1988 Jeep Cherokee Pioneer review from North America

Only what would be considered routine maintenance and expect wear and tear. This includes having to have changed the Harmonic Dampener a couple of times.

Our family has owned our 1988 Jeep Cherokee for nearly 15 years. My dad bought it as a "buy-back" car with about 14K miles on it. It now has well over 275K miles on it, and is only now starting to show signs of age. It has been, by far, the most reliable car I have owned. I cannot say enough about the dependability of the 4.0L engine and the AW4 transmission pair. Someone did a fantastic engineering job on that match. We rebuilt the engine ourselves at about 250K miles, mostly for fun. We found that the engine had worn, but not unreasonably. The transmission feels like it would pull a freight train, but I would not recommend it.

If you can find an '88 Cherokee with less than 125K miles on it, in otherwise good condition, I would not hesitate to buy one. I am a 100% satisfied owner. Too bad they did away with it.

Unfortunately, I don't think I would buy a new Jeep. It seems like since DC took over the quality and workmanship have slipped quite a lot. I also own a 1998 Jeep Wrangler and have had a lot of annoying minor problems with it. The Cherokee is a much better basic car.