I'm back again with another XJ. I used to have a '95 until my teen daughter made a left turn in front of an oncoming semi. The Jeep was destroyed, but she didn't have a scratch on her.

Anyways, I've got another son that is just starting to drive, so I picked up another one of these tanks. Hopefully this will last him a bit longer than my daughter's did- I spent more time restoring and hand-painting that one than she did driving it.

I found a really cheap '00 at a used car lot. No rust at all, the paint is still in decent shape, and the only thing wrong with the interior is a slight cracking on the driver's seat upholstery next to the door and a bald spot on the driver's floor mat below the gas pedal.

The thing that has me a bit worried is the mileage. It's got 240k on the clock. I test drove it and it seemed fine, and everything seemed to work, except for the power window switches on all of the doors but the driver's (I'll fix that this weekend).

I've also got a TJ with the 4.0, so I really didn't spend much time looking at the motor before I picked it up. I figure that if anything needed fixing, I could do it pretty easily.

At first I thought the cruise control wasn't working, but it turns out I was trying it out at 30mph. It works fine over 35mph. I thought it might be an issue with the vacuum lines, so I popped the hood and started checking the hoses.

I was wondering if there was any way to tell if this engine has been rebuilt. All of the hoses and vacuum lines look brand-new, and the part of the intake manifold gasket that poking out also looks new. The engine has been recently cleaned with something, since there is a clear oily residue all over everything, but it definitely does not look like a 17 year-old, 240k engine bay.

The motor is very quiet, compared to my year-younger and half-the-mileage TJ. There is really no tapping to be heard.

I know that some things have been fixed/replaced, like the headliner and sun shade covers. I'd like to think that the previous owner really took care of it, but there's no way to really know since I bought it on a lot.

 

Sometimes on a reman engine there will be a little button stuck to the core plugs that melt if the engine has been overheated. Look at the cylinder head to see if it says TUPY on it, at least you know the head was replaced is it's a TUPY head.

 

the 2000 and 2001 jeep Cherokees had problems with the head being prone to cracking when over heated. Sounds like somebody replaced the head or rebuilt the motor, but probably just replaced the head which explains the new gaskets and vacuum lines.

 

Check the oil for unusual thickness or tackiness. Wouldn't be the first used car dealer to shut a noisy engine up with Lucas. Cheap + used car lot + lots of oily "engine shine" spray..... the warning signs are there.

You could run a borescope into one of the cylinders and see if the OEM pistons are still there, but that doesn't mean the engine wasn't rebuilt either. I'd go with the assumption is wasn't unless they can prove otherwise.