1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited Edition from Bulgaria - Comments

I have replaced oxygen sensors twice.

Air/Fuel Mixture sensor.

Shock absorber all round.

Catalyser needed replacing.

The rear right window and the front right door lock mysteriously stopped working.

The air conditioning does not work at all.

The brakes seem to have a life of their own.

I recently purchased my aged Grand Cherokee and even though I know a fair bit about cars and how they work, I started thinking that I had bought a complete dud. That is until I spent a few hours reading the other reviews on this web page and realized that as Jeeps go, mine is actually not too bad. I have clocked 5000 miles and today is the 6th trip to the mechanics. We are hopefully going to find the cause for the rough idling at stoplights and the high fuel consumption.

After shopping around for an SUV to make driving on bad Bulgarian roads a little more bearable, I had finally narrowed it down to two choices, the Jeep and a diesel Nissan Patrol. As I drive a Nissan 4x4 Pickup I decided that the Patrol was too much like my other car and decided on the Jeep. Woe the day I moved away from Japanese dependability and decided to buy this oversized and over engineered horror. Every trip is fraught with worry. Will I get there?? Will it stop when I apply the brakes?? Will I be able to turn into the parking space without the front end sounding like its tearing itself to pieces?? And most recently: Will I get the doors unlocked?? Make no mistake, I do actually enjoy driving the car, but I have had to teach myself to accept certain things with the more universal approach of: It is what it is.

In spite of the problems others are having and I am expecting to have, I have decided to give the Jeep another shot and when my patience finally fails me, I will, at least, have built a solid relationship with my mechanic.

Dude, i know all about it! I have a 93 grand also and we have spent 3000 dollars on repairs in 15 mos. you name it it broke, fell off or leaked out. although my wife still loves it. I guess I will keep it awhile longer. hope you have better luck with yours. emmysdad2u.

My Husband and I purchased a 1993 JGCL last year. It has been in the shop almost as long as we have owned it. I giggled when I read that your locks and windows only work sometimes and that your breaks have a mind of their own. I felt like I was reading about my own JGCL. We wanted to trade it, but we are too upside down in it at the moment. So we will hang in there, the same as you. good luck to you!!

I owned a 93 Grand cherokee for 2 years. The person with the PW/PDL problem in one door: you have a bad connector where the body wiring connects to the door. The connector is designed to be very easy to remove with a torx bit and ratchet. Unfortunately the pins are microscopic and after 15 years of corrosion one or more of them is probably now broken. It's not an easy fix so be glad it's one of the rear doors. Roll the window up and forget it. Otherwise you will have to replace the wiring harness with the broken pins in it which I think might be the door harness, which you could do if you like doing this kind of work. If you pay a garage it will no make economic sense.

Basically these cars have really good engines and drivelines and really poor body and electrical components. I have been put out of commission by tail lights not working because the third -world quality wiring with splices in wet locations that corrode and break and it takes for ever to figure out where the problem is. I am an engineer and I don't think an auto mechanic would have figured it out any faster unless they already knew where to look. I had the door lock problem in my drivers door but lucked out somehow the pin that broke doesn't seem to affect anything after I took it apart and put it back together a couple times. If the wrong pin broke you would have NO power window and NO PDL as all the circuits go through the driver's door switch. My power seats stopped working but I took the switch apart and cleaned it up and got it to work. If you go to a mechanic forget it you will have to buy a new one. Same thing with the brake light switch - another no-go item if it doesn't work. My back-up lights stopped working right at the same time; requires changing a switch that screws into the side of the transmission; an easy fix but not too easy to diagnose and the average driver would get ripped off on that too. For months I could not drive this car because it had a terrible transmission fluid leak that I traced to the dip stick o-ring after taking the pan on and off about 3 times. Fixing this in the vehicle bordered on impossible but with a 4 foot crowbar and some creative knot tying I got the tube back in the case with a new o-ring. The climate control system was nothing short of possessed: all the functions worked, but not in a sequence that matched what was selected on the controls. Since everything is buried inside the dash and I had bigger problems to worry about I never even considered trying to fix it. On the positive side; this was the easiest water pump change I've ever done (over 400$ if you pay to have it done) ; the brake master cyl is also easy to change and you just bleed it the way you would any normal master cyl. don't worry about what the manual says about using special bleeding equipment; changing the CV boots was amazingly easy; I had a torn one and replaced it for about $7 part cost and 18$ for a tool I will never use again versus having a shop tell me it's only worthwhile to install new drive axle assemblies, which is true if you are paying for labor, and which makes this a 400$ plus job.

For much scarier stories search on; these are notorious for having the limited slip unit in the front axle go out, and that is an expensive fix. Also heard a lot of scary stories about this automatic trans. In my jeep which had 140,000 miles on it I could tell once I got under it that both the trans and front axle had already been changed out. By then I didn't care though I just wanted my life back... sold for a net loss of over 3000 dollars for maybe 1000 miles driven, most of it test drives...

Net-net, if you want the experience of driving a perfect SUV around and not worrying about whether you will get home without the assistance of a tow truck, well there is a reason these cost 30,000 new and 1,500 bucks now (2008). If you want a vehicle that will take up ALL of your free time and hone all your troubleshooting skills, this is the vehicle for you!