Buying advice please....
 

Hey everyone...I'm a prior TJ owner and we've been a one car family for several years..it just doesn't cut it anymore. So I'm in the market for an XJ, and I want 4wd so I'm holding out for 4wd.

Anyhow, I found a Jeep on Craigslist I'm going to look at tomorrow and I was hoping anyone with any sort of opinion could offer up some assistance. From the ad:

1991 Jeep Cherokee. 4 wheel drive high output 4.0 inline 6.
Automatic transmission, great condition inside and out. Motor and tranny were replaced around around 40k ago. Runs strong, shifts great. 4wd is tight in high and low range.
New - water pump, radiator, t-stat, hoses, belts, brakes. Perfect interior, rubber cargo mat. Good Cooper Cobra tires, Reese hitch w/7 + 4 prong wiring! Awesome little Jeep! Won't last long, better hurry. $1650 or best reasonable offer

I'm two hours away from this Jeep so I've been texting with the owner. According to him:

The jeep is completely rust free, he's currently driving it with no problems, the odo reads just over 300k, and he bought it for his wife a few months ago. She doesn't want it, so he's selling it.

The Jeep looks decent in pics.

I don't know a whole ton about XJs, and I realize I'll probably have to replace something at some point during my ownership of it.

Can anyone offer up any advice on this one? My fear is that being priced at $1600 is a sign that something is fixing to go way wrong (or already has and has a band-aid on it).

Thanks in advance.

Matt

Is the title "clean"? I bought mine 2 hours away too but it only had 120k. 96 xj country for 1750. Asking price was 2k negotiable from a mechanic. Title was an issue but got it straightened out luckily.

Compare it to the existing xj stock market on craigslist. Wait if you have too, found mine after two months waiting and jumped on it soon as i saw it.

Crawl under it and inspect it thoroughly for rust.

Drive it for an hour or so.

^ as stated above, with our XJ's being Unibody's crawl under and see how bad the rust is. Knock on rockers (under doors) to see if they're solid, open the doors and check the bottom of the doors, also my XJ was ROTTED behind the rear wheel wells. Also, run it, drive it, see if it sounds and feels good. Don't have the seller start it before you get there. You're gonna want to do a cold start.

Our straight 6 engines quite often have a slight lifter knock. (2 of my 3 did) and still ran forever.

Good luck, they hold their price pretty good. I'd say depending on how it looks, runs, feels the price doesn't sound too bad. Everything is negotiable.

At over 300k you're looking at some work, regardless....haven't hit that high with my XJ yet, but my old Wrangle was at 200k and something fell out of it every month. (labor of love.)

If it looks clean and you're a big DIYer, go for it, if not, you could be looking at some money in the shop.

Like everyone else said, look it over real good and test it out for a while. Open the oil cap and look into the block for funk.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I've decided to wait until a few things sell on CL and I've got some more money to make sure I'm getting a better quality Jeep.

I'll keep ya posted on my search.

If you can wait and shop around you will find the right jeep for you.