Potential new owner
 

Currently I drive a 2014 Jetta TDi I bought new almost exactly 2 years ago. You may or may have heard of dieselgate aka emissions scandal so now VW is offering to buy back those vehicles, mine included

I used to own a 2001 Wrangler with the 4.0 and regrettably sold that. But I love that motor and with the TDi being bought back gives me chance to get another vehicle with it.

I am looking at Cherokee for a few reasons. 1) the motor 2) I refuse to get into another car payment. I will have approx. $4k cash after the buyback and the Cherokee falls in that price range 3) I want something with a little more storage space than the Wrangler had.

I am also interested in 4runner but those are outside my cash price range. And I feel I can work on the Cherokee a little easier since I have some familiarity with the motor. I will be using the Cherokee as my DD and will have few hundred each month to put into PM, scheduled maintenance, etc. So it needs to be clean/reliable day one but I can replace things that need replaced due to age/mileage along the way too.

I am hoping my buyback happens in Nov but do not have a date yet. I have read quite a few threads on here and other Cherokee forums (there are a lot, surprisingly)

I won't use it off-road much. Tow a Jon boat, dog will ride in back, will go down some easy trails for spots I hunt, etc. But it will primarily be a DD.

I am sure I will have plenty of questions, especially as it gets closer to me having cash in hand to buy.I live in Columbia, SC but willing to drive up to 5-6 hours to pick one up if worth it.

Sweet, post up your finds and give us some details about anything you're considering looking at. We'll help where we can. Welcome to the forum!

Welcome

Thanks y'all

I have been looking at autotrader and CL, just to get feel for market

Two things 1) This cherokee seems awesome but also incredibly overpriced. am I wrong?

https://greenville.craigslist.org/ctd/5851660888.html

Clean, 5-speed, 1 owner, 103K miles. But almost $10k?

2) I prefer the Cherokee for the years I am looking at but I noticed the Grand Cherokees seem to be same price or even cheaper. How and why is that? The GC costs more when they both came out. If I was to keep eyes out for a GC is there anything to avoid or look out for? I know this is a cherokee forum but just curious. Maybe the GC from late 90s is not even worth checking out?

Incredibly overpriced is an understatement.

Can't really help you with GC's but maybe someone else will chime in.

One thing to look out for is the problem of the cracked head in 97-01 4.0 Cherokee. They have a weak point between cyl 3 and 4 which results in coolant leaking into oil! so if you find a REALLY clean one (like the one you listed) I would ask if the head has been replaced already because the crack WILL happen eventually... Welcome to CF and good luck!

The poorly designed head was a problem in 2000-2001 4.0 known as the 0331 head. 97-99 XJ's did not have these heads and aren't known to be plagued by this.

I believe even Chrysler said MPG on HIGHWAY was 21, brand new. This guy says 24 city? I hate dealers