I recently decided that I was no longer going to pay someone to tune up my Jeep. The cost is always pretty high and I used to do my own tune-ups in college.
My first tune-ups were done in the days of points and condensors. In addition to changing the spark plugs (and possibly the ignition wires), the distributor cap and rotor, the air filter, PCV valve and fuel filter, you also had to swap out the points and condensor, set the point gap and adjust the ignition timing. Sounds scary at first, but it can be mastered in a few hours. There's no diagnosis involved. Just swapping parts and doing a few adjustments which were well-documented in many self-service guidebooks.
When cars with electronic ignition systems became common, the points and condensor disappeared. Not much of a change, but at least you didn't have to gap the points.
Nearly twenty years later I'm about to tune up my '01 Jeep Wrangler. I discover that it has distributorless ignition (which I just learned about yesterday), no ignition wires and no PCV system. It's also got a long-life fuel filter which supposedly never needs replacing. Distributorless ignition systems don't require mechanical timing adjustments, which is a good thing, since I sold my timing light last year and it wouldn't have worked with this kind of setup anyway. My 'tune-up' involves changing the spark plugs and replacing the air filter. I'll also inspect the hoses, battery clamps, etc., but there's really nothing to it these days.
Everything is now microprocessor-controlled. Makes me wonder whether I can tool up some code to pimp things up a bit. I don't think I'll go that far, though. Just getting ready for winter and having to buy only a fraction of the parts I expected to need makes me quite happy. Plus, I won't miss the need for a timing light.
Since my parts list was so short, I opted for higher-end components. I got the K&N 100,000-mile, high-flow air filter and Bosch platinum plugs. The old plugs were kinda hard to get out, which means that the kind folks who did my last formal tune-up didn't use anti-sieze compound on the threads (thanks, guys!). The whole mess took me about 45 minutes and the results are impressive. While my old air filter didn't look very dirty and my old plugs didn't seem very worn, the Jeep has newfound pep.
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