Sadly, it's time to trade in the XK
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Although its a time for celebration, I have a bit of bad news. Over the years, my Commander has had intermittent starting problems, leaving me stranded on multiple occasions. Because I had a warranty, I was able to get it "fixed" many times. First they fixed it by replacing the battery, 6 months later it happens again. So the dealership "diagnosed" the XK for a week, just to come up with a 100$ computer flash, fixing it for all of 1 day. By the time it gets back to the dealership, it starts right up and they couldn't replicate it, sending me on my way. Fast forward a few months and it happens again, but the dealership won't look at it for 6 days and will still charge 150$ just to look at it. So I took it to my buddy's mechanic and they had to replace a few front modules. This was a 1300$ fix, but the warranty kept me from losing my a**. Now around 8 months later, its happening again, while staying inconsistent enough to diagnose. Coming up on 60,000mi and needing 285's in the coming months, I had to decide whether to trade in now, or try and run it to 100,00mi+. I really love the XK, as it was my first vehicle, and got me out wrenching and upgrading like a shade-tree mechanic. The main issue, is I was unaware of the different 4wheel drive systems when it was purchased. Over the years I have realized that the QT-I system is great for "gun it and run it" mudding, but just can't keep up when the group starts crawling on some rocks. I had always intended to do a T-case swap, but with the intermittent electrical gremlins, I'm not too keen on dumping anymore money into it. This forum has been a great resource for parts, info, and a few good laughs, ever since the xk-forum days, it really gave me the confidence to dive in and start wrenchin'. I'll be sure to hang around the forums, and keep my garage updated with my next rig. I plan on parting out a lot, sadly, I had finally got everything together to swap to 3.73's, so hopefully another v6 can take advantage of this. I'll be starting a for sale thread soon, but I have also updated my first post in this thread with what's for sale as of now. I'm not sure as to what vehicle I'll be swapping for, but I'm leaning toward a smaller type 4x4 truck, like a Toyota Tacoma or Nissan Frontier.
