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Most oil pans are tucked up above the front axle so a lot of vehicles need to have front ends dropped to get to them. Thankfully on my wife's Liberty there is a way to get the OP out without doing this, no issues yet KOW but I like to say her car is like "Legos" to work on.
A water pump took me 25 minutes total as there is about 10" of space between the pump and the grille meaning plenty of room for belt removal and bolt extraction.
AC Condenser was about 45 minutes plus recharge time. Easy to get to and no need to remove entire clips to reach.
I've done a few other things to it over 10 years but all have been simple and cheap. My VW GLI is not so cheap but pretty easy to work on, certainly the space is tighter but more annoying than anything else.
If I remember correctly, to get the oil pan off on a WJ Grand Cherokee with the 4.7L engine you have to drop the exhaust, remove the transmission skid plate, and loosen the engine mounts to raise the engine slightly. I'm not sure if that's your exact setup but given the quote, I imagine it is. If you want repair friendly, the Wrangler is the most repair-friendly Jeep by a long shot. You can still do things like change the water pump without pulling the radiator. But even it has its quirks these days. The transmission skid plate has to come off for just about anything underneath the vehicle and there's an exhaust y-pipe that's in an even worse place than the one on the WJ. It's right underneath the drain for a manual transmission.
That being said, even the Grand Cherokee is a piece of cake to work on compared to the VW and Mini I have owned. I have a whole collection of special tools like a 12-point spark plug socket and inverse Torx bits for those vehicles.
This actually sounds like a great idea, I'll ask around tomorrow what the going rate on this "JB Weld" is.
Would the oil pan need to be removed to weld it though? That's the only problem I see with this idea.
If it's possible to drain the oil on-site at the weld shop, somehow lift the truck up, have the welder go underneath the vehicle and do the weld-job, and then simply refill the oil right there (with some oil from Wal-mart or something)... well, that's as close to a "silver bullet" solution if ever there was one
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
I've spent my youth attempting shoddy leaking oil pan repairs on various high-mileage vehicles, and they never work. JB weld, thick epoxy paint, silicone, you name it. They may hold for a few weeks, but after a few heat cycles, the leaks appear again.
Only way I was ever to successfully repair them was by taking the pan on, completely degreasing it, and installing a new gasket. In some cases, if the pan was hit and deformed, I had to replace the pan.
The same thing happened to me with my 2007 Camry. I took it to the dealer who quoted me $750 for a new oil pan and gasket. I took it to an honest repair shop who put in a different plug for $45 including new oil and filter and it hasn't leaked in a year. The dealer is in business to sell you a new car not keep your old one running for cheap.
I do not see how you can weld it or braise it without baking oil on the inside into gunk. Even if you drain the pan there will still be some oil in it. Remember too oil is flammable. taking it out to weld it seems silly. If you take it our, just get a new one. Welding the old one will cost as much as buying a new one.
To use JB weld and get it to hold, you will need to grind the pan to clean bare metal. Then it should stick - ours did for over a year. However grinding makes sparks and heat and hot oil is flammable. Be careful. They did ours in less than an hour. Half an hour If I remember correctly. Including draining the oil. Then the JB weld needed to sit to cure before putting oil back in. I think they let it sit for 2 days. You can also grind the JB weld flat once it cures if you wish. It does not seem worth eh risk of cracking it or ripping it out to me, but they offered to do it, we said no. Aesthetics of an oil pan are not a concern to us.
While that quote isn't outrageous to try and avoid getting hit with that bill I would start with the simple stuff first. Get some break clean, hose down the pan until there is no oil residue visible (make sure everything is cool, brake clean is flammable and if you go spraying it on really hot surfaces you are going to have a bad time), go for a short drive or even just idle the vehicle till it's warm and see if you can tell exactly where the leak originates from.
Hopefully it's as you said earlier and is just from the drain plug and not where the pan mates to the block. If it is just from the drain plug, I would go ahead and get the parts to do an oil change yourself and make sure that includes a new drain plug and crush washer from the dealership parts department. Drain the oil into a pan and make sure the tech didn't do something stupid like forget to install a new crush washer or leave the old one on the pan and accidentally install two. Next look at the face of the pan where the crush washer sits and make sure it's nice and smooth so the washer can seal. I would try to avoid the JB weld type solutions if you can.
I'd like to know how the pan got dented. Do you do any off-roading in this jeep? If not this likely happened from some idiot trying to jack the vehicle under the oil pan.
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