Since we mostly talk about problems on this forum I thought I'd put in a good word for my D1.

I have a 96 Jeep Grand Cherokee with full time 4wd which I drive to the boat house and pull off perpendicular to the road down a little gravel/dirt bank to park and turn around, and often it will spin a rear tire on the road when climbing back up the bank slowly and needs a little punch to back out without spinning. The Disco, on the other hand, will back up the same bank at any speed without any wheel slip just as smooth and easy as you please.

The Jeep does have 100,000 more miles on it than the Disco, but I suspect it is more a design difference than an age difference and it makes me appreciate the good aspects of the Disco which I am sure I'll appreciate even more if and when I can get it to shift into dif lock or low range.

 

Yeah, that's not surprising.

I remember one year during a particularly bad snow storm my wife put our 95 Grand Cherokee (only ours had Select Trac with the center locking diff) deep into a snow bank over an embankment into a field a few miles from our house. Only thing I had at the time that was driveable (I don't drive the Disco in the winter here to avoid salt). I took two chains and a strap with me.

I looked at how she had it down there and I thought, no way in heck was I going to retrive that out w/o a tractor or something. We're talking 30 or 40 ft off the road sitting on top of 2' of snow ..I don't think the tires were even on solid ground. Plus it was a good 12' or more below road level over the embankment. The road was still iced over too, not clear. But for the heck of it, I hooked it all up to her receiver hitch and the Disco was on snow/ice road with I think one tire on dry pavement. I had my wife in her car in reverse. Low and behold if I didn't manage to yank that Jeep out with nary a wheel spin. One fell swoop. I was amazed. I've pulled out a lot of cars and trucks from snowbanks and been stuck in a few myself over the years. But I became a L/R believer that day. We still talk about that day.

BTW, I've had great luck with my Disco. Problem is, most people buy these rigs with 130k on them and a whole crapload of deferred maintenance. Yes they have some funky engineering anyway, but once I got most of the crap fixed that shoulda been fixed years ago, I've had a lot of fun with it.