I've never had any issues with my 1998 Jeep Cherokee Classic until recently. I recently had a car accident and had to put my Jeep on a salvage title (cuz I refused to part with it). It sat in my garage for about a month until last night we tried to jump it and it would not start. It never had a problem starting before. When we try to start it tries to turn over and when we give it gas while trying to start black smoke starts coming out of the tailpipe. It literally started up a month ago with no problems. It has half a tank of gas. I know that there is an issue with one of the oxygen sensors, but it really never affected the Jeep before. Any ideas? I don't want to spend a ton of money trying to fix it.

black or blue smoke usually means you're burning oil or running way way too rich.

It's definitely black smoke. If the engine is running too rich, what could possibly be the reason? Especially if the Jeep was just sitting for a month and worked fine before?

Take a look here...

http://www.bc4x4.com/faqs/yj.cfm?cat=5&faqid=164

I will look into the CPS today. I'm going to check the battery too. We'll see what happens! I just can't imagine giving up my Jeep.

You won't have to give it up, canton isn't that far from here if it comes to that. It's a jeep, as long as the whole thing doesn't need rewired, we can figure it out. But that's if it ever gets to that point. For now, did you have any luck swapping out that cps?

Dear lord, I feel like a dummy. It was actually the battery. It was so dead that not even jumping it would start it. So, we had the battery charged up and Voila!! The Jeep is up and running!!! It seems to be emitting a lot of white smoke now. I checked the oil to make sure I didn't crack a head gasket and it seemed fine. I need to change an O2 sensor and the thermostat this coming week and probably check out out the radiator. But it's running!!!