1988 Jeep Cherokee Pioneer from North America - Comments

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.

I just wanted to say I just bought an 1988 Jeep Cherokee with only 130,200 miles for only $1000. I love the car there are only a few things that annoy me about it, maybe you can shine some light on it for me. For one it takes me about 4-6 seconds to start the car any idea why it might take so long? Also, over head there is something missing above the mirror any idea what it could be, cause I think it might have been a light? if anyone has any information for me please e mail Timmy185@aol.com THANK YOU.

It's just the nature of the '88 Cherokee - they are "slow to start." Never causes any problems, though. Mine has 267,000 on it and has always started that way.

I'm looking at buying a 1988 Jeep Cherokee Pioneer with 128K on it. The seller is asking $2800 for it, is it worth that or what would be a resonable offer. They claim it is 'clean and runs great'. I know I probably have to check it out for myself, but I also don't want to make a bad purchase. Thanks for your help.

The long cranking (4-5 sec) for starting the engine is due to the under-design gearing ratio with the starter and there is nothing wrong with it. I have my 1988 Cherokee for the last 10 years and it's clocking over 300k km on the original power train and so far other than the normal maintenance it is basically trouble free. I read on the newer Cherokees (2001 and newer) and all I see is nothing, but problems so may be I should keep driving my old faithful until she falls apart!

I recently purchased a 1988 Jeep Cherokee Pioneer in great condition with a 166,000 miles. I bought it on Friday it ran great, Saturday no problems. Sunday I took it to the grocery store early in the morning it ran fine although slow to start. I brought it home. At about noon I went out to start it it wouldn't start after about 5 tries each hour, it just wouldn't start. The engine turned over fine, but wouldn't fire. In disgust I slammed down the hood. My neighbor who was watching me came over and asked me if I wanted him to look at it. I reopened the hood, he said "crank it" and it started right away. Da, is my neighbor just gifted. Got ant ideas?

This slow start is usually caused by the fuel pump going bad. It's supposed to keep 30PSI in the system after you turn the car off - a check valve goes bad and the pressure isn't held, and when you go to to start the car, the pump has to refill the lines before gas gets into the engine. You can buy a fuel pressure gauge for around $30 and the 4.0 has a test port on the fuel rail along the intake manifold. Screw it onto the fitting, start the Jeep and then turn it off... pressure should stay up - if it slowly bleeds down to zero in just a few minutes you have a bad check valve. Hope this helps.

If you need to replace the fuel pump, get one from the dealer... aftermarket pumps suck and will fail in 20-30K.