Cheap Jeep Cherokee: good or bad idea?

[DazedandConfused]

I am looking to get a third car primarily for towing (horse-box ~2500kg) / winter driving / green-laning.

As much as I have tried, I can't make an MX5 fit the bill so was looking at a £500-£1000 Jeep Cherokee 4.0. Seems to be a nice compromise between Defender ruggedness and Range Rover plushness, but with good mechanical reliability (electrics might be iffy) and tonka-toy styling that quite appeals: what are the experiences of the PH collective / thoughts?

Cheers,

D&C

[dan19evans]

personally, i'd get a Landy Defender or Discovery over a Jeep

[v8will]

dan19evans said:

personally, i'd get a Landy Defender or Discovery over a Jeep

That'd be my thinking but surely a grands worth of Disco or Defender will have starship miles and that wonderful light weight race material known as rust, Up the budget though to 5 or 6 grand and it'd be Disco all the way.....

[dan19evans]

v8will said:

dan19evans said:

personally, i'd get a Landy Defender or Discovery over a Jeep

That'd be my thinking but surely a grands worth of Disco or Defender will have starship miles and that wonderful light weight race material known as rust, Up the budget though to 5 or 6 grand and it'd be Disco all the way.....

hmm true. but surely it would be worth stretching your budget to get a half-decent Landy

[BERGS2]

DazedandConfused said:

I am looking to get a third car primarily for towing (horse-box ~2500kg) / winter driving / green-laning.

As much as I have tried, I can't make an MX5 fit the bill so was looking at a £500-£1000 Jeep Cherokee 4.0. Seems to be a nice compromise between Defender ruggedness and Range Rover plushness, but with good mechanical reliability (electrics might be iffy) and tonka-toy styling that quite appeals: what are the experiences of the PH collective / thoughts?

Cheers,

D&C

bought a diesel cherokee orvis (high spec run out model) last year for about £1500 - it's a nice place to be - spent a little on some niggles but it instills great confidence and feels like it'll last forever.

diesel engine has a bad rep for overheating issues and a seemingly unnecessary four piece cylinder head - but as i understand- as long as you can stand the woeful fuel economy, the 4 litre petrol is so lightly stressed that it runs for donkeys years...

I'd get another in a heartbeat - and long as you dont expect it to handle....

[4sure]

misubishi pajero...cheap as chips,but get a good one (import specialists etc) and they go on forever.....i did the same as you with it for 3 years,and sold it for same money

[Lefty 200 Drams]

The xj cherokees are pretty strong vehicles although they may need some mods to make them as capable offroad as a Defender.

Look for sagging rear springs, it's a common fault. Dealer spares are fking dear but there are heaps in breakers and quite a few sources of new parts at reasonable prices.

I've owned a couple, add +3" springs/dampers, 31" tyres and some arb disconnects and an xj will do everything a stock Defender will. Remember that for offroad purposes, tyres make the biggest single difference to offroad ability. And an xj limited is a much more comfortable vehicle than any defender.

To be clear, I've owned both (two XJ's, two Defenders and two series Landies). They're just different, hard to say which is better, only you can decide that!

[DazedandConfused]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not at all convinced with the Mitsu - don't like the styling and the only cars in budget appear to be derv. I don't have a big issue with diesel for this type of car but if you're only going to get 25mpg anyway, you may as well get 20mpg from a nice sounding petrol (actually looking at most claims the petrol Cherokee could be better than the diesel Mitsu!)

I love the later defenders but they are really expensive. The series 2/3s in budget (or even three times budget) look really ratty and I'm not convinced I could live with the agricultural nature of them (plus they are all really slow - no nice V8s)

The disco's not a bad shout - but they seem to have some big reliability issues and not many with leather (my preferred option with old cars) - though there is a nice one that is currently ~£1k on ebay with a 5.7 Chevy small block conversion: (I'm watching!)

Any other ideas?

[OnTheOverrun]

On that budget I'd take the 4.0 Cherokee.

[DazedandConfused]

Right - after discussing with a few mates (who have Range Rovers) I started to suffer from Piston Envy and have bought a 99 Grand Cherokee (WJ) 4,7 V8.

New questions:
Any experiences that mean I should mindful of anything?
The car I got is missing a passenger wing mirror - anyone know where you can get them cheap (Ebay has very few but they are at £100+).

Cheers,

D&C

[LuS1fer]

Mind you don't fall into the panel gaps.

[Morningside]

4sure said:

misubishi pajero...cheap as chips,but get a good one (import specialists etc) and they go on forever.....i did the same as you with it for 3 years,and sold it for same money

I agree.

25 MPG? I was getting way more than that and it NEVER let me down.

I would get another without hesitataion.