In my area there are about 100 cheap YJ's for sale. Being a Jeep lover and an idiot, I've considered buying one. The only hitch is they come with the 2.5L engine and I know very little about them. If you all would enlighten me as to their issues, what to look out for, and reliability etc, I'd appreciate it.

 

It is basically a 4.0L I6 minus the back two cylinders, the engines share the same basic design.

The main disadvantage of the 2.5L I4 is that it produces significantly less power than the 4.0L I6 while offering little to no fuel-economy benefits, but with that said Wranglers can definitely be found a lot cheaper with the 2.5L.

The 2.5L should do fine for off-roading (though you may find yourself needing the low-range a lot more than with a 4.0L), but don't plan on running it on the highway for long periods of time, the 2.5L will really struggle to maintain highway speeds in a vehicle as heavy and non-aerodynamic as a Wrangler.

 

Cool thanks for the info. I'm not too worried about highway driving, just bro-ing out in the summer.

 

No personal experience, so take it FWIW, but I've known a couple guys with 2.5 YJs, the only thing they didn't like about the Jeep was the 2.5 and the power (or lack of). I understand they are nearly indestructible though.

 

I ran a 2wd 2.5/ 4spd 4.10 Comanche through highschool and college. got 25mpg highway all day long with 225/75/15 tires. loaded down with gear, i had to use 3rd climbing hills, but it was a great little engine. One day it randomly popped a push rod off a rocker arm doing 65 mph, so i just replaced all the pushrods and retorqued all the rocker arms and never had an issue for the next 100,000 miles i drove her.

 

Awesome. thanks for the responses guys. I guess I'm going to be doubling down on my Jeeping soon.

ETA: apparently all the YJ owners in my area read CF. As soon as I got these responses and went looking all the $1500 and less YJ's were gone, replaced with $3500+ ones.

 

there were no $1500 or less wranglers worth buying!.... EVER!!!

 

Lucky. People want 5000+ for a 2.5L Wrangler here from early 90s for some reason. Hence the 4.0 Cherokee, ha.