recently sold my 2004 escalade and picked up this 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the Mercedes 3.0l v6 common rail turbo diesel. I’ve owned 3 other Grand Cherokee’s in the past and always loved them for a daily driver as well as they are great for exploring all over Oregon. My Escalade was a really good suv, never gave me any real grief it was just time for a change. Before the Escalade I owned a 99 Grand Cherokee for a couple of years but grew tired of the 4.7l it had as well as some of the issues it had so I sold it and bought the Escalade.

plans for the Jeep are a small lift, some 32” all terrains on 18” jk wrangler wheels. All led lighting, upgrading the sound system and possibly some deletes and tuning it.

my first tank of gas I averaged 21mpg which was actually better then what the fuel economy meter was displaying. Always been huge on fuel economy even though it doesn’t matter all that much to me anymore as fuel is so cheap right now and I’m in a better place financially then I was a few years ago.

I got the Jeep for what I feel like was a steal with 186k miles on it but overall the body and paint is in excellent condition. Had a few cels when I first got it but I was able to fix all but one so far. It was throwing a u0106 for failure to communicate with the glow plug control module, turned out to be a bad ground which ive since fixed. Also threw a p0674 and p0675, for cylinders 4 & 5 glow plugs. Put two new glow plugs in but it’s still throwing a p0675 for cylinder 5 so I need to troubleshoot that soon. Also had a code for difference in exhaust gas pressure but after about 45 minutes of driving I was able to clear that and it hasn’t came back since. On the first test drive it felt like it was down about 100hp but I think the dpf or cat was clogged up and driving it cleared it out. I also changed the oil to mobile 1 esp diesel oil, new oil filter and cleaned the k&n air filter which picked up allot of power as well as cool turbo noises after. I’ll keep this thread updated as I progress on the project. I still need to do some more research on tuning options. I would really love to find a tuning solution that I could do myself instead of paying for a canned tune. I enjoy learning about the process by doing stuff myself and this is my first turbo diesel so it will definitely have a bit of a learning curve but I appreciate the challenge.






also the Jeep came with a set of snow tires on these raceline wheels I sold already.


the Jk wheels I bought for it. Will be installed next week once the lift comes in.

 

My mother had a 2007 GC with the 3.7 V6 in that same color, it was a great vehicle. The interiors are kind dull but that thing never had a problem in the snow at all.

The Diesels are a rare bunch, not many of those around.

 

Yeah my Escalade was a bit more luscious but the Jeep has some cool features in it like rain sensing wipers and auto high beam headlights. I’m excited to throw the lift on it next week when it comes in.

 

My lift came in today at about 6 pm. I threw the front clevis’s on the strut or strut fork as I’ve always called them. The rear isn’t lifted yet but sits roughly 1/2” lower then the front does due to the Monroe ad a spring shocks in the back. Install was pretty straight forward, had to have a buddy put weight on the hubs to get the lcas low enough to fit the forks back onto the lca. Also I noticed a very small amount of positive camber so I’m gonna work on aligning it myself and do a string alignment for the tow. I got lucky and the jk Sahara wheels all had good working tpms sensors in them. I also ordered some 1.5” hubcentric spacers for it as the front upper ball joint studd is super close to the tire. Hasn’t rubbed yet but I still don’t like having like 1/8”-1/4” gap from that to the tire lol. Also my buddy tinted the front two windows to match the rear. He’s gonna do my s10 as well I told him I would tune his turbo civic for tinting both my rigs which seemed like a win win for both of us.

 

I went wheeling this weekend and saw a stock jeep liberty being flogged through mud holes. Now I want to see this bad boy in the dirt.

 

Honestly it’s pretty amazing what some of the stock smaller 4x4’s can go through without getting stuck. Like geo trackers, Jeep libertys and samurais will just go through **** without even trying, meanwhile guys with fords on 38’s are breaking **** or getting stuck lol.

its been a while since I went wheeling. Last time was in my 00 Jeep Wrangler I had with a small lift, open diffs on 33x12.5s when I was like 24-25 years old. I had a tree out in front of my last house that was probably about 2’ around and slightly leaned over from growing its roots under the sidewalk and I was able to get my front tire on the Jeep about chest height just climbing it in 4lo lol.

this Jeep is Quadra drive 2 which has electronic limited slip diffs front and rear, I’m pretty sure even with all terrains on it it will go places that I wouldn’t wanna take it lol.

 

my inch and a half wheel spacers came in today so I threw those on. No more rubbing on the inside at full lock. Also trimmed up the front splitter, cut about 2” off of it and I really like the look of it back on. Used hptuners to reset the transmission adaptives and that seemed to make a big difference since I put the larger tires on it. Last tank I averaged 20.4mpg calculated from the odo and a fill up. The fuel economy display was showing 18.4. I might have my Honda Insight sold this Friday if I do I’ll use that money to pay off my PayPal balance and probably order a green diesel tune for the Jeep.

 

Looks good. Didn't know they had the electronic diffs like that.

 

I ought to ship my Buick and Toyota up to Oregon bad have you sell them for me 😂

 

People love their Toyota’s up here. The Honda/ Toyota market is pretty crazy. The Buick you’d probably have to exchange for scrap to get anything out of it up here though lol.

and yeah the diffs are pretty rad in this Jeep. Can’t wait to test it out somewhere. My last Quadra drive 99 grand Cherokee drove in deep snow about as well as it drove on the normal road it was crazy.