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Environmental disaster?
So this is how the SUV craze ends!
One of the greatest cars made in America destroyed.. this angers me
What a tragic waste of a perfectly good 4.0L. I really wish as part of this program they would have simply taken the vehicles apart and resold engines that ran fine to help fix vehicles that need them.
What a waste! He should trade in his camera too.
No great loss seeing that thing go away. With 10 million or so vehicles scrapped through normal processes, I’m pretty sure this program isn’t going to create a used engine shortage.
Everyone was greatly concerned about how the government was going to make sure that the turned in vehicles didn’t end up being resold offshore or other wise not scrapped. Painful as it is for a wrench turner like me to watch, I must admit that this automotive euthanasia indeed makes it highly unlikely the car will end up back on the road.
There may, however, be a few traded in C.A.R.S. with great bodies but crap engines which magically get a good used engine transplanted into them from a wreck and live again as one good vehicle.
One of the greatest cars made in America destroyed.
What? Cherokees were thirsty, cramped, and overrated.
The XJ was a superb design for its day. It created a new market segment and launched the SUV boom. It proved that there was a market for a dedicated unibody SUV versus the trend at the time of slapping a camper shell and back seat on a truck a la the Blazer, 4Runner etc.
The fact that they kept making it for almost two decades while most of its competitors had several revisions speaks volumes.
I suspect that junkyard entrepreneurs will do a brisk trade in mating clean C4C’ed cars with running engines.
This really doesn’t bother me. There are already a very broad selection of Cherokees at the junkyards.
Now if it were an Isuzu Impulse with the tuning done by Lotus… actually… naahhh!!!
The money bothers me more than the car.
The XJ was a superb design for its day.
For a 1984 SUV, sure. That’s not saying much. Even the 1984 station wagons were better suited for what the Cherokee was used for 99.9% of the time (family hauler). To say nothing of the 1984 Chrysler minivans.
Now, I’d be really upset to see a Wrangler go, because that SUV usually was used the way God intended for an SUV to be used.
Poor old girl….. Looks like she didn’t owe her owners anything.
The 4.0 fought valiantly. That’s really hard for me to watch.
Our tax dollars at work.
A NEW JOB OPPORTUNITY FOR GEN-Y!!!!!
But not very much fun to watch for us that are struggling to make ends meet but ALWAYS manage to change our oil at 3000 miles.
This whole thing sickens me………
This is disgusting. I officially declare myself an anarchist!
So what did he do? Pour water in to the crank case?
Out with the old, in with the new.
I think they’re supposed to drain the oil and replace it with a sodium silicate (read: sand) solution. It’ll sieze the motor much faster and make it basically a useless lump of metal. As per the rules.
yankinwaoz
So what did he do? Pour water in to the crank case?
It’s a solution of 40% sodium silicate/60% water (“liquid glass”). Click here for the full procedure.
For a 1984 SUV, sure. That’s not saying much. Even the 1984 station wagons were better suited for what the Cherokee was used for 99.9% of the time (family hauler). To say nothing of the 1984 Chrysler minivans.
Now, I’d be really upset to see a Wrangler go, because that SUV usually was used the way God intended for an SUV to be used.
You know not of what you speak. I have owned both. The XJ was a fantastic off-road design. The XJ and TJ shared most of the same running gear. The TJ has the advantage with clearance and break-overs but the XJ is lighter and narrower. Tires and the specifics of the trail are going to dictate which of the two is ‘better’.
Destroying a perfectly good XJ is beyond pathetic. The AMC 4.0L can easily see +200K on a set of rings and bearings.
Stick to the Obama talking points, you’re in your element there.
I thought about trading in my old Blazer. But it has been too good to me for me to let it go without dignity like this. such a waste. I understand the idea of getting guzzlers off the road, but if that were really the largest premise, then the mpg improvement requirements should be higher. 10mpg improvement, okay. But we should do it like the Germans do, matching the govt funds to the amount of tax revenue created so that there’s really no net loss to the govt. Instead we’re just pissing money away again.
Doesn’t it take more energy to build a car than you’d save by scrapping and replacing with a more efficient one ? Sounds like ethanol all over again.
Doesn’t it take more energy to build a car than you’d save by scrapping and replacing with a more efficient one ? Sounds like ethanol all over again.
That’s exactly it. This is just elitist snobbery disguised as environmental do-goodism. The beautiful people don’t like the old cars that the rabble drive. Heaven forbid someone should choose to drive a +10 year old Jeep!
paris-dakar–
Why don’t you re-read the comment and see what I was actually saying? I never said the Cherokee was not capable of going off-road, I said almost nobody used it for that. Instead they used it as a family hauler, even though better cars for that purpose existed at the time.
Reading comprehension: you should try it sometime.
While it is indeed true that the 4L AMC engine is one of the great engines from a durability standpoint, getting someone out of this car and into a modern efficient one (assuming they did buy something efficient…) is still a good thing for the environment. And let’s face it… this was a pre-ABS, pre-airbag car with four spare tires on it? Almost ANYTHING on the road today would be a safer bet in a crash compared to this car. Just my two cents…
I do have another question / statement about how the engines are disabled though… based on two of the videos on YouTube that I have seen of the sodium-silicate solution. Both cars had excessive white smoke coming from the tail-pipes while being run with the solution.
From an environmental standpoint this cannot be good. Is the EPA measuring this output? Seems like they are adding more pollution initially. And what of the catalytic converters? Does it damage them? I bet it isn’t good for them. They may be recycled for their metals (platinum being one of the things in them that has value) or recycled for an on-road car that has a failed cat.
From an environmental standpoint this cannot be good. Is the EPA measuring this output? Seems like they are adding more pollution initially…
It’s called “greenwashing”. This isn’t about the environment, its about getting people into car dealerships, no matter what Congress says.
Why don’t you re-read the comment and see what I was actually saying? I never said the Cherokee was not capable of going off-road, I said almost nobody used it for that. Instead they used it as a family hauler, even though better cars for that purpose existed at the time.
My reading comprehension was perfect. The XJ is HUGELY popular among off-roaders. To talk about it like it’s a poser-ride is completely off the mark.
I drove mine through crap you wouldn’t believe (Had BFG AT-TAs on it). They’re great rigs. One of the greatest vehicle designs of the past 25 years.
This is an “obamanation”, that’s what it really is!
My ’91 XJ has 250,000 miles on it and it’s a bit shaky looking but the 4.0 runs great. So much so in fact, that I’m going to keep driving it and smogging up the place just to spite this socialist gimmick.
My ‘91 XJ has 250,000 miles on it and it’s a bit shaky looking but the 4.0 runs great. So much so in fact, that I’m going to keep driving it and smogging up the place just to spite this socialist gimmick.
Take it off-road too. That will really kill the SUV-hater’s ‘no one uses those vehicles like that’ spin.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Boat anchor engine, prehistoric suspension (complete with ‘death wobble’), cramped interior. Why were these things popular? P.T. Barnum was right.
Cash for “clunkers” sucks. Shouldn’t this program be aimed at getting clunkers off the road not perfectly fine cars.
I hope there are some shady dealers out there saving some of the clunkers
Gotta love the four obviously pristine temporary spares. The chance that the average joe has four extra spanking clean donuts sitting around the garage being virtually nil, I suspect that Jeep rolled in with aftermarket wheels that were worth more than the rest of the car. The dealer gets to keep the profit from reselling the wheels on the side, the dead Jeep is put on a flatbed to go to the crusher, and the donuts are unbolted for the next sucker (since the carcass can be forklifted off at the crushing station).
There are a few other clunkercide videos linked to that one. I can’t decide which is better, the one of the lot boy doing a major burnout in a Caprice wagon before killing it, or the Dodge van that is said to have run for 40 minutes, then the guys decide to drive it around town a bit, come back and the thing is still running for a while before it finally dies in a huge cloud of smoke.
It could also be that the clunker owner took off the good wheels/tires before trading. The local pic a part has an infinite supply of mini donut spares mucho cheap.
Paris-Dakar:
“Take it off-road too. That will really kill the SUV-hater’s ‘no one uses those vehicles like that’ spin.”
Actually, I do sort of; I use it regularly on Vilano Beach, Florida. There’s a place way out on the end that you can’t get to without 4X4. Not bad for a trouble free, 18 year old car with a “Boat anchor engine, prehistoric suspension (complete with ‘death wobble’), cramped interior.”
Who are these clown’s? We need to find out what their personal vehicles are!
@Subifreak
Who are these clown’s? We need to find out what their personal vehicles are!
Why? What possible bit of information can you get from what someone drives?
Please don’t tell us that you bought a Subaru with matching Birkenstocks and Obama bumper sticker to let everyone know what hip, green person you are. That puts you in the boat as all those middle management dweebs who bought Harleys because they thought it made them badass mofos. Thats called Buying A Life and it’s pathetic.
That puts you in the boat as all those middle management dweebs who bought Harleys because they thought it made them badass mofos. Thats called Buying A Life and it’s pathetic.
Couldn’t agree more. Just like those lower management guys from the rendering plant who show up at the figure-eight demolition derby, acting all la-tee-da and badass with their Ford Mavericks. Posers.
yup, the guys on my E28 board are aghast at a clean looking 535i being put down. too. It is a waste.. Of resources and tax money. The vast majority of the new cars bought with this boondoggle will be clunkers in 5 yrs.
Bastards!!!
It’s painful to see a perfectly running motor like that to die in that way.
They should sell them as used parts at least.