2002 Jeep Liberty Limited review from North America

For the first 2 years, we loved this car. It was comfortable and felt pretty safe. Definitely was more powerful than our previous CR-V which was a big plus. No major problems to report then.

Around 2 years we started having some electrical problems - one power door lock failed and the clock got out of whack. They replaced them.

At about 30,000 miles we had a tune-up which ended up costing over $2200 which shocked us.

After the 3yr/36,000 mile warranty expired the car rapidly started to have a lot of problems - especially with the electrical. 2 more locks failed (we were told that "these things happen." One of the ones that failed was one that was previously replaced! Then the speedometer started failing. It would just stop for no reason and then fluctuate wildly and then stop again. We took it in and they couldn't find any problems. On the way home from the service dealer, the speedometer stopped working again!

The most serious problem was that twice the steering wheel locked when going around a curve. The first time I was able to break (and avoid slamming into a curb). I restarted the car and it was fine. We took it in for service and they couldn't find anything wrong. Not long after we had it back it happened again. This time, I lost not only steering, but breaking and was going down a hill with a stoplight at the base. Thankfully there was no one ahead of me and the light was green because I could not stop and kept going through. When I finally stopped by pulling onto a side street and coasting upwards, I stopped the car and it restarted with no problem. Again, we took it in for service and again they could find nothing wrong (after another $500 of diagnostic tests!!!).

It was at that point that I said we were getting rid of it and we quickly traded it in for a BMW X3 which is a world of difference and feels far safer.

We loved the style and felt it was very comfortable. For a smaller SUV, it had a lot of cargo space, especially with the rear seats down. Were it not for the poor quality that started to become evident and the serious safety issues we faced, we would have been more than happy to keep it longer.

Other issues we had with this car though were that the breaking never seemed that tight from the start. We stupidly did not get ABS (it was an option) and even though we kept the Liberty in 4x4 mode all the time, it would slide even on wet leaves and road surfaces! It was lousy in the snow and ice. You definitely need snow tires with this car.

Finally the car turned out to be much more of a gas guzzler than the EPA posted mileage. I never figured it out but we were filling up weekly with 25 mile RT daily commutes and low weekend driving.