I am thinking of getting back into offroading. The min vehicle I am starting to look at is the Jeep Wrangler. I had a 1990 Cherokee a long time ago that did pretty well, but the last few Jeeps we have had in my family (mid-90’s Grand Cherokees) were lemons.
Does anyone have experiance with the current generation of Jeeps? How is the reliability on them? Any red flags I should know about?
I would have to ask just how off road are you talking about?
I had a ’84 CJ7 that did quite well, except it continued to have rear axle problems.
I have a ’76 Chevy Short Bed pick up that did very well, but she is my plow truck now.
My current vehicle is an ’06 Pathfinder, and while I know it’s not really an off road vehicle, it does pretty well.
My Wife has a ’03 Grand Jeep, and while it does well ‘off road’ it has had a lot of mechanical issues.
For a box stock off road vehicle, I have heard that the new Toyota FJ is pretty good. The Jeep is of course smaller and more nimble.
Can’t address the question of Jeeps reliability for the new ones, but if I was in an older one, I would bring lot’s of tools.
(It aggravates me that the decent 4x4’s of old are being turned into AWD mini-vans and cross-overs that have no business being off road)
I had a 2007 that was horrible. It was basically a lemon - they fixed the exact same part under warranty 3 times and when I brought it back a fourth time they started denying there was a problem and refused to service it. I had hired a lawyer but before he could pursue anything Chrysler happened to enter bankruptcy and my lease ended before it emerged.
The problem was the steering damper kept failing. The first time the service rep told me that the Chrysler part was basically crap and that they replaced them with after-market parts all the time. That was 6 months after I bought it. Then it failed again 6 months after that. Then again 6 months after that. When it failed the 4th time they refused to admit it was their fault and I never bothered replacing it after that.