What is the life expectancy of my 1998 Jeep Cherokee?

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

That’s a lot of miles, but it sounds like you take good care of it. I wouldn’t go new car shopping just yet.

If you’re willing to spend roughly $80, you can get a compression test performed on the engine which will tell you how many pounds/square inch each individual cylinder is operating with. You’re looking for similar numbers across all four/six/eight cylinders and generally do not want a difference of more than 10% between two respective cylinders. This will give you a general idea on the engine’s health.

If I were you and owned a 10 year old American vehicle, I’d be more worried about the transmission (assuming you’ve got a automatic). From my experience, transmissions tend to fail before the engine on auto-trannied domestic vehicles but unfortunately there is no test to give you an idea on it’s health.

One smart thing you could do to prolong the health of your Jeep is to buy a magnetic drain plug for the engine and transmission. This will attract all the microscopic metal pieces and keep them from floating around in the oil.

I’ve known several friends who have had Cherokees with over 300,000 miles on them before major problems. Two were lifted with 35” tires, lockers, lifts and such, and driven really hard.

I knew 98 Cherokee with 215k. Started perfectly.

just had a mechanic look at my 99 jeep grand cherokee laredo. it’s at about 140,000. needs a new windshield, headlight, transfer case, wheel bearings and axle work. yes, frequent oil changes, but no, she wont last too much longer.

Windshield? Headlight? That doesn’t count.

Just wanted to express thanks for the Question and Answers… we are currently shopping around for an older small SUV, and we prefer Jeeps to the GM, Ford and Chrysler variants in our price range. Having never purchased a used car before, this helps put my mind at ease a bit.

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