is my jeep worth saving???

im trying to figure out the best thing to do and would like more opinions... the following is a copy of an email i send to a buddy and he suggested i post it here for more ideas.

i think i should try and sell my vehicle and buy one with less miles, but my mom says i should just try and fix my current xj... ive got about 230,000 miles on my rig. even before the lift, i had to manually shift (my automatic) into 1-2 to begin driving. i still have to do that now but it seems even harder to get going. my tires are brand spanking new as is the lift, plus recent alignment... and a bunch of new things under the hood such as water pump, alternator, battery, etc... i just started getting the death wobble suuuuuuper bad and im afraid even if i fix things one by one, it's gonna crap out on me sooner rather than later. i value your jeep opinion and want to know what you think i should do.... try to sell it, or try to save it? thanks


other info to note while making a choice to sell or to save is that...
my jeep is a 1995 cherokee sport

revived salvaged title, NO BODY DAMAGE

the lift is a 4.5 RC add a leaf that's only been on since september 2010.

my tires are brand new and i recently had a professional alignment.

i need new sway bar bushings (contributing factor to DW???)

will soon need new power steering box

again, the mandatory manual shifting to be able to begin driving.

i feel like i should sell it and so does my boyfriend... but my mom and one of my 'jeep buddies' say i should try and save it.

i personally feel like it would be worth it to try and find a different lifted jeep with less miles...

i need help. any and all is appreciated. i feel lost. i just dont want to get stuck with it IF something bigger decides to go out. it's my daily driver... help. thanks guys.

Or you could just give it to me.

Is the trans slipping?

I know how depressing it can be to have a vehicle that just nevers seems to be working at more then 70%.

If you can do your own work, or your boyfriend can id say keep it. But if your going to have to pay a shop. Then, and I hate to say this, but you will probably be better of selling it.

The sway bar bushings won't be giving you death wobble, I haven't had mine connected for the last 6 months.

The best way to track down the DW is to have somone turn the wheel slightley back and forth while you look at all the tie rod ends and especially the track bar ends. Any movment or slop will give you DW. What did the kit do for the track bar?Relocatin bracket or a new track bar. Some one else will have to chime in on the tranny.

In all I would have to say fix it because the DW shouldnt be to hard to track down if the tranny goes out you can pick up a used one up pretty cheap. That and old lifted xjs won't sell for much.

haha no way jose

Well you can pull the lift and tires and just get another stock cherokee with less miles...

whitexj98: the kit directions had us drill a new hole to relocate the track bar. i will take your advice on the wheel turning check. my bf and i just did that for his cummins when he got the death wobble and he ended up replacing his track bar. idk why i didnt think to check that on mine right off the bat. thank you.

chedisme: yes the tranny is slipping. been doing so for at least the past 10 months. my boyfriend went to uti and is great at helping with my jeep. but the thing is ive been unemployed for over a year and JUUUUST got hired doing retail so i dont exactly have a bunch of extra money right now. im afriad something bigger will go out before i can save anything :-\

joejeep92: see that's kind of what i was thinking except for the fact that my original suspension components were so effed up that we tossed them. and i'd have to sell my current vehicle to afford a different one :-( but yeah that's what would happen in my perfect worl *sigh*

Well if your BF can do the work I would say get a used trany and swap it in.

I know they have been selling in my chapter with 120k on it for about 100$
And in one of my jy one with 60k was going for 400$

Also and I would do a lot more research on this before you try it, but my dad told me once that adding like half a cap full of break fluid to your trany fluid helps create more friction with the belts.
I've never heard of this anywhere else. And personaly wouldent try it unless I knew I was getting a new tranny. It might help buy you some time and make the thing more drivable while you save for the new tranny.
Hopefully someone else will chime in on that.

joejeep92 said:

Well you can pull the lift and tires and just get another stock Cherokee with less miles...

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What kind of condition is the body and interior in?
You live near the beach, are there rust issues?
To get a better, unbiased view, consider having a professional mechanic give you an overall assessment and approximate cost to bring it back to good operating condition. It might be money well spent.

The transmission may have a bad TCM that's causing the shifting problem.
Have it checked by someone who knows what they are doing and PLEASE do not add brake fluid to the transmission unless you want to finish it off.

If you were my daughter, I would want you driving in the newest possible model and one in good shape to reduce the possibility of roadside breakdowns.
1997+ models were redesigned to be stronger and have better safety features. 1999 models were the last to have high-pinion front axles, useful if you plan on lifting it higher.

chedisme said:

Well if your BF can do the work I would say get a used trany and swap it in.

I know they have been selling in my chapter with 120k on it for about 100$
And in one of my jy one with 60k was going for 400$
.

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thank you for the info, ill look into used tranny's around here. how difficult would it be for someone who is mechanically inclined to swap it out?

It's not too hard to swap the trans.

lazyxj said:

What kind of condition is the body and interior in?
You live near the beach, are there rust issues?
To get a better, unbiased view, consider having a professional mechanic give you an overall assessment and approximate cost to bring it back to good operating condition. It might be money well spent.

Click to expand...

the body is straight, minor minor minor dent on driver side door no body damage except the usual small scratches from wheeling. the interior is clean with the exception of a cigarette burn in the driver seat.
thank you for the tip about the safety of 97+'s. ive been looking into getting an '01 but it's harder to find a newer one in my price range in claifornia. the midwest has a lot of smokin jeeps for great prices.
anyway, santa cruz IS a beach down but i live about 20 minutes inland in the S.C. mountains, so theres no ocean air to worry about.

my only issue with taking it to a shop to have them do that is that i really honestly do not trust any shops around here to give me the honest truth and not try to up-sell me... :-\ aside from my hesitations that does sound like a good idea. how much do those sort of checks usually go for? ball park figure? thank you for all the help.

does anyone have opinions regarding the nigh mileage? that seemed like a factor to me but no one has brought it up... someone just told me their friend had an xj that he ran to 400k before he sold it cuz he "got bored driving the same jeep for so long" any other input about my miles?

The milage is fine if it is properly maintained.

Where are you in Santa Cruz? I live in Boulder Creek and can give you and your BF a hand if needed.

94xjstud said:

The milage is fine if it is properly maintained.

Where are you in Santa Cruz? I live in Boulder Creek and can give you and your BF a hand if needed.

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oh no way? thanks so much for the offer. im just in ben lomond. i wouldn't be surprised if we've driven past each other before.

chedisme said:

...adding like half a cap full of break fluid to your trany fluid helps create more friction with the belts.

Click to expand...

I'd love to get me one of those belt driven transmissions.

Would that be the cap from the break/brake fluid or the cap from the ATF container?

But you might brake your transmission by using the break fluid. Or would the brake fluid break your transmission? Oh dang, now I'm confused.

whitexj98 said:

The sway bar bushings won't be giving you death wobble, I haven't had mine connected for the last 6 months.

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yeah but if it IS connected, and is wobbling around could it be a factor? i was looking in a specific DW thread on naxja and a lot of people said new sway bar bushings cured the wobble for them...

anyone else have any insight on that?

The trans is most likely a solenoid in the valve body gone bad. I had the exact same problem in my 97 a few years ago and I thought I had a serious trans issue but ended up being a rather simple fix cost me less than $200 at a local trans shop.

If you just started getting bad death wobble and you just got the tires then take the tires off and throw ANYTHING on in their place to experiment and see if you still get death wobble. DW can be caused by numerous things, however tire that are not perfectly round which is referred to as out-of-round can cause this too. I know it sounds crazy and I wouldn't believe it for nearly 2 years before I finally got new tires and poof it was gone and hasn't done it since which was 4 years ago. I replaced everything I could think of trac bar, steering stabilizer, lower control arms, steering box, as well as had everything checked many many times. I had an alignment done over and over and over again. I even had a shop balance the tires on while they were still on the Jeep which I didn't know could be done until the guy whipped out some special little machine made just for doing that.

I say keep it since you have already fixed so many things and put so much money into it and the problems you have aren't that bad really.

I wouldnt think so, i would highley suspect the stock track bar is bad. I went thru 3 stock track bars at about 5 inchs of lift.