buying a TJ for the wife, need advice

Good or bad?? BAD! Especially for something you are going to stick your wife in. If she is like my wife I'd suggest going all out. Get her the six and whatever else she wants. 10 grand seems very steep on price regardless of what you can get them down to.

MR.CLIFFORD said:

...10 grand seems very steep on price regardless of what you can get them down to.

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Yeah that's what I was thinking...

And as far as buying something with more power or whatever, what she really wants is the style of this jeep, and she doesn't even want a hard-top, because it's going to always be down/off when she's driving. And shoot she may never take it much offroad... but one step at a time I think.

Having owned a 4 cylinder and a 6 cylinder jeep I would strongly suggest the 6 any day of the week. She wants the jeep. Then she wants bigger tires and a lift. And honey will you buy this for me. It doesn't end. I promise.

Do you own a jeep??

MR.CLIFFORD said:

...Then she wants bigger tires and a lift. And honey will you buy this for me. It doesn't end. I promise.

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Ha! Yeah maybe.

MR.CLIFFORD said:

Do you own a jeep??

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No, that's why I'm trying to ask some people who know what they're talking about before I let her get a big mistake.

I had the 4 cylinder when my jeep was first... um. Stock.

My wife wanted to get a wrangler and I let her pick it out. She settled on the 4 cylinder automatic with the rear dana 35.

It was the furthest thing away from a jeep I could consider healthy. We spent a little time shopping and for about 1000 more I found a 4.0L, manual(NV3550) with the dana 44 rear and 3.73 gears. It just took a little bit of time and my wife found the jeep that she wanted(since it was red )

I am not a fan of the 4 cylinder. I only purchased one to swap a Chevy V8. The 4 cylinder wrangler is the SE model. Most don't have many options from the factory. Rear soundbar, dome light, air conditioning, tilt steering, and they have sub par parts such as the AX5 transmission and dana 35 rear axle.

The 6 is a great motor. It doesn't require much attention and will go forever. I know 2 guys local that have over 250k on each motor. That's just amazing to me.

Thanks! Unfortunately so far any 6 is out of our price range, so far. I'll have to keep looking!

wranglers are great the only complaint i have and so do many others is it eats gas like there is no tomorrow. I get around 10-12 mpg. Many people with the smaller engine I4 get similar mpg so i wouldnt get the I4 since you wont have the power and still get similar mpg to the I6. I bought my tj 4-5 months ago and have used up more gas than i have in my entire year that i owned my mazda miata for which i drove a lot more.

btw my tj was 13995 and we brought it down to 12750

Triple88a said:

...Many people with the smaller engine I4 get similar mpg so i wouldnt get the I4 since you wont have the power and still get similar mpg to the I6...

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Crap... but very good to know, thanks!

Whats you budget???

I would (as i did) spend the extra money and get the I6. I wanted even a bit more so i bought manual as well since it has 5 speeds instead of the 3 the auto has. I gotta tell you although its stock i beat the hell out of them "racing" civics around here in both offroad and on road and we have many of them around.

[email protected] said:

Whats you budget???

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$8500, although I can finance for more if I find a good enough deal... thing is, she wants an auto, which really narrows the field, and she prefers the '97 and newer style (i guess they're "cute" to her. )

Here's a bunch of tj's they have at carmax. This is where i got mine and you never have to worry about it being in a wreck cause they check this with a fine tooth comb. I got a 2000 tj with 60K for 12K. Mine is a manual though. Check it out...

http://carmax.com/dyn/search/search...=0&locnum=7118&pr1=1&pr2=4&es=T&esx=2&zd=&m=2

Definately get the 6, in fact, you mention only needing the 4 since she won't do much off roading but the 4 is actually fine for off roading it's on road is where it really suffers.
We have both, my wife has a 99 with the 6 and I have 91 with the 4 banger, hers much nicer to drive and can actually get over 60 on the freeway, my 4 banger struggles to get to 65 and if you hold it there very long you can feel the wallet being sucked into the fuel tank.
And yet they're about equal off road.

blazeking said:

$... prefers the '97 and newer style (i guess they're "cute" to her. )

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Dont we just love those round headlights? Thats what i wanted. The square headlights seem to square to me for some reason. I wouldnt buy older than 99 for rusting problems here anyways so...

skeeter said:

Definately get the 6...

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So I'll keep my eye out for a 6!

And thanks [email protected] for the link!

http://cars.com/go/search/search_re...-descending|Z-95453&aff=national&aff=national

or www.cars.com

Just keep searching - after months and months I found my '97 I6 auto with only 55k on it for way less than what you'd think. Just got to frequent Jeep places and some on might make you a good deal you can't resist

Triple88a said:

wranglers are great the only complaint i have and so do many others is it eats gas like there is no tomorrow. I get around 10-12 mpg. Many people with the smaller engine I4 get similar mpg so i wouldnt get the I4 since you wont have the power and still get similar mpg to the I6. I bought my tj 4-5 months ago and have used up more gas than i have in my entire year that i owned my mazda miata for which i drove a lot more.

btw my tj was 13995 and we brought it down to 12750

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The gas mileage thing really comes down to driving styles. Granted I'm driving a 1994 4.0L 5-spd, but it gets 14-15 mpg religiously with 60k on the motor and turing 31's.

Make sure you get her A/C too. I know it sounds counterintuitive in a soft top Jeep, but you'll appreciate it. If this is going to be a DD, there'll be times when you're all dressed up in the summer and don't want to sweat all over your nice clothes. Also, it's nice to have when it's raining and muggy.