I worked on a friends 2001 Jeep Cherokee 4x4 with about 60K miles. The truck would wobble side to side as you drive on a smooth highway and would generally not feel very safe. I replaced every single steering component in front ( except for the steering gear ), aligned it and replaced all 4 shocks with KYB GR-2 / Excel-G. The truck feels BETTER but it still doesn't feel very stable. It's jittery and wobbles from side to side randomly. I don't get shaking in the steering wheel or anything, I can feel it in the entire truck. My brother says it's the nature of the beast and I can't fix it.

If this is true, is there any aftermarket parts that can make it feel more like a normal highway cruising truck? More stable and smooth? I have a 2009 Acadia with 110K miles and it rides like a Benz compared to this thing.

 

Is the track bar tight and in good shape?


BTW your brother doesn't know he's talking about an XJ not steering well. mine does even with 226,000 mi. on it and lots of mods done to it.

 

The track bar bushings looked fine so I didn't replace it. It only has 60k miles, don't know if it's a common failure part though. The ball joints on the tie rods had their boots broken so I replaced those along with the steering damper but not the track bar.

 

New tires sure helped mine with that feel. Before I even got into the front end repairs of my new 165K Cherokee.

 

May sound stupid but are you sure the tires have enough air in them? A while back one of my other cars felt like it was wiggling down the road and it turned out the gauge at the tire shop was off and they only filled them to 5 pounds less than the reccomends amount.

 

Yeah, tire pressure is 32psi.

How about upgrading sway bars? Anyone done that here? Would it make it feel more stable at speed?

 

Problem is upgrading sway bars doesn't change the fact that something is clearly WRONG with that Jeep. If the factory sway bars are connected, then the sway bars are not the problem.

At 60K miles, that thing should still drive very nice, something is broken. Disguising the problem with beefy sway bars, etc, will likely end in the failure of whatever component is causing the issue. This will inevitably happen while driving. This is a bad thing.

My crystal ball only works so-so, but here's a few items to check;


Check for play in the control arm bushings, bends/cracks in the control arms.

Look for play in the steering box(could have broken a tooth)

Look for play where the pitman arm meets the drag link.

You said you aligned it, but double check the toe-in. If its toed out, it's gonna drive like a drunk chicken.

Check the wheel bearings for play, and the tie rod ends.



If all else fails, tell your friend to drop coin and take it to a shop.

Good luck!

 

My 01 did the same sort of thing when I first bought it.
It felt like it would kind of lurch side to side, Jeep didn't really move much but the sensation was that of instability and was uncomfortable to say the least.
I changed the sway bar end links as they were pretty bad, rubber was rotted out.
It solved the problem for me and was a pretty cheap and easy fix.

 

Wobbly jeep? Suspect the control arm bushings.
Wobbly steering? That is something different..

 

Also see if the vehicle has been in any serious accidents in it's past. I know our xjs don't have a dedicated frame but Im sure a hard enough impact could bend the unibody...

 

I'll pay close attention to the bushings again. I saw everything good on it but maybe I missed something.