EM98XJ

Hey guys, my brother is looking at a 2005 Grand Cherokee 4x4 with the 5.7 Hemi. He previously had a 1998 GC with a lot of issues, and was wondering if anyone has heard of many problems from that particular year?

It has 170k miles, body seems to be in good shape. Just wondering if anyone has any input on that particular year. Thanks in advance!

94zj318

The 2005's had some problems. My dad bought a 2005 WK Laredo 4X4 with the 4.7L V8 when they first came out, and we've owned it since new. It has 211k+ miles on it.

The best advice I can give you is to stay away from the 4.7-equipped WK's.

A few things we've had to do in the past few years (190k+ miles) are rebuild the front end, and replace the radiator and water pump.

Another thing to look out for is the factory nav system. I think after 2006 they fixed this problem, but the joystick breaks off too easily and stops working, rendering anything but the audio system portion of the nav system useless (the audio functions still work). But the LCD screen on the radio tends to also go completely blank (it may flash on and off at first, display color bars, and then go completely blank), and you can only go through your radio presets, it gets stuck on FM radio only, and you can only turn it on and off and adjust the volume (the screen is connected to the board, and when the screen dies out, so do all of the other functions aside from the volume and power ****, and its preset buttons, for some odd reason or another). So stay away from WK's with the factory nav system, which has the letters 'REC' printed in the bottom right-hand corner of the radio's faceplate. Unless you want to spend $500+ on a replacement used radio, replacements are hard to find. We still haven't replaced ours yet (ours had all of the aforementioned problems).

I never buy the first year of a particular vehicle, to give them time to work out all of the little quirks and kinks that it may have. Hope I could help and good luck to your bro! (: