American buys three Jeep Wranglers for less than $5,500 and discovers the truth about how bad they are

This American bought three Jeep Wranglers for less than $5,500 – and quickly discovered how bad they were.

Youtuber Ultimate Rebuilds picked himself up a few Wranglers, hoping to use some for parts for a future project.

But once he got a closer look at them, he began to understand why he got them so cheap.

Were they salvageable or beyond hope?

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Why were these Jeep Wranglers so bad?

When buying cars that are in bad shape, you have to go in with managed expectations.

Whatever the end goal is, you have to prepare yourself for a car that has truly been put through the ringer.

Whether its a Cadillac CTS, a Porsche Panamera S, or even a Tesla Model 3, it’s no small feat to bring a car back to life.

In the case of Zach, the host of Ultimate Rebuilds, he’d bought three Jeeps for under $5,500.

The intention wasn’t to get them all out on the road, he was only looking to use parts from some of them in future projects.

Still, he was curious to see how they were holding up.

The first Wrangler was from 1998, and it was listed as having been driven 212,800 miles.

It only cost $650 – would this be $650 well spent?

Given that the host described it as a ‘very terrible rust bucket’, it didn’t look too promising.

“There is rust pretty much everywhere on this thing.

“It’s starting to fold in on itself. It’s pretty much unsavable,” he commented.

The Jeep had apparently been sitting for over a year, and was unable to go higher than second gear when in motion.

Things were looking a lot better with the next Wrangler, which was the 2006 model.

Was this $5,500 well spent?

The 2006 Wrangler had been knocked from $9,500 down to $3,500.

Over $10k had been pumped into this Jeep by its previous owner, and it showed.

Besides some surface rust on the fenders, it appeared to be in great shape.

There was just one problem – it wasn’t running.

“Assuming the worse, we thought ‘Motor’s blown’, so for $3,500 we could justify putting a new motor in this thing,” Zach said.

Loose wires in the starter were identified as being behind the issue.

And how bad was the third Jeep?

The 2002 4.0 cost $1,800 and needed some basic maintenance before it could start running again.

“The major issue with is that there’s rust on it, so we’ll have to fix that pretty soon.

“I have to say, this Jeep has been running great. It’s been really fun to drive,” Zach said.

At least that one could be saved.

So two out of three isn’t bad going in our books, especially considering the third one can still be used for parts.

To see a breakdown on these three Wranglers for yourself, head over to Ultimate Rebuilds’ YouTube channel.

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