Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum. I'm 19 years old and I've been looking to buy my first car. Somehow only recently did I realize that if my Dad's 1995 Cherokee was mine, I wouldn't be looking.

Its a 4.0L, automatic, 2-door, rear-wheel drive. Its got nearly 138,000 miles on it and still runs well. Its been used to tow a trailer with a boat, though. Only real problem is, its been in an accident. Long story short I rear-ended a sedan at somewhere between 20 and 30 MPH. Airbag didn't deploy, not a single headlight/taillight was broken on either car, and I drove away, if that means anything. In fact, we've yet to have it taken in for body work. So far its been running fine, and I've been driving it daily as usual, only thing off is that the steering is off-center slightly to the right, though it does not "pull." My amateur-mechanic buddy says its most likely not a big deal and will be fixed by the garage that is paid by the insurance company.

Anyways, since then (and unrelated to the accident, since as far as we know the vehicle's motor is mechanically unharmed), I've been discussing with my Dad the possibility of me actually purchasing the vehicle from him (besides paying for the repairs).

This brings me to my actual question: Would you folks be inclined to say that, provided the garage sends the Jeep back without telling us something is seriously wrong with it (bent chassis or whatever) that me buying this thing is a good choice?

I'm asking because, alternatively, in less than a year from now I could afford something like a 2004 Grand Cherokee w/ 4x4 capability and around 75 more horsepower.

If you think I should buy it, what do you believe is a fair price? Kelly Blue Book seems to think somewhere between $1100 and $1600 is reasonable, if that means anything. It also needs new tires badly, by the way.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

Post a few pics of the damage.

 

I don't own a camera - I'll try to borrow a friend's if I can. For now, I will describe it to the best of my ability.

The steel bumper is bent, of course.
The plastic grille is broken.
The radiator is functional, but bent and will need to be replaced.
The bent radiator pushed the plastic housing of the fan into the fan; we removed the housing and zip-tied a fluid line away from the fan.
The quarter panel on the right side is bulging out. I didn't notice until 2 weeks after the accident.
The thing fiberglass section between the grille/lights and the hood, with the "JEEP" logo on it, is cracked.
The hood was untouched, and opens and closes as usual.
As far as I can tell, the headlights did not change alignment, and all lights and blinkers are functional.
I left one of the fog lights in the middle of the road. The other was smashed and hanging from a single wire; my Dad pulled it off.
The horn is still functional as normal.

I hope that helps.

 

Honestly when in a wreck damage is done deeper then you can see.Have a body shop put it on the jig and see if anything is not straight.

 

Will do. Odds that the unibody is bent?

I'm going to be posting images of the damage tomorrow, most likely.

 

Its wrecked.. give him $500 lol somewhere just over 1000 would be good, its more than worth it. It could be looking at another 200,000 or more if you take care of it

 

Can you open the doors and rear hatch easily? If so, you're unibody is probably just fine.

Get it checked out and if the there is no serious damage, I'd say go for it. It's been in your family for a long time so you know the service records and maintenance history already. In purchasing a used vehicle, that is the utmost key component that a lot of people fail to realize - how the vehicle was treated.

The Jeep has a lot of life left in it. I should serve you well for many years but I'm sure you would like 4wd and swaps take time and money which isn't very worth it if you ask me. It's not like 4wd Jeeps are hard to find...

 

Has the insurance company been involved? If the insurance company totals it and pays your dad the bluebook value, you need to buy it back from the insurance company for cheap, like a couple hundred bucks cheap. It's a win win situation!

 

Yes, both doors and the hatch open and close as usual, the hood does as well. The claim has yet to be filed (goes to show how awfully worried we've been about it being my daily driver, LOL) but if they try to total it I'll do what BustedBack said.

I don't wanna get too optimistic yet, though, until you guys get a chance to look at these pictures. Let me know what you think. The last one shows the fan w/o the plastic safety housing and our cutting-edge zip-tie engineering.

http://imageshack.us/g/593/1w8f.jpg/

Let me know if that link doesn't work, its supposed to go to the image gallery showing all 4 photos, I didn't want to link them as normal because they are large.

 

front core supports can be replaced way easy on these xjs

 

If hood and doors close easy with even gap spaces, sounds like it's still in decent condition.

Inspect your upper and lower control arms to see if they're bent.

 

I had a light front end tap once and it looked like the bumper mount took most of the energy, see if yours is bent, that's the bracket that connects the front bumper to the "frame rails"

 

Does "decent condition" mean the unibody isn't bent, or that it may be bent but will probably still be driveable? Because, I mean, its driveable right now before any repairs, but after repairs I'd like it to be 100% together.

I'll check out those control bars tomorrow morning and update y'all later that day.

 

Okay so I've crawled under the Jeep and looked at the upper and lower control arms with my untrained eyes and they do not seem to be bent at all. However, I'd say that the bumper mount is probably bent.

I also measured the distance between the front and rear tires on both sides, which measured out equally. The door gaps are symmetrical.

Its looking pretty optimistic, but we'll see what the shop says. If it does turn out the frame is unharmed, this thing will probably be better off with whatever parts are replaced than it was before the accident.

However I do have a perhaps only partially-related question: When I turn the key so that all the electrical stuff turns on, all the indicator lights go on, and then shut off EXCEPT the oil light. However, when I start the car, the oil light shuts off. What could this mean?

 

The oil light stays on because there is no oil pressure when the engine is not running. The lights come on and shut off as part of the start up bulb check. Yours is working normally.