Nublet checking in!

[Lukey]

Heya guys,

Im Luke, 28, from Gippsland in Victoria. Im looking to get into my first 4WD after tax time if the tax man is nice to me. Ive been looking around at all kinds of 4WDs on the low end of the price spectrum, as im a mechanic (get paid peanuts!) and my wife is a stay at home mum to our young kids so money is not in abundance. Jeeps have sparked my interest due to the fact they arent torsion bar front ends like alot of the 4WDs ive been looking at - pajeros , jackaroos, challengers, 4runners/surfs. One of my mates also has a newish wrangler and fucking loves it, and seeing how the yanks mod there is always cool!

So what im looking at is the XJ cherokee and ZJ grand cherokee. Looking for some pros and cons to both these aswell as constructive advice. I dont plan on doing any serious offroading (yet, im sure ill get addicted haha). I have 3 kids all in car seats at the moment, need them all to be able to fit across the back seat, and mostly plan on doing some basic 4WDing, touring and camping.

How is the leaf rear in the XJ compared to the coil rear in the ZJ?
Are they both body on chassis? or unibody? one of each?
Are the 4.0l straight 6 and autos reliable?
Are they cheap/cheapish to mod?

Im coming from the slammed car world so this is a big change to me, have been 4WDing with some mates before and loved being passenger. Have also driven customers cars home after major works (defenders, amaroks and loved sitting so high on the road). Have a 95 Honda Integra, which just got defected for the 2nd time a few weeks ago.
Having to cancel the remaining 2 weeks of rego as i cant afford the money or time to fix the issues to get it back on the road before tax time. Was/is my first car, is very sentimental to me but kinda on the fence about getting rid of it.




Sorry for the long post, and very keen for some responses and input, and perhaps joining the community for a long time.

[Jimmyb]

Leaf springs hold on better with side angles, and when set up right will flex just as well. As for the ZJ, weak links are the front axles, and they are also a weak link in the rear.

Do you respearch, I just my XJ possibly up for sale, opinions vary on the price it's at, based on what you can buy one for with no mods, but if you are considering one, once you go over 2" of lift and 31's the price of what is needed to do go up considerably.

Mine thats for sale, well you could buy a stock Limited for maybe 5k, then with the shopping list on mine, doing all the work yourself you would be into it for over 20k without breaking a sweat.

But this all depends on what you plan to do with it, if it's drive up the beach once every 6 mths, a stocker is all you need. If you want to go to 4x4 parks etc etc and go camping, thats when the game changes.

[Lukey]

Thanks for the response! Do the XJs have a weak spot like the ZJ, persay?

Do you know if its possible to fit 3 car seats into an XJ?
For what I plan to be doing id say 2" and 31s is all i would need.

My plan is to take the family camping, so nothing too serious, just something to go that bit further than where your average car can go, eg - commodore, rav 4 etc

I have noticed when looking around at carsales and gumtree there are alot more XJs for sale then ZJs