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Jeep Wrangler Radiator Removal

A very edited few minutes of me taking out a very broken radiator from a Wrangler

Car festival nearly over

February and March are always car time. Both cars need re-registering and re-insuring and both always seem to need full services.

Mrs Saul’s car went back and forth to Triple A with air suspension issues, eventually solved by having a new air spring fitted. Fortunately, this cost me abuut 2,000dhs less thanks to my discovering these guys. They do original and OEM Land Rover and Range Rover parts for between 50% to 80% less than the official dealer. All genuine parts, just cheaper. They will deliver to the garage of your choice. I had them drop the part off at Triple A, who did a good job fitting it.

Following on from the new airspring, the Range Rover needed a full service, which had to be done at the dealer. The 120,000Km service is a biggie – 3,600Dhs. During the service a leaky radiator was discovered – thankfully this was repaired under the extended warranty I bought just over a year ago, saving me 5,500Dhs. That warranty, bought for 6,000Dhs, has already paid for itself nearly three times over. The heights of joy that driving a full functioning Range Rover can bring can easily be cancelled out by the depths of despair of servicing costs. Thank goodness for extended warranties and non-dealer parts suppliers.

The extended warranty expires in January 2011. After that, I think that Mrs Saul will have to drive around in something Japanese, unless I can be hugely successful at Oracle and afford a newer model – allegedly more reliable than the 2003 version we have.

The Jeep fared better – a service that didn’t yield any major hidden problems. That said, the steering box needed refurbishing – it didn’t cost a lot, but the garage gave it back to me with way too much steering play. I found myself wobbling around all over the road thanks to it not being fixed properly. Four quick visits back to the garage and it’s still not right – I need to leave it with them for a couple of days. This is infuriating – not so much because something needs fixing, but because they gave me back the car in an obviously incorrect state. When it’s in next in it’ll also need a new AC switch – I can’t currently turn the AC off. Not usually a problem in the UAE, but useful when driving in the dunes and needing a bit more oomph.

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