Faults:
When I first bought the vehicle everything ran great. I had been looking into a pre-owned car and decided to buy my fathers 1999 Isuzu trooper because it had minimal problems in the past and was well taken care of.
Everything seemed great with the car aside from the massive oil consumption (which from research on the troopers I noticed that it was a common complaint from other owners as well.)
After about 85,000 miles with regular scheduled oil changes, tune ups, etc I started having problem after problem.
First, the axle and the brakes went out at the same time. When I took it to the shop to have it fixed I was left with close to a $3000 bill.
About two weeks after that labor was completed I was driving back from a friends house when I heard a loud noise and my car completely shut down. After having it towed the dealership told me that it would need a new engine. When I started looking for a used or re-manufactured engine I realized that I was not going to be able to find a used one that was under $3,000 or a re-manufactured for under about $5,000. That's not even including the $2000 to put the engine into the car. I decided to bite the bullet and just fix the car because I was still making payments on it.
I found a 50,000 mile engine for about $3,000 so I purchased it. The engine was sent to the dealership and they put it in the car (after they fixed all of the other problems on the "New" used engine that I had purchased.)
After everything was fixed I was ecstatic to finally be able to drive my truck again. No more than 24 hours after I had picked the truck up from the shop anti-freeze started leaking. The next day I took it back to the dealership and they informed me that I would need to replace the radiator (that cost about $500.) So I replaced it. After my truck was in the shop for a few more days I picked it back up.
Happy that my car problems were finally over I continued to drive my car for about two weeks when I was driving one day and my car started making a loud noise, so I had it towed to the dealership again. After they took a look at the truck again they informed me that I would need yet another engine.
Long comes to short I have a useless 1999 playground in my back yard and I was forced to buy a 1992 Buick until I figure out what to do with the Trooper. I would not recommend that anyone looking for a pre-owned SUV even consider purchasing a 1999 Trooper.
15th Jan 2006, 22:14
Did you ever learn what caused both of the engines to quit? Having the axles and brakes rebuilt around 85,000 miles isn't really unreasonable. However, paying $3,000 to have that done IS unreasonable. I think that's about double what it should have been. Too bad you got sucked in deeper--in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. I can see wanting to pay for a new engine in order to get your money's worth from the freshly rebuilt axles, but again, $5,000 for a remanufactured engine, plus another $2,000 to install it--totally ridiculous! You should have been able to get a remanufactured engine for $3,000, or could have gotten yours rebuilt for about $1,000. You should have pulled the plug at that point, regardless of the new axles. It seems that whoever your mechanic was liked to charge about exactly double what he should have.