New to this forum.I live near pittsburgh paand have never owned an xj..ive had a yj but now im in the market for a cherokee.are there any years /models / trannys etc..that I should shy away from.this will be a daily driver with some mods eventually for weekend wheeling.any help would be appreciated

 

2000-2001 years are known for having head issues.

 

Personally I love the 97-99,

 

Pre 97 turn signals for the win!

 

Honestly I have always had a preference to the '96; it has the powerful HO motor, OBD2 computer for easy diagnostics and still the 'older' body style which I personally prefer, but body and interior parts are everywhere...the '97+ you need to look a little harder should you need a replacement armrest or something. I'd say to stay away from the pre-HO motor as the renix can be a high maintenance headache, but they do run forever if taken care of (not that the HO wont run forever, they just seem to have probs around the 300k mark where as the pre-HO goes well into ...but who runs their cars that long anyway). In '95 you get the drivers airbag which is nice if thats your thing, and '97 you get both drivers and passengers airbags. The interior is more refined on the '97+. I personally prefer the good ole distributor ignition system, at some point in the late '90s (98-99?) they switched to a coil pack; just as a tech who does all my own work just makes diagnosing weird things like misfires easier.

All said my vote goes for the '96 if you like the old bodystyle or '97 if you like the newer one.

 

84-86 are pre-4.0 I believe, and have a slightly shorter engine compartment so that doing an engine swap to the 4.0 is more difficult, but not impossible.

That aside I still like my 85 I just got even with the 4banger in it.

 

The 87-90 renix era 4.0 xjs are easy to maintain if you know what your doing and don't give up easily. I own two renix era jeeps and love them to bits. Nothing a few simple tools and a multimeter can't fix with these old motors. Just follow cruisers write ups and you'd be good.

 

Then look for the best-maintained example with the least amount of rust you can find. Anything else is secondary.
There really aren't any 'terrible' years for the XJ (unless you consider the occasional 331 head issue a dealbreaker) but bad maintenance, Bubba fixes and/or terminal rust will wipe your wallet fast.

 

This might help:
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/ide...erokee-171907/