It is goog that the Liberty CRD is getting the attention that it deserves

The reviewer did more reading than driving with that article. I often wonder about some of those reviews.

We traded our 2001 Wrangler Sport for a 2006 Jeep Liberty Sport Diesel three weeks ago. The diesel is just superb with an excellent fit and finish. It is a fine solid vehicle. My wife and all 4 kids, especially the girls, love it. Our son was impressed and he drives a Subaru Impreza.

The fuel mileage is excellent, in the 20's with the latest at 22 for city driving. We were told it will get better up to 10K miles. I use the Power Kleen additive with each fill-up at the recommendation of the DC diesel mechanic .

Inside space is just fine. There is plenty of room inside with no cramping at all and I weigh 240 lbs and am 6 feet tall. My wife and girls have no problem driving it and love it, too, as do the girl's friends.

The diesel has loads of power and will put you back in the seat if you chomp down on it off the line. It is surprising. The speed is deceptive and we have to watch it. It turns maybe 1800 rpm at 65 mph. The engine reminded us so much of the 4.0L in that regard except is doesn't require a downshift on a hill and is barely phased by grades.

As far as "aged" running gear, how would he know?
As for a rough ride, it is not bad at all and afterall the car is a a Jeep. Like I said, I don't think the writer did alot of work on his article. .

We find the Diesel Liberty is quite comfortable in both city and highway driving, is easy to handle, and runs like a mountain goat in bad weather which is heavy rain and high water for us. In fact, in normal highway
driving it is even better than our Wrangler in heavy rain.

The Diesel comes with the 5-spd automatic 545RFE Jeep tranny and Command-Trac which has both the Wrangler style 4wd (Select-Trac) plus the Command-Trac fulltime 4wd. We've used both and they work fine. The all-the-time handles wonderfully.

We've only used the 4L mechanism only for a moment.
When I commit to that much for a vehicle I am reluctant to overdo it on the trail.

It has a 20.5 gallon tank and we've pushed it to 400 miles before a fill-up but I normally don't like to go
below a 1/4 tank.

The only disappointment was finding out it cost $160 for an extra key, $119 for the blank and another $42 to program it. We stayed with 2 keys.

I plan on having a 55 gallon drum or two at home with a bio-diesel mix as a reserve for the horrible gas lines after Katrina in our part of the US. Haven't done that as yet.

There was a $2500 rebate on the Liberty Diesel and an additional $1000 for using DC financing. I work for IBM and also got their discount so we got over $5K off the sticker price. Nevertheless, no one gets a great deal on a car because of depreciation. It's just a part of living in our society so find quality and durability
and enjoy it.

And, yes, the diesel would be phenomenal in a Wrangler. But with the soft top we had it would have been real noisy.

The Liberty Diesel is not noisy at all except if real cold at start-up. In normal driving you can hear the rattle and rumble of the engine but it is not obnoxious at all.

We've never had any overpowering fumes or sooty clouds of exhaust. The engine has counter-
balancing shafts in it and is smooth. It is VM's R418 DOHC engine, a beefed up version of their R425.

The engine compartment is well laid out and industrial strength in appearance. The plastic cover is easy to remove.

We don't know what DC fixed for the 2006 Liberty Diesel over the 2005 but the second year of new
production models is always better.

We live in a relatively small town so our diesel options are more limited but found the local Super Wal-Mart Murhpy Oil is just fine. You can use a card and it is
conventional with decent fuel volume.

So, I hope this is helpful to others considering the Liberty Diesel. Make sure your car manual covers the
diesel as we had to wait 2 weeks for ours to arrive.