Jon
If you eliminate 05 and early 06 CRD’s there’s none left in the North American market as production of 06 CRD’s was ended in early summer of 06.
There is not and has never been a overheating problem but the temperature guage was originally calibrated wrong showing it running hot. There was a flash to fix that long ago. They actually run cool expecially since the thermostats have started failing.
CRD’s produced before November 05 had a badly designed torque converter prone to early failure and they have mostly been replaced. The replacement had problems with shudder and chrysler’s solution was to reduce torque by 40 foot pounds and raise the shift points above the peak torque range to get them out of warranty.
There are now several torque converters including one from Chrysler, that can handle the original and more torque of the engine. There are various tunes available to restore the original performance and more of the 2.8 VWM engine. There are also at least two solutions for a better transmission tune.
There are solutions available for the EGR problem and there is no need to plate the EGR or remove hardware leaving it able to pass an emission visual in locals that have them.
For a vehicle with only 14,000 produced for the NA market there’s a supprising amount of aftermarket support
There are solutions for all of the bean counter engineering problems and you can find them here
Expect little to no dealer knowledge, expensive and long wait times on some parts. And are able to do your own repairs with LOST as your main tech support then you’re a candidate to own one. If you drive a Toyota a CRD is not for you and if that Toyota is a Prius you’ll get stoned here
These are a one of a kind vehicle for the North American market. There has not and most likely will not be another mid size diesel powered SUV here since the Renault diesel powered Cherokee back in the early 1980’s and a few rare International Scouts. It is a supprisingly capable vehicle and a good towing vehicle for trailers to it’s rated 5000#.
Joe
