d50

i sold my old cherokee last summer and regret it big time it was a 94. so now im in the market for another one. im gona go look at a 98 it has the 4.0 4x4 and its the 5 speed. what tranny is it and is it a good one? my old cherokee was auto and i would like a 5 speed but not if its gona be a weak point. any thing else to look out for in the newer cherokees? i was told the heads are known to go bad? i was also told the older 5 speeds were junk hopefully not the newer ones. thanks for the input.

Battle

It's an AX-15 and it's a solid tranny. A bit clunky and geared long but it's tough.

In my opinion and I'm sure a lot of manual owners, the downside is the final drive gearing: 3.07s. I managed to average 22 mpg when I was stock which is nice but in fifth gear, I didn't have much oomph on the freeway. I have 3.55s now which is better and I still get decent mileage.

The 00-01s have the head problem. 97-99s are golden. Go for it man.

d50

ok good info thanks. now when you refer to final drive gearing and 3.07 are you talking about the tranny gears or axle gears?

Battle

Axle gears. It's not terrible, but I definitely noticed a difference in highway passing performance compared to my AW4 Cherokee. Edit - the 3.55 regear brought a lot of oomph back.

Regardless, I am very pleased with the AX-15. It's a really fun truck to bomb around in. I can even heel-toe downshift with it. Without wearing shoes.

investinwaffles

I have a 98 5-speed. Engine is bulletproof at 180K miles. Trans feels great, with a minor amount of grinding when going into reverse (I dont know if there are synchros for reverse or not).

I have 33's and with stock gearing it is slow as ****. Horrible gas mileage to boot, BUT its easy to drive and around town its really not bad at all. Only on the highway 5th gear is really only usable at 70mph, but with stock tire sizes you should be golden.