Will Our $800 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Make It to Moab? | Part 1

Last fall, I . After months of wrenching, in March, I drove with my coworker Andrew Collins on a grand journey from near Detroit, Michigan to the off-road trails of Moab, Utah. Here’s video of that trip’s —the Jeep’s first highway voyage in over a decade.

To be honest, I thought this trip was doomed from the start. I hadn’t driven the Grand Wagoneer, dubbed , more than about one mile since purchasing it, and yet, I was tasked with taking it on a 1,700 mile (one way!) trip that included off-roading.

As you can see in the video, the , I had to delay the trip by two days. I had a leaky front caliper, which was brand new, I broke both rear brake lines, and the rear brake hardware was off by just a bit, causing the adjuster screw to bind with a spring. After being unable to find a part that worked, I just .

This first leg of the trip represented the first real test of all the wrenching my friends and I had done over the winter; had we ironed out all the bugs, or was this thing going to flounder? If you followed our series earlier, you’d know that , even in the snow, thanks to solid junkyard-sourced Michelin tires and .

But in part two of this three-part series, things won’t go so hot. Actually, , and that’s the problem.