Hey I got a question, hoping you guys can help. I'm looking around at cherokees right now and I'm looking at a 1999 cherokee sport 4 liter that has some cool stuff done to it. It basically has a brand new front end, lift kit worth 2000 dollars, a brand new 4.7 stroker atk engine and some other stuff as well. The guy is selling it for a little over 4000 dollars.

Only issue is the automatic transmission has 255000 miles on it. Is it worth it or should I keep looking? I dont want to buy it and have the transmission go out a week later. The jeep looks overall really clean and in good condition. Looks like hes taken good care of it.

 

The AW4 transmission is pretty durable. My '99 has about 250K miles and is still going strong. That said, nothing lasts forever and a lot depends on what kind of maintenance and treatment it's had over the years as well as the luck of the draw. Does it slip or make any bad noises? Depending where you're located, rust could be much more of a concern than the transmission. (I'd rather buy a clean vehicle with a trans that might go bad than one that's got rust up the wazoo.)

 

There nowhere near as fragile as your average ford or gm transmission. Generally they can last just as long as the engine their behind. If its not doing anything weird I wouldn't worry about it.

 

If that jeep has a 4.7 stroker the engine alone is worth nearly 4k, that has to be one hellava lift kit if it's worth 2k

 

Sumthin fishy,
Run Forest, run. lol

 

Ask for the receipts.

BTW, the AW4 is a tough transmission. As long as its been cared for and serviced regularly.

 

Thanks guys. I'm going to test drive it tomorrow, so if the transmission sounds good and shifts smoothly and there's very little rust I think I'll take it.

 

Bitten by the Jeep bug, I see. Join the club! My first jeep was a pieces of crap 97 ZJ that sang her siren song and sucked me right in. 2 weeks later the trans started slipping real bad. After rebuilding that, the frame cracked so bad it couldn't be fixed! By now I've got $3000 invested in a piece of scrap iron! I got about 1/2 of that back by parting it out.

 

2k for a lift kit? What are we talking, 1 foot, foot and a half?

Seriously though, it does sound fishy. 4k selling price with an alleged 6k of "brand new" parts... hmmmmmm.