As I have not seen roadhouse (roadhouse!!) I tried YT but no luck...

 

there tough especially the motors! but the stock upper control arms are s#!t. me and my buddies have made several of them look like tacos this year alone. so upgrade those and the lowers ASAP.

 

Control arms, tri rod, tre's bushings, u joints, track bar... The list of breakable parts is a long one. Idk about the UCA's being my first move.... Maybe if you have the lift and tires, then yes..

 

trust me 4.5 and 35 will make a upper control arm let loose quick. but the trails we go on are the higher level ones.

 

Vehicle XYZ is as tough as your wallet!

If you can get one for less money, get a Range Rover. They will far exceed what a Jeep does...but you'll have to drop serious money.

Land Cruisers also are AWESOME but again...$$$

Jeep gives you a great all around value to get from soup to nuts in a relative low investment. You will curse mounting points on a Jeep (rear susp. shock moutings are a common issue among others mentioned).

I just got my Jeep, so I'm not so die hard yet (still objective). Jeeps do break a lot, but it is very easy to work on. But also keep in mind Cherokees are getting long in the tooth...parts, clean stock starter cars and even the 4.0L will become more and more hard to find, and more and more expensive.

 

Do steel bumpers/rockers help reinforce the unibody? Because it seems to me that steel bumpers in a fender bender could cause some pretty bad damage to the unibody since there isnt plastic/foam to absorb the impact.. opinions on steel bumpers?

 

When my XJ was running a 2 inch BB, and the Toyota i was playing with, was SAS'd locked, and ready. i pulled him out a good hand full of times, he was always so pissed off...

i originally bought the jeep for a **** around DD just because of the cargo space and expendablility, and now... i couldn't think of driving around anything else... im seriously tempted to sell my RX7 just to buy a jeep fleet.

 

If you are concerned about frame cracks, anything will crack; frame or unibody. Both can be beefed up substantially however but if you still bend the unibody you are in for an expensive repair.

Biggest difference would be the drivetrain. Stock, its not even close. K5 is tough although the XJ is still quite capable.

 

Chuck Norris once came up against a Cherokee..............And LOST!

 

I like em cuz I can get em cheap, wheel the crap outa them till the doors dont open, pull good parts, scrap em, buy another one cheap, wheel the crap....

A non stiffened XJ on 35s wheeled hard will last about 2-3 years before the uniframe starts making noise along the lines of 2 trash cans..well making little trash cans.

XJs have been known to get 250k miles easy. Drivetrain wise they are second to none.

 

i love how reliable the xjs are! i know quite a few people that have them and have had them forever. I keep seeing posts about stiffening it with angle iron which seems like a great idea. Definitely gonna look into this when i get mine.