While I was whooping it up with my family (can you believe my sister's new house was only a 25 minute drive from the Lenoir City Chrysler Jeep dealership where we landed after the breakdown??), Rouse was dealing with the uncomfortable fact that we were stranded with a dead car, a loaded camper trailer, and plenty of grand plans waiting to come to fruition in Colorado. We needed a diagnosis, but were told the diesel mechanic would not be in until Monday. Our first stroke of "luck" happened when said mechanic stopped in on his day off to take a look ... to give us some idea of the seriousness of the problem.
The news was not good. We had blown the high pressure fuel pump on our 2014 Grand Cherokee Eco Diesel engine. Of course, it would have to be replaced, along with all the lines of the high pressure fuel system... not an easy job because that's all buried beneath a bunch of other motor parts. The timing would have to be redone. The diesel fuel that had spewed everywhere would have to be cleaned. All this added up to a day and a half of labor. There was no time on the schedule until Tuesday. The parts were not readily available and would have to be ordered from Atlanta. The price tag was estimated at $5,000.
What to do? What to do? Should we leave everything, rent a car and drive home, returning after the car was repaired? Find a rental vehicle that was capable of towing the camper trailer, leave the failed jeep behind and carry on? Leave everything behind and fly to Denver from Knoxville?! We did not want to give up on our Colorado plans. There was no quick or inexpensive fix. No obvious solution. There was, however, an outrageous one. Trade the dead car for a new one.
Hours later, we were the proud, if not exhausted, owners of a 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Unbelievably similar to the one we left behind, this one is charcoal gray and does not have a diesel engine. It was 7:30pm when we drove it off the lot, Little Guy Max trailing along.
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