I've been looking recently to buy a mid to late 90s Cherokee. I don't care much about little details (trim levels, color, scratches, etc.), as I do plan to modify it. The one thing I am looking for is for a bit of towing power. Nothing much, just enough for a small car trailer or something equivalent. I heard some Cherokees came with a towing package that uprated them to 5000 lbs. capacity. And I've seen plenty with tow hitches. Did all Cherokees with tow hitches come with the tow package, or is there a lesser rated hitch floating around?

 

Nope. There are many (such as mine) with trailer hitches attached that aren't OEM hitches.

What you should look for:
-3.73 ratio
-aux trans cooler

Yeah that's all I have. There's probably more.

 

Only the Grand Cherokees came with the 3.73 ratio, the auxiliary transmission cooler isn't that great either my trans temp would get up to 210* on a hot day not towing, I upgraded to a Hayden 405 cooler and that fixed that.

 

[QUOTE=agreen;3648889]Nope. There are many (such as mine) with trailer hitches attached that aren't OEM hitches./QUOTE]

So, all Cherokees that came from factory with a tow hitch are rated at 5000 lbs?

 

My vehicle is equipped with an aftermarket trans cooler, a Power Trax no slip locker, 3.55 gears in a Chrysler 8.25 rear end.
Stock suspension.

Towing a 3000lb camper with a weight distribution hitch, fine on flat roads at 55 mph in D3 as recommended by Jeep.. At 65 both the coolant temp and trans temp goes up over normal.
Going up a large bridge, vehicle struggles to maintain speed.

Dragging the camper a slow speeds....no problem....

A 5000 lb load, I think would need more than the Jeep can safely accomplish in my opinion.

 

The Cherokee only has a curb weight of around 3100 lbs. Towing anything heavier than the vehicle itself is risky and dangerous. The stock brakes on the Cherokee aren't all that great either.

 

Mine came with a factory tow package. Sadly, it has a Class 1 hitch rated only to 2,000 lbs. You need a Class III hitch to tow 5,000 lbs. However, mine did come with the HD radiator (while original replaced I have one in it), aux trans cooler, trac-lok and trailer harness (4 wire). My Dana35 is 3:55

 

Best I can tell the towing package on an XJ consists of the hitch, wiring that plugs right in, a trans cooler, and the max cooling radiator.
These are some shots of what I am almost positive is a factory hitch.
Got it from the boneyard off a '97 and up XJ.
Also grabbed the hitch wiring.
I am not even going to pretend like I know anything about towing or trailering. LOL.
Maybe that label with answer some questions(?).
Oh and that last shot is the factory cooler. I grabbed that from a different Jeep though.

 

Sure looks OEM!

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f12/wt...-hitch-127472/

 

That factory cooler is worthless.