buying advice

[blazinid]

Hey guys i'm looking at a 1996 Grand with the 4.0L. Its got just over 100k miles on the clock and seems like the current owner has taken good care of it. What are your thoughts on this Jeep? Any thing to watch out for? He wants 3650, that leaves me a few dollars for new tires, a OME lift and maybe a used ARB bumper....

[Haggis]

Hey guys i'm looking at a 1996 Grand with the 4.0L. Its got just over 100k miles on the clock and seems like the current owner has taken good care of it. What are your thoughts on this Jeep? Any thing to watch out for? He wants 3650, that leaves me a few dollars for new tires, a OME lift and maybe a used ARB bumper....

We've had a couple of ZJs, a '94 with select trac, and a '98 with 5.2 and the full time transfer case. Both were really good rigs. On the '94 make sure you check the exhaust manifold to see if its cracked where the 2 tri'ys meet at the collector. This is prone to cracking and with result in an annoying exhaust leak. You have to pull the intake manifold to get the exhaust manifold off to weld it up or replace it. Also check to make sure that the tranny has been serviced regularly, because they are abit iffy. I don't know where you are located but a '96 ZJ in good shape can be picked up in this area for around $2000 and V8 model around $2500. Of course here you can't throw a stone without hitting a Jeep of some kind. That all being said, both of our ZJs were great rigs and the '98 with the V8 was a rocket and alot of fun both on road and off.

[cocco78]

The older grand cherokee's are pretty decent, esp with the 4.0L. Stay away from the 5.2L V8, big underpowered gas hogs. If you budget allows, even if you need to save up a bit, I'd really, really, look into the 1999 Grand cherokee's. You can get a nice clean one with 100k on the clock for about 5 grand. So much nicer than the old grands. Plus they get the 4.7L V8 as an option. Thats such a great motor, I consistantly saw 20-23mpg on the highway. The 4.0l is a great motor, but its old and a bit underpowered in the grand. Also the suspensions are pretty similar and lift kits and whatnot are all pretty much the same prices.