new Xterra but the weak differentials steered me away from it.

I have to say that this has been a VERY informative site. I love to tinker and wrench on all of my vehicles so it looks like I'm in good company. I think that the Liberty CRD was long overdue and like many have said, I believe that the US is ready for a light truck with a diesel. I drive 160 miles roundtrip for work each day and I need a vehicle to haul a small snowmobile trailer to Colorado. With the torque of the little diesel and it's outstanding fuel economy, the Lib is perfectly suited to my needs. I drove a Lib CRD in Alaska and it worked well both on and off the trail. To be honest, I wasn't that excited to drive it but after getting behind the wheel for a few miles and working it over on the trail, I am a firm believer that Jeep has a real winner here.

I see that there are a few people from the central Texas area. Hopefully I can join you guys for a group run or get together once I have my CRD. As I mentioned earlier, I love to wrench on stuff and I hope to offer some constructive posts to the community once I'm able to dive into my CRD project.

I have my mods already planned out - lift, Rubicon wheels, some armor.

Take care everyone and talk to you all soon!

dgeist · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:25 am

Welcome! Glad you're no longer feeling L.O.S.T. in your vehicle selection.

DarbyWalters · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:05 am

Great to see ya' in the area...and Jeep HAD a good idea with the CRD...lol. I am sure in the very near future more Diesels will be hitting the market but until then the Liberty CRD is the only choice in the SUV category....that comes at a good price. $42,000 for a Crang Cherokee CRD is just out of the question.

KrawlTex.com has some scheduled events...offroad...coming up this year.

thebigtman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:27 am

Yeah, the Jeep GC CRD is way overpriced. I looked at it and I was considering it but I didn't want to assume that much depreciation on it right out the door. I liked all the options it came with but man o' man, I can buy two nice Lib CRD's for one GC CRD.

I see that you've already got some good mods on your CRD. Once I get mine I wouldn't mind taking a firsthand look at the lift so I can get an idea of what I'm in for. BTW, I plan to offer up my garage in the future if some of the local Lib guys need to do some mods. Last year the wife and I built a house out in the country and I had a 30x40 garage built for all my playtoys. I don't have a lift in it yet but I'm planning on it.

EDIT - Darby, I just noticed that you're the one responsible for this site. Thanks a bunch. It made the difference to me when searching for vehicles.

Take care,

Tim

Joe Romas · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:34 am

Welcome as you've found underneath the "girlish looks" there's a real jeep for sure :lol:

I was previously a 3 time Cherokee owner but wanted a diesel. One look underneath and I was ready. As Darby said it's the only kid on the block for now

Sounds like you've found the right vehicle for you :wink:

thebigtman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:39 am

Hey Joe, I lived in Columbus for a while when I was attending Ohio State. Go Bucks! I'm also an Ohio native but the military changed my locale and now I'm in Texas...the little lady is a Texas native and for those of you who married someone from Texas it's dang near impossible to take them away from this state!!!

This will be my first Jeep and my first personal diesel vehicle. I own a Volvo semi tractor with a Detriot diesel.

Joe Romas · **Posted:** Fri Jan 04, 2008 12:08 pm

Tim.

In your shoes I would stay in Texas too :lol:

We're in Grandview and our son lives in University villiage just accros the tracks from OSU. He works for OSU as a Unix network admin. Ever seen a Volvo diesel car? They used a VW light truck 6 cylinder both NA and turbo. I once had a 1986 740 GLE TD wagon leather seats and all. Nice car but mine had pump problems that clogged injectors and when the head gasket showed signs of leaking I traded it

Joe

thebigtman · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:52 pm

It's been tough over the last few weeks trying to find the right KJ. Just when I think I have it, it's sold. I can only find a couple in the SA/Austin area and one has too many miles for me. The other is a Sport with 16K miles, sunroof, Sony aftermarket stereo for $20,490. I found it on Autotrader and it's also on Craigslist.

Have any of you local guys seen any up for sale? I think $20,490 is too much but the way that they're selling, I'm not sure now.

BlackLibertyCRD · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:40 pm

Don't be surprise if an 05 has 40,000 miles and 06 has 20,000 miles. These are still very low miles for a diesel for mine wasn't even broke in until 25,000 miles. That's when my highway mileage went into 30+ MPG from 25.

Prices will be high for the Liberty CRD but is worth it. Mine was $32,000 new and I wouldn't think of selling it for nearly same price because there isn't nothing to replace it that is suitable to me.

thebigtman · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:47 pm

Yeah, I'm not necessarily put off by the miles but simply how fast these things are selling. I missed an 05 Limited with 20K miles for $16,900 and now all I can find are Sport packages. I've been looking on Autotrader, Yahoo autos and my local paper. Any other suggestions?

BlackLibertyCRD · **Posted:** Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:56 pm

thebigtman wrote:

Yeah, I'm not necessarily put off by the miles but simply how fast these things are selling. I missed an 05 Limited with 20K miles for $16,900 and now all I can find are Sport packages. I've been looking on Autotrader, Yahoo autos and my local paper. Any other suggestions?

Try e-bay:

http://motors.search.ebay.com/liberty-c ... ertyQ20crd

thebigtman · **Posted:** Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:09 pm

Good news. I think I found a pretty decent local CRD.

What's even better though is that the wife gave me the greenlight to go ahead and order my lift kit, wheels and tires if I decide to go with the CRD over the new Xterra.

Anyone wanna help with a lift kit install??? lol

thebigtman · **Posted:** Tue Jan 08, 2008 9:35 pm

Well, after doing some intense searching, I found my CRD. I picked up a 2005 Liberty CRD Sport 4x4 w/sunroof over in Houston. It has 32K miles and looks and drives great.

Here are a few pics. Mods here I come!!!!

Here's one of the Lib and my Volvo VNL Semi

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BlackLibertyCRD · **Posted:** Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:18 pm

Nice, I see it already has the cross bars and grill have a spot for the fogs. The other red rig looks nice tooo.

DarbyWalters · **Posted:** Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:49 pm

That is really clean and a nice color...good find...and with a lot of warranty left too.

Joe Romas · **Posted:** Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:55 am

DarbyWalters wrote:

That is really clean and a nice color...good find...and with a lot of warranty left too.

Tim.
Remember you have to have the warrnaty transfered to you. There's a fee for that :shock:

Joe

thebigtman · **Posted:** Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:47 am

Thanks Joe! I will try to get that done ASAP. I'm going to look around at the various Dodge/Jeep dealers and see if there's a close place that does Dodge Sprinter servicing. From my reads on here, it appears that a dealership with Sprinter service is my best bet.

Thanks for the compliments guys. I almost bought a blue one that was in Austin but I found this Inferno Red one at the last minute. There was a HUGE price difference between the two and I really liked the cheaper red one better!

yakers · **Posted:** Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:11 pm

Joe Romas wrote:

Remember you have to have the warrnaty transfered to you. There's a fee for that :shock:

Joe

Is that only for sales by a private party? We bought our 06 CRD used from a Jeep dealer and he said we had the balance of the warranty automatically. (Too bad is wasn't as long as the 05 wannanty)

KJ79 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:29 am

If you have the balance of the factory warranty - I believe you are able to get the extended factory warranty thru the Jeep website - naturally for a price - but you may check it out. I recall some others purchased the extension to 7 years 70,000 miles.

UPDATE New guy in the Austin/San Antonio Texas area

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