Project "Steal J" - 1997 Jeep Wrangler TJ - Part 1

The Purchase

I pulled up to the guy's apartment to find the Jeep had been pushed out of its one-stall garage. He never put the top up, so the interior was incredibly filthy and the carpet had more life growing in it than most New York ponds. The rear diff plug had come out, and the vehicle had been driven without fluid until the bearings and ring and pinion toasted. He and his friends pushed it up the hill into the garage where it had sat for three months until he decided to sell it.

The battery was dead, so we had to jump start it to hear it run. It ran, the auto tranny didn't leak, and the AC didn't seem to work, but it was a cheap TJ and I didn't care. He said he really didn't want to be unfair to the other buyers, but changed his tune when he saw the wad of cash. I paid him his money, he signed over the title, and then even offered to help me push it onto my trailer. I laughed, put it in four-wheel drive, and drove it up onto the trailer on the front axle. He shot me an amazed open-mouthed look, as if to say how did you do that? As I finished strapping it down, he asked about his cold meds, which I hadn't bothered to pick up.
I hope there's no such thing as karma.

The Aftermath

After getting it home, I grabbed a spare battery and threw it in, fired the Jeep up, and drove it up to my garage for a closer inspection. Even with about 115,000 miles on the clock there didn't seem to be any exhaust leaks, there wasn't any tranny or engine oil leaking, and the oil pressure was 25 psi at idle. The Jeep has four-wheel ABS, which is a bummer, but it has every factory option and looked like it had been professionally maintained with new brakes and a recent tune up. It was just insanely dirty and nasty.

It was as I contemplated whether to replace the carpet or do a spray-on liner in the interior that I noticed a cell phone on the passenger floor under a pile of dead leaves. It turns out the feverish seller dropped his work-issued $400 phone without noticing. It briefly flashed through my brain that I could charge him a couple of hundred for its safe return, but figuring I'd tempted fate enough for one day, I called him and offered to meet him at a mall near his house to return the phone.

My wife, son, and I headed down to meet him. I spotted him and drove over to give him the phone. As he looked through the window of the $40,000 SUV (not the dilapidated minivan), past my pert and pretty wife (not the frail, sickly creature I had described), I saw that same amazed open-mouth look come across his face as when I loaded the broken Jeep on the trailer under its own power.
I hope there's no such thing as karma.