Jimny owner, new here

Hi there.

I live in a rural area in Europe. my house is on a mountain and the road to it has a steep incline (15 to 25%). So when I moved here it was pretty obvious: the need for a 4x4 car. I saw a Jimny for sale at a garage, so I bought it.

The Jimny is from 2011 and was imported from Germany. It was taken apart, stripped from all rust and repainted (that convinced me). the colour is black and grey raptor paint. now a good 18 months later I am still happy with the car, despite a few issues arose:
- the disc brakes were of a miserable quality and were causing vibration. they had to be replaced
- first one ignition coil broke, a few months after fixing the other coil broke. the local garage repaired it and installed new spark plugs as well
- the left front wheel swivel started leaking, a 4x4 garage here helped me to fix it, seals and bearing were replaced and both swivels were repainted 
- the exhaust started to rattle, it was related to the towbar and the very limited space. i fixed it with some metal tiewrap and removing a rubber bumper on the towbar
- after the ignition problem the cat threw a P0420 error twice after a while of driving. i am still observing this

recently i did an oil change myself and did an engine flush with liqui moly. it seemed the sensible idea given its age and km's (176.000). a lot of sludge came free and the car operates with more joy since then.

some future plans:
make the towbar detachable again. it is stuck and needs tlc
get the starter motor out and give it an overhaul. when cold the starting is slow (despite new ignition and clean injectors).
install a proper lift kit - 2inch. it is now achieved with rubber spacers
install a diff lock at the rear.


 

Hi and welcome onboard.

Sounds like you are already a Jimny Pro with all of the things you have done to yours and it looks really good in the photo. I really like the snow chains, in fact envious you live somewhere where you can actually use them.

The rubber exhaust mounts sag after a while and there is so little space between the bottom of the exhaust back box and the tow bar that they do tend to hit. Mine did the same thing now and again and I mounted some high temperature rubber on the tow bar to act as a 'bump stop', but your metal tiewrap will work just as well.

Keep dropping by and post more pictures of your Jimny up your mountain, we always like to see them.

Robin

Hi and Welcome,

My exhaust also eventually hit the towbar, bottom as Robin's did.  I put large cable ties around the hanger rubbers to limit drooping, but eventually got a custom silencer made (smaller), hits no more.

I got already rubbers to install. but i was not looking forward to it. so i did a quick and ditry fix meanwhile.
One of the hangers was bend, the rubber is jammed between hanger and frame, i need to bend it back. the other rubber is somewhere above the muffler, I hope i don't need to remove the rear bumper to get to it.

Where did you get the smaller silencer, i think this is one of the options too.

Today I had some spare time and looked at the way to get to the exhaust hanger above the muffler. I looked from all angles and then I spotted something. Behind the number plate some paint started to peel off. i took the plate of and found that the plastic had melted:-) I can only image that the rubbers were so worn that during steep inclines the muffler touched the plastic.
anyways, it was a nice and big enough opening to get to the rubber. I managed to squeeze a new rubber on, also installed new rubbers on the other hangers. it all is hanging properly now, without metal tie wraps.

i now need to look for a piece of thin sheet metal or so to cover the hole;-)

 

Nah, that's an "inspection port".  You also get them in engines that have thrown a rod

I agree, tidy that hole inspection port up and it's a handy addition.
As well as the top hanger rubber stretching over time, eventually the silencer top hanger bracket cracked, all this lowering the silencer onto my towbar with a consequential rattle, drove me mad!
The Suzuki silencer is a big heavy lump in a small space, so once cracked I had an exhaust company make me a smaller silencer....
Sorry not an off the shelf item, but also not that expensive considering it was hand made and has a lifetime warranty.
 
Like all modifications the Jimny was instantly 100mph faster, simply as it removed 200kg of dead weight. But more importantly that rear end rattle had gone, so now I could enjoy all the other front end rattles as before 

 

what about the condition of the disc brakes ? if its bent or out of balanced but with an overall good thickness you could lathe it and get more miles out of them, i've done this before because the car started shaking when i brake and it fixed the problem