YouTuber Cleetus McFarland Nearly Becomes Trackhawk Prey
While looking for a Jeep Trackhawk to repair as a daily driver, McFarland stumbles upon a gem with flaws hidden prior to auction.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk throws tons of performance on top of the luxury SUV, all coming from the 6.2-liter supercharged V8 making 707 horses and 645 lb-ft of torque off the line.
It also comes with a hefty price tag of $86,900, and that’s before adding various packages that push the base MSRP to nearly $100,000. Thus, it’s always wonderful to find a deal on a Trackhawk, no matter its state. YouTuber Cleetus McFarland thought he found such a deal, but soon learned its looks were very deceiving.
“Last year, I purchased a Corvette C6 through an online auction website, bought it sight unseen for $10,000,” said McFarland. “When we showed up to pick up the car, the Corvette’s standard [6.0-liter] LS engine that was supposed to be in the car was gone. In its place was a 5.3-liter truck engine from the junkyard. Thanks to some clever photo-taking, there was no way for me to tell without seeing the car in person.”
Thus, McFarland was playing it safe when his viewers voted for him to buy a Trailhawk for his daily driver. His plan was to find a “lightly wrecked one and repair it on the channel,” paying thousands less on the transaction than simply heading to his nearest Jeep dealership, then spending a couple of weeks fixing it up in between working on his go-kart Corvette and other projects.
“Unfortunately for this Jeep Trackhawk, that is simply not the case,” McFarland said. “By searching the VIN number, we revealed some photos of this Jeep one month ago looking far worse than it is in these updated photos on Copart.”
The wrecked Trackhawk originally sold for $35,000 in an insurance auction, according to McFarland. The owner then threw some fenders and a hood over the severely wrecked SUV, then sent it back to Copart “looking a lot easier to repair.” To be sure if the Jeep was worth the thousands of dollars in repairs, he and a friend flew out to Newburgh, New York to see the busted machine in person.
Once on the lot, McFarland and his friends walk over to the Trackhawk, already spotting several flaws with the hood and fenders, including the fitment between the driver’s side door and fender. It’s not a good look to say the least.
The Trackhawk looks even worse once McFarland looks at the engine and suspension components. The driver’s side shock is broken in half like a toothpick, there’s corrosion on the engine pieces due to being outside without a hood to protect them.
“We did some research, and we kind of thought this would be promising,” said McFarland, “because we were gonna do the work to fix it… if it was cheap enough, we were gonna try and do it. The problem is there’s so much more damage than what you see online.”
He and crew estimated it would take an additional $20,000 on top of the auction price to repair the Trackhawk to be better than new. And yet, while he passed on this disaster, someone won the whole thing for a little over $46,000. Let us all hope he finds a Trackhawk that won’t break the bank, whether off the used lot, or another insurance auction.
Photos: Cleetus McFarland screenshots
Join the JK-Forums now!
