Looking at a '96 XJ 4x4 with 304,000 miles on it. Rubicon Express lift on 33's, straight body with no rust. The owner worked at 4 wheel parts in nashville TN, says he's replaced everything under the hood except the block and pistons. Says compression's good and burns a little oil.

Don't know if he's replaced U joints, brakes, all the other stuff underneath that has 300x on it.

I'm 20 and in college, and I need this to be a daily driver, can't afford an XJ and my truck...

How long do you guys think this would hold up for me, is it work maybe $2,000 or should I look elsewhere?

Thanks.

 

Try to stay in the $1500-2000 range.

That's a pretty high mileage Jeep... so anything could go wrong at any time really. It all comes down to how well it was maintained.

At least if you don't pay too much, you can take what you have inherited from THAT XJ and move it to another one.

 

Manual or automatic? If it has the original automatic that has never been rebuilt I would pass. 300k is a lot of miles for an automatic transmission.

 

I would say that any 300k vehicle will have something break in the first 6 months. It may be something cheap, it may be something expensive, you won't know until it breaks.

My thought would be don't spend all your cash to buy it and not have any left to fix it.

I only made it about 7 months before I had to replace my water pump. It worked great when I got the jeep at 250k, at 258 it didn't work at all and the XJ was out of commission until it was replaced.

 

I seem to remember an old parable from days long past----


"The cobblers children have no shoes"


Meaning that a guy who works all day on others folks 4x4's has little time for his own.


Just an old parable from an ol'fart, but worth a grain of salt

 

This is great advice. I also agree with the transmission, original trans with high miles, plus not knowing the life it lead, could be a major no. Keep it under 2K, with some cash on hand to fix something major if it does break, or keep looking for a newer, lower mileage ride...tough sometimes, I know, but patience will pay off in the long run...

 

Well stated.

 

for 2k id buy it in a heart beat. worse comes to worse you get a jy tranny. i'd be more worried about rust seeing how he more than likely 4wheeled it and body has 300k

 

Thanks for the advice guys - I agree I think 300,000 is higher than I want to be because I need to get from to and from school and everywhere in between.

Looking at a '94 2 door XJ with 210,000 that might be worth the drive to look at. 5" Lift on 35's with the 4.0 auto. I don't like the 35's, I think it's to hard on the axles so I'd want to go down to 32's. But for $3000 I think it is very close to worth it.

What do you guys think?

Prices in my area seem overly expensive by the way, IMO.

 

Offer him $2500 that'd be a fair price

 

I honestly would not recommend buying a jeep that's already lifted/modded. I had to spend a good bit of time and money to fix the previous owners hack job lift, plus some other presents he left me like a cracked header that he sealed with JB weld. You might be able to spot some things before you buy, but there are always hidden gremlins. Just my 2 cents.

 

Is the 300k truck from TN? It might not have a lot of rust if any at all.

I too would not want to buy a modded rig, especially one on 35s, but if the dude with 33s really works at 4wd parts, he probably lifted it with quality parts. Regardless, it's going to break but I would say less severe than the other one you're looking at with 35s.

Where are you located? You should be able to find a stock XJ with somewhere between 180k-220k for that price range easy.

 

I'm out of Nashville TN, I hear what you're saying about stock vs modified, looking at a couple different options right now. I've got a decent eye for spotting quality work, lift kits etc, but I agree I definitely wouldn't want to buy something with cheap work done that's been run ragged.

My preference is honestly to find something with a quality 3"-4.5" lift and 31"-33" tires, done well, and buy that. That'd be a lot less expensive than doing the modifications myself.

 

The carpenter's roof leaks also.