Heres the deal, i'm in college right now, waiting to finish my undergrad so I can attend law school(yay! A zillion years of school...), anyways. I've got a budget of around 9k or so.. well really its like 1k, but my twice a year father randomly decided to co-sign a bank loan for me.. Something to do with the 4.0 GPA, while working 40 hours a week or something.. anyways. I drive an old beat up 85 s-10 blazer.. with everything wrong. I spend 10-20 hours a week fixing it(seriously), and about 70$ a week.. just on random crap. Ball joint here, wheel hub there, etc etc. Anyways!

The meat of the question!

I am planning to buy a jeep for one very very very simple reason.

American made. Say what you will, but I will take the old school v6 over a DOHC turbo charged 6 cylinder any day. I can fix them, I can do a head swap, put in a new cam, etc etc, without a ton of fuss. So my question.. How reliable is the engine past 100k? According to KBB, from a used car lot(I know.. god forbid), I can expect about 9k or so for a 100k mile jeep manual, with the v6 and A/C. Its phoenix, Arizona. I need an AC heh, just so my girlfriend doesn't murder me.

Am I gonna be replacing MAP sensors, blowing piston rings, and having my t-case detonate on me, or will it just be normal stuff like water pumps and oil pumps?

I really am hoping to avoid replacing things every 2 weeks.. but I really couldn't stand to leave wheeling behind.. even my old s-10 blazer could wheel. Theres nothing funner then heading out the day after a nice storm and mudding, or doing a nice technical trail..


After all.. nothing better then a jeep for the tight arizona trails heh.

Thanks for listening, appreciate any responses.

Well, I searched around, and got pretty lucky I think. Picked up a 97 Sahara with about 84,000 on the clock for $8500 from a local guy back in Feb. Came with 5 spd manual and 6 cyl, but no A/C. I found it on Auto Trader.com. Looked underneath and it had no damage, I don't think it had ever been off road! Since then I've had to replace the cat converter, $100 installed. I also had to replace the drivers side hub ($140), ball joints ($100 for heavy duty), and brakes and caliper ($70) because some idiot had tightened the hub bearing nut hand tight instead of torquing it to the correct spec. While I was at it, I put the steering linkage from my 03 and a new steering damper ($65 for OME) because the old one was rusted to much to align it. We've also put a 4" RE superflex on it and wheeled it. Since getting this all done, we've had no trouble, and everything else works great. I agree with you about getting a Jeep and being able to wrench on it yourself, I probably saved about $1000 on the above repairs by doing my own work. To sum it all up, I've fixed everything wrong on my own, and my wife has a Jeep that I don't have to worry about her driving and breaking on her. Buyer beware, your results may vary and all that, but many people on this board have engines with many more miles on them and they still run strong. You know how to take care of a vehicle, I say go for it! I spent about 6 weeks of your current vehicle maintenance $$ to get it right, and I should be set for a while with a dependable rig.

Good luck,
Mark

Great to hear that

Gas mileage has me a bit worried.. my blazer gets like 12mpg(its an s-10 blazer also.. its got major issues lol), so i'm sure the jeep would be a large upgrade, like 15mpg or so..

Anyways! If anyone has a nice jeep for sale in tucson or phoenix, arizona.. email me at:

linux DOT officer AT gmail DOT com

(replace dot with . and at with @ :P)