1990 Jeep Cherokee Laredo from North America - Comments

Renault was in charge of Chrysler-AMC at the time they designed the electrical system, and it shows in the numerous relays, wires, and unused connections sprinkled liberally under the hood and dashboard. This has caused a great amount of grief understanding why the left turn signal won't blink, the cruise control won't work, the remote door opener remaining useless, back wipers failing, lift gate switch not lighting the cargo area - I'd begun to think the car was flood damaged until I'd read repair postings on the Internet filled with requests to fix the same on their Cherokees. I had told myself to avoid cars with power windows and door locks - at least the windows still work. I honestly believe the electrical designers were trained by Lucas (The Prince of Darkness!)

Jeep Cherokees invite you to blow off all the little hot cars on the road. The 4.0 L six has plenty of power to keep up with larger V-8s, and won't punish you too seriously in gas mileage IF you drive sensibly. Having built a 66 Mustang with 302 CID and 4 speed, I wonder if it couldn't keep right up with it.

The chassis handles quite well considering it has no independent suspension - just two live axles, but fully equipped to control the handling under road and field conditions. The ride is a little stiff, with speed bumps shaking the cab at low speeds, but smoothing out well on highways and interstates. Off road the chassis does well, limiting the driver's over-enthusiam with plenty of warning the chassis is not ready to play with the really big mud monsters. Pay for modifications to crawl over rocks and gulleys bigger than the tires - the standard Jeep will do better going around.

The four wheel drive lacks one facet when running in deep snow or badly iced roads - studded tires to stop you! It is amazingly easy to get up to dry road speeds in nasty conditions. The selective box allows all the control you can get from open differentials, and will pull you away from the curb, parallel parked, in axle deep snow without a hitch. You may want a hitch, however, just to help tow out your buddies in their trucks and hot rods. Blasting around in slick conditions will only feed your arrogance toward people who have no business being on the streets in their creeping slidermobiles.

The interior is too comfortable compared to old trucks and Mustangs, and is well appointed in the Laredo package. Although Jeep drivers seats seem prone to breaking the weld on the support panel underneath, they have no hard spots or mushiness, and allow the driver to put in a thousand miles a day when he needs to - broken or not.

Cherokees are the only choice when you must get your cargo and passengers anywhere in America under almost any conditions.

Hey I have a 1990 Jeep Cherokee Laredo 2WD and I don't know what I can do with it because of it laking the 4WD do have any suggestions on things to still make it drivable off-road? Please respond.

All you can do is buy a 4WD, there isn't much you can do with a 2WD. I know, I owned one for 7 years. I have been stuck many times. 1/4 of those times, I don't even think 4WD would have helped. If you really want to keep your 2WD, just buy yourself a good winch and don't go off-road by yourself.

One thing you could do is take out the drive shaft and front axles. You can use 4X4 junkyard parts... put in the transfer case and drive shaft from the 4WD, and the front axle, that should work.

What is the average gas mileage I should expect with a 4l 6 cylinder.

We just purchased a 1990 Jeep Cherokee Laredo for our son's college driving. The owner gave us four keys that all work in the ignition. Much to our surprise, none of the keys work in the door locks. The previous owner hasn't driven the vehicle in over a year and couldn't remember if he had other keys.

Does the Cherokee Laredo have separate keys for the door and ignition? If so, where can we get door locks! :)