In late 2002, the lease on my 1996 Nissan Pathfinder LE was coming to its end.  I was going to buy that truck out at the end of the lease, since I really did love that truck, but the finance company did not want to budge on the buyout price.  So, I decided it was time to start looking for something to replace it.  A car was out of the question, since before the Pathfinder I had a 1996 Chevy Monte Carlo that, I swear - I hated with a passion.  In the two years I had that car, I don't think I was ever able to pull into a parking space once with it.  Before the Monte Carlo I had an 84 S-10 Blazer with the 2.8L V6.  Drove that thing till it had 300K miles on the clock when it met an untimely death due to a cracked block while driving home from Atlantic City one night.

Did some searching of used car inventories online and came across several Grand Cherokees that looked promising.  I had always liked the Grand Cherokees, and it seemed the market was flooded with them at the time because the new GC's were coming out.  Truth be told, I really wanted a Jeep Wrangler, but hauling my hockey equipment in one just wasn't feasible, so the Grand Cherokee was the right choice.  Grabbed my friend to come with me to look at a few, and wound up taking this 2000 Grand Cherokee Laredo for a test drive.  Clean as clean could be, this thing drove really smooth.  When the dealer said they'd pay my lease mile overage AND my last two months lease payments, it was a done deal.  (No, they didn't work it into the lease somehow.  Flat off the price of the Jeep.)  Best move I ever made was buying this Jeep.

Here's what the Jeep looked like stock when I bought it.  Stone White Clear Coat outside, Tan leather interior, SelecTrac 4wd, and a 4.0L L6 engine.  There wasn't a single ding on the outside, or a single stain in the interior.  Mechanically, she was quite perfect.  Notice i call the Jeep a she.  When it's cold out, she gets cranky.  When she's neglected, she gets cranky.  Tell my that's not a femal if there ever was!  I did add the hood deflector and ventvisors after buying the Jeep, courtesy of my friends for my birthday or Christmas that year.  Makes me wonder if I have more redneck in me than I care to admit, since I was happy to get truck parts as gifts.  (Maybe I can register at at the off-road stores when I get married?  Nah, prolly not.)  This picture was actually taken the morning I dropped the truck off to have the lift installed.  So I guess this is a good time to talk about the lift.

I didn't want anything too crazy, since this is a daily driver, so I started doing some research and settled on a 2" suspension lift from Old Man Emu.  OME is actually the suspension division of ARB Off-Road, which anyone who knows anything about 4x4's knows that ARB is well-respected.  New coils and shocks, along with larger tires netted me a little over 2" of lift without altering the ride much at all.  Now, one might ask why I decided on only 2".  The answer to that is pretty simple actually.  The magic number with Jeeps is 4".  The closer you get to 4", the more likely you're going to have to spend more money to change the drivetrain somehow, either lengthening the drive shafts, adding new control arms or track bars, dropping the transfer case...as you can see, it adds up.  2" lifts are a good compromise, adding just a bit more clearance, while at the same time being pretty cost effective.  Why not go with a budget boost?  Well, I figured if I was going to do this, I wanted to do it right.  Not to say that a budget boost (aka coil spacers) is bad in any way, but planning for the future made me think twice about doing that first.  See, you can always add a budget boost later on top of the OME lift, so my logic was simply just get the bigger expense out of the way (that being new coils) while I could afford that.

So what was the end result?

Here's a kinda bad side-by-side pic with a random Jeep in the parking lot at the old office.  From this angle, you can't really see a difference.  I honestly think that this other Jeep might have an UpCountry suspension, which is Jeep's factory lift option.  Adding bigger springs, UpCountry adds a whopping 1" of lift to the factory suspension.  Okay, let me admit that after getting the lift installed, I turned into an uber dork, parking next to Grand Cherokees as much as possible trying to show it off.  Only proved to be worthwhile once, when the other owner saw me and asked why my Jeep sat so much higher than his.  Aha!  The moment I had been waiting for!  My response: "Keep feeding your Jeep it's vitamins and it might grow up to be big and strong like mine."  Yeah, I know.  Total dipshit.  Sometimes I annoy even myself and wonder what the hell I'm doing / thinking.

Here's a better picture that shows the difference a bit more.  Sadly, this pic was about 2 years after I got the lift installed, so the dorkism still rears its ugly head now and then.  But, this makes the appearance of the lift that much more obvious.  Is it a worthwhile modification?  Well, let me put it to you like this: If you drive a lot in the snow, or if you go off road, then yes.  If you're looking to make the Jeep look more aggressive, save the money and get a budget boost instead of the full coils.  I will warn you that the ride does stiffen up a bit, and you're going to lose some gas mileage, especially if you put bigger off-road tires on.  I know that's a big deal to some people, so it bears mentioning.  My personal opinion is this is the height and look that Grand Cherokees should have from the factory, so I think this is one of the best things I've ever done.  Would I do it again?  Prolly not.  I probably would have waited another year and saved up to get the 4" lift put on, but then I would have had to hear everyone bitch about getting in and out.  (My family...all short.  Go figure.)  Now, here's a free tip from your Uncle Apeman: If you get aftermarket shocks put on your Grand Cherokee, GET NEW BOLTS TO MOUNT THEM.  See, the factory shocks use a tapered bolt and bushing, but aftermarket shocks don't.  This means the tapered factory bolt has wiggle room in the shock bushing, and you'll hear that wiggle over every bump on the form of a very hollow thump.  This is a "mod" I wish I had done when I had the shocks mounted, and I recently had this fixed.  The new bolts can be had from just about any hardware store, but I ordered mine from McMaster-Carr.  The bolts are 12mm by 70mm with a 1.75 pitch.  You will likely need 12 mm washers for the bolt side as well, so pick them up while you're at it.  $10 in hardware will save you a big headache trying to figure out where the damn noise is coming from.  You'll get used to it after a year or so, but why should you have to?  Stupid Jeep engineers and their funky bolts!

Now's as good a time as any to talk about the safari bar, since you saw it in the pic above.  I dated a girl who went nuts and decided she had to move to Virginia to go to school to be a vet.  Silly me thought a long-distance thing would work, so I was driving to Bumblefuck West, Virginia once a month to see her.  (Actually, it was Blacksburg, for those that actually care.)  All those highway miles weren't too bad, but the country bumpkin back roads were hell.  (That's also why those deer whistle things are on there.  Jury's still out on those, but I think they're snake oil.)  So, since the factory fog lights are pretty much junk, I was looking into options to add some additional lights to the front end.  That idea stuck in my head long after the relationship fell apart, and eventually I settled on a Westin Safari Bar.  I mainly chose this over a brush guard because I could keep my front tow hooks with it, plus I always liked the look even back when I had my Blazer.  Installation was a breeze once I realized that the plastic studs in the mounting hole broke off and I had to get the shaft of the studs out.  An hour putzing around with that raised the blood pressure quite a bit, but after a beer or two, things smoothed out.  The lights came about a week later - PIAA Ion Yellow 520's.  These puppies throw 80w of light each out, and the Ion Yellow is no bullshit - it really does cut through rain and snow well.  On clear nights, it helps bring out the contrast of bumps in the road pretty well too, so they were a good choice.  Word to the wise though - aim them well.  The first week I had them, they were aimed a bit too high, and I was getting a lot of high beam flashes from other drivers.  In addition, I also upgraded the wiring for the headlights, and added 100w Fahrenheit high beam bulbs and currently PIAA low beam bulbs.  I had Fahrenheit 85w low beams in and liked them, but they're hard to find anymore, so I needed a more viable replacement.  If you've got stock wiring, I'd recommend Sylvania SilverStars.  I ran those after the Fahrenheit bulbs and was happy with those.  Once they blew out, I got a hookup on the PIAA's and now I'm hooked.  Sadly, these also bring the flashes from other drivers, despite being aimed well.  This summer though, I will be having a full retrofit by Todd at Retro Solutions done to add HID projectors and low beams to the truck, which should turn some heads while providing some more LEGAL light to the road at night.  I'll be sure to get new pics up after that one.  I've also recently converted all my exterior bulbs to LED, which I'll have a write-up on soon.  When the weather gets warmer, I'll add a write-up on the engine mods (Cold Air Induction kit, 62mm bored throttle body, Gibson exhaust) and maybe even some other pics just for fun.