JK production comes to a close

drinkdrankdrunk

New member
No sure about numbers but it will never compare as far as being a real jeep. The xj was the last great family station wagon, a memory maker. It was 100% purpose designed to be user friendly and utilitarian. To get mom to the grocery store, the family to the campground, the kids to school, practice etc. Hard to kill is an understatement. The 4.0 was IMHO one of the best motors ever, it gave you everything you needed and nothing more. It was perfect in its simplicity.

I've had 4 jk's including a 6.4 brute and a jk350 now and I say this with all sincerity - the jk line gave rise to starwood motors conversions, angry grills, rgb headlights, 5 light bars and 37's but no re-gearing or lockers and the gutless wonders that are the 3.8 and 3.6 At least the aftermarket is deep enough so some of them aren't total rolling abortions.


Most everything you said about the XJ can be said about the ZJ and WJ as well, with the only difference being some of the higher trim ZJ/WJ's had quite a few bells and whistles. Same bullet proof 4.0, SFA, a bit more spacious and luxurious inside, and at least in the WJ a stronger unibody, biggest draw back is the lack of a manual option and the WJ can be a bit heavy for the 4.0, especially with larger tires. Some of the XJ's had the chrysler 8.25 rear which is awesome, and definitely had the better transmission options. But I will say I do believe the jeep lineup (save for the wrangler lineup) died after the WJ, and to a lesser degree after the TJ/LJ.
 
having never owned a an xj I have no comment. However I will say having owned a cj -7 tj (I drove this one stock across the rubicon and It was awesome) JKUR and JLUR. The JLUR straight out of the box is the best and most capable jeep to come from the factory. You can run 35s on it with no lift, the crawl ratio is absurd. Ants walk faster than that the jeep crawls and as far as traction nothing much beats front and rear lockers. And I can drive it to the trail head wheel all day or explore and camp in it and not be beat up from driving a short wheelbase tj or even the lj. Just my humble opinion!

The starwood, angry jeep faces, light bars a nd 20 inch rims etc. I agree are for posers and pretenders beside being an absolute insult to jeeps everywhere.

MY old 3.8 with stock gearing ran 315, 70 17 and sure it was slow I didn't get a single ticket in 10 years in it. The motor no matter how underpowered it was was bullet proof. Personal example. I had blown some intake manifold gaskets and was burning coolant at about 165,00 miles . The collant ran dry the check engine light came on. I drove it home to Carlsbad CA from Newport beach stopping to let it periodically cool off ( i din't know why the check engine light came on at the time I was just nursing it home) That sort of showed me just how durable the engine was.
 

comptiger5000

Adventurer
"Bullet proof 4.0". No such thing since 1995... After that they all have the pistons that sometimes just randomly break the skirts off for no reason and the later years have the 0331 head issues. In a WJ, the V8s aren't perfect either, so it's down to preference. In a ZJ, get the V8 hands down, they're more reliable and have more power.

I'll agree with the comments about the 3.8 in the JK. They're underpowered and prone to oil consumption, but they're very durable (just look at their history of being abused in minivan applications).
 

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