dude your on a cherokee based forum... you dont see much love for chevys, fords, wranglers, Cadillac, hummers or any other model vehicle on this site... also i never hated on the liberty... If they had built the liberty here and called it a cherokee i would have said they F'd up the cherokee...


oh and someone made the comment about nobody liking the cherokee when it first came out... well look at it... there not that great looking from the factory compared to a vette or anything else... heck the briorwoods are as bad as the station wagons with wood grain... the love of them came once the prices of them dropped low enough that people didnt mind bouncing them of rocks and shopping carts...

 

Hate may have been the wrong word for me to use there..
And its not directed at you but some people on this forum and other forums, especially those people who speak without knowing the facts...
The aftermarket support is slowly getting there for the KJ, and as prices continue to fall more and more are getting built and hitting the trails just like the XJ.

 

I own a Cherokee and a 03 liberty (the wife's) and they are completely different trucks the liberty feels moor like a car than a truck it eats up bumps in the road like a Cadillac compared to my xj and the breaks are also amazing comparing to the xj the liberty has around 185,000 miles on it my xj 208,000 the liberty still has TONS!!! Moor power and better mpg
If you have ever spent any time underneath a liberty you would understand their built just as good if not better than the xj IMO but the big issue with me is the lack of affordable aftermarket accessories and its still worth too much to take into the woods
But personally i think the liberty is ugly as helll and my xj is sexy as hellll ha haaaaaa

 

Thanks for your input from a XJ and KJ guy!
I do have to say a stock colored base KJs I am indifferent about how they look.. Although I do feel the same on some base XJs as well.. But even slight visual mods go a long way!
Aftermarket demand is slowly growing so I feel more will be coming in the next couple years, or it just means time to start fabbing somethings yourself

 

The thing I don't like about KJs is not that they don't have an aftermarket or that they can't be built like an XJ. I personally like to keep mods to a minimum and like the idea of a capaple stocker.. And that's what I don't see with the KJ. a lot of them Are BadA!!, but I just don't really care for something that I can't keep moderately stock and wheel the eff out of.

 

I have wheeled with a lot of vehicles and I can't say one of them has ever been a KJ. Thats kinda odd come to think of it.

 

of course there built better... there newer... lol... they also cost much more still... ill wait till most cherokees are gone to the crusher and libertys are left and selling for a grand... lol

 

Liberty is the evolution of Jeep Cherokee, the name that still identifies the vehicle outside the United States . Available in two different trims, Jeep Sport and Jeep Limited, Jeep Liberty is powered by Chrysler's diesel engine will be available on both Sport and Limited models with a Chrysler heavy-duty 545RFE engine.

About Liberty 's off-road performance, an engineer at the Nevada Automotive Test Center (NATC) said "The ball joint specifications were changed; the durability cycles were changed, as well as the loading factors, all downwards from standard JTE specs. This was to follow a directive to reduce cost of SUV parts, because, as so many people have noted here, SUVs are not used off-road generally".

However, the brake system is reliable for off-road traveling, tested in the desert of Death Valley , California , and these are their specs:


Sounds to me like
1. YES the liberty is called the Cherokee outside of the US.
2. The Liberty was made with cheap parts
3. The BRAKES are off road ready.

If it's your thing then wheel a Liberty. I'm gonna stick with my XJ.