I have a 2006 Liberty Sport, just hit 90k miles. Bought it as the second owner at 65k about 5 years ago.
Around last Spring, I started having trouble starting it. The only thing that I've really ruled out is that it's not a battery issue.
The first, and most catastrophic time it happened, I was heading up to a cabin in the woods. I had been driving about 90 minutes before stopping at a liquor store, and then driving over to a grocery store a few minutes away. Came out of the grocery store ten minutes later, and it wouldn't start. It was cranking, but seemed like it was struggling to do so, getting progressively slower over the few seconds I had the ignition turned. Gave it another try, same result, more depressing of a noise. Sat there for another ten minutes or so, hoping and praying that I wasn't going to have to figure out what to do if I needed to get towed in the middle of nowhere, 90 minutes from home, and 20 minutes from my cabin on a Friday night. Gave it another shot, and after some reluctance, it started up. You can believe I was a bit skeptical of it the rest of the weekend, but I didn't have any more problems.
I've had similar experiences a handful of times, enough that I'm concerned, but not consistently enough that I want to take it in unless I have a decent idea of what the problem may be. I haven't been able to intentionally recreate it, but I have noticed some trends in when it happens:
If it happens, it's usually after I've been driving for about 60-90 minutes. Shut it down, and try to start it up 10-20 minutes later, and that's when you tend to get the issue. Thus far, it doesn't seem to happen if you try to restart the jeep immediately after turning it off, nor does it seem to happen on a cold start, but those are just my observations.
I'd really like to not have to doubt my Jeep like this, but I also don't have a garage right now that I trust enough to send on a "it won't start, sometimes, under very certain conditions" goosechase, so I'd like to get some ideas of what I might be looking at. Any thoughts, fellow jeepers?
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