Scheduled Maintenance

brettacuff · **Posted:** Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:09 pm

So I have over 96k miles on the Renegade now and don't know if the previous owner did any scheduled maintenance besides oil changes on my Jeep. So...I got to thinking it's probably time to get some stuff taken care of.

The manual schedule "B" says I should.

1.)Drain & Refill front & rear axle fluids
2.)Replace the spark plugs & wires
3.)Inspect the transfer case fluid
4.)Drain & Refill the transmission fluid

Can anyone think of anything else that needs to be done around 96k miles?

Also, how hard is it to do these things? Should I have Bob Sumerel do them or can I tackle them in the driveway without any specialty tools?

infernicus · **Posted:** Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:36 pm

Every one of those is very easy to do.
Search a little bit and you can find a write-up for each.

Enjoy!

tommudd · **Posted:** Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:20 pm

Take it to a dealer and have the transmission flushed, about the only place you can trust to install the correct trans fluid.
Also do the power steering, new air filter, don't sorry about the spark plug wires, ( we don't have any)
rest of the items is fairly easy to do

brettacuff · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:41 am

Wait do you mean we have coil packs?

And I heard that once you change the trans fluid all the tranny problems begin...what do you think?

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 1:43 am

brettacuff wrote:

Wait do you mean we have coil packs?

And I heard that once you change the trans fluid all the tranny problems begin...what do you think?

Only the 2.4 gas KJ's have plug wires.

As far as the trans flush and the "horror stories" you've heard all have been caused by a pre-existing condition in the trans already and was going to fail anyways shortly.I can't tell you how many times I've had to kick out vehicles that come in for a trans flush because it's slipping,well flushing the fluid will not help any and that's where the "horror stories" come from.

brettacuff · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:50 pm

Ohh I see. So they claim your trans flush caused the problem. That's crappy.

brettacuff · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:55 pm

Kings Chrysler Jeep Dodge just quoted me $139.95 for trans flush and $99.95 for plugs. I didn't think that was too bad. How about you guys?

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:31 pm

brettacuff wrote:

Kings Chrysler Jeep Dodge just quoted me $139.95 for trans flush and $99.95 for plugs. I didn't think that was too bad. How about you guys?

Great deal for the trans flush as most times it's closer to $200 due to ATF+4's high cost but have them add in the filter change that will bring it up to around $200.Not a bad price for the plug change either but you can do these yourself in 30-45mins and $10 in plugs(Champion coppers).

brettacuff · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:57 pm

Ok. I guess I'll try the plugs myself. Honestly, what filter would they be changing? [not too mechanically incline, as you can tell]

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:30 pm

brettacuff wrote:

Ok. I guess I'll try the plugs myself. Honestly, what filter would they be changing? [not too mechanically incline, as you can tell]

The filter inside the trans.

brettacuff · **Posted:** Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:30 pm

Had no idea there was such a thing! But thankfully I do now. I probably won't get any of this done until winter is officially over because I'm trying not to spend any money for a while.

kjon · **Posted:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:26 pm

I wouldn't assume the previous owner did any maintenance. Make a list of everything in the maintenance book that should have been done prior to 100k miles and start checking them off one at a time. Pcv valve, ball joints, air filter, etc.... Not spending any money right now could lead to you spending lots of money later. It's soooooo much cheaper to maintain than it is to fix and replace neglected components!

opelboy · **Posted:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:16 pm

i was happy to see each plug had its own coil and no wires. my '00 v6 mustang had individual coils and wires and the way they were routed was rediculous...way harder than necessary to change out. the jeep is a breeze compared to it. fluid changes are on my list of things to do also so ill look around here for some tips.

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:17 am

only one of the plugs is even remotely difficult to get to - passenger rear, it's under the radiator reservoir which is held on by 2 10mm nuts which you remove and set aside and either balance the tank on the back of your left hand or carefully lift up onto the edge of the ledge where your wipers and washer nozzles are

a short, fat, stubby flat head works well for use under your thumb to assist in depressing the buttons to remove the coil pack plugs - and the deep well 10mm and short extension used to remove the nuts for the reservoir will remove the 10mm nuts retaining the coil packs - which i'd buy a pack of 6 replacement 10mm nuts from A-Zone or somewhere just incase you drop one which I used to have a habit of doing - and plug socket with a good fresh rubber grommet and a 6ish " extension will pull the plugs

other than the reservoir there's a vac / breather hose or two and a small hose back to the radiator - all of which either are on stud grabber clips or will disconnect on one end and pivot out of the way for the plug R&R

when putting the new plugs back in just take care dropping the sparkplug hotdog down the hallway and once they're to the plug pit rotate the extension counterclockwise a few rotations with just the weight of the plug/extension and gravity - till you feel the thump/click of the thread ramp, then turn it clockwise with your fingers till it's finger tight and finish up with a twrench or ratchet - hand tight (use the side of your pinkie to pull the handle towards you, when your pinkie can't turn the ratchet without locking the muscles in your hand like you've got riggamortis, that's typically hand tight then tighten 1/8th-1/4 turn and don't use Anti-seize no matter how bad the doofus at autozone tries to sell it to ya for a dollar

there's lots of stuff maintenance wise on your vehicle that you can do yourself and save a ton of money, learn alot, and will allow you to keep an eye on potential problems that you may not have otherwise even noticed

for the cost of the dealer plug job, you can get plugs, and a 3/8th ratchet, 2 extensions, spark plug socket, and a set of 3/8th metric sockets and half a tank of gas or a haynes book for your KJ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxsEOCqhHx8

If I'm not mistaken the feller that made this video is a board member here, entertaining fella and it's a pretty good video tutorial for a plug change on our vehicles as well just disregard the anti-seize

HoosierJeeper · **Joined:** Sun Feb 15, 2009 8:23 am **Posts:** 1218

What about hood struts/ tailgate struts? I had to put in new hood struts before I did my spark plugs.... :juggle:

Coolant....that's another dealer job while they do the tranny.

Scheduled Maintenance

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