New to the forum. Own a 95 XJ sport with 178k and had it for 16 years. Best car I've ever owned. Looking for another one, and the consensus is get a 98-99 for best reliability. I've found a few online and it seems like every one of them that have about 100k miles or less are asking $10k or more for the car. The blue book on these is right at $5k across NADA, KBB and Edmunds, even for a Dealer price. Are people actrually paying 2x the value for these? I'm not above paying a premium but it seems pretty outlandish to pay that much. Interested to hear people's thoughts. Thanks!

 

All those books don't mean squat in the real world and they only help to perpetuate myths in many ways.

For example, they cannot and do not take into account the subjective nature of how much "value" an object may/can hold. It wouldn't matter if, say, KBB states that car "X" is worth 3k if consumers value car "X" at a higher price and are more than willing to pay it.

Good luck in your search.

 

10k? WOW!

Where are you from?

 

I'm in Chicago. The cars I am looking at are mostly on the Eastern half of the country.

 

You would really have to ask the peeps setting the prices.
Are these vehicles you are looking at from buy here/pay here, high credit risk establishments? They usually rape customers without mercy.

 

$10K is uber steep. Bend over, no lube, grab your ankles steep.

However, Blue book value is nothing to go by, it doesn't reflect market value of niche vehicles like our XJs. Foxbody Mustangs are a perfect example of this. Look up the KBB of a '93 5.0/5spd coupe with 75K miles. Then just TRY to score one anywhere near that price, lol.

 

Thanks. This is super helpful perspective. The XJs I am looking at are mostly at smaller, niche dealers that seem to specialize in low mileage SUVs. The ones I have found via common search sites like Craigslist and AutoTrader and Cars.com are much more reasonably priced, but the majority of them also have some sort of issue, like rust, bad interiors, etc. I don't want to have to do a lot of work, so I am guessing I am paying for that.

 

To me low mileage is bad it means its sat around a long time,Letting a car sit is bad for it every seal and gasket will dry out and leak once you start driving it normal.I rather have something high mileage that has been taking care of vs something that has sat around.As far as dealer prices they always make them high so you can talk them down so you feel like you got a deal even tho you didn't

 

^X2^

 

I think this is the case for the most part but I do not agree when it comes to cherokees. We have such wanted vehicles that all stealerships know any cherokee in decent condition will sell almost immediately. This drives the price up at auctions which means in order for them to make any money off of the cherokee they have to charge out the *** for it. I spent the last few months looking for a second cherokee and I was very picky about what I wanted. I found a few at dealerships with one that I really liked but of course the price was insane. They would not and could not budge an inch.

STOP TRADING IN YOUR CHEROKEES!

 

I have to somewhat disagree with the low mileage being a bad thing.
Although I do agree things in general seem to work better when used.

first, it does not mean it sat around could have been driven very little.

second, at least with low mileage you will be doing the work and making sure it gets done right. Not someone else doing it before me.

I purchased a 99 stock with 85,000 miles last year, came from a couple that only spent the summers in FL, rest of the year up north. I know it sat every year and I still went through everything like if it had a ton of miles.
I guess what I'm trying to say is in my opinion if you had to chose between 2 xjs, same year, stock I would always go with less mileage. In my case I would replace, inspect,and upgrade everything I could.

 

JMO, YMMV:
1. You are dealing with a 16 year old vehicle, you will have to (or should) replace everything anyway.
2. Silly to pay any type of premium for a Jeep Cherokee. Cherokees are hardly collectable and they churned them out as cheap and as fast as they could with whatever parts were available.

 

The trick with a dealership is you offer then less in cash and say in cash,If they don't take it come back a week later and offer it again.Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 trips but they give in when it don't sell.Or my uncles trick go on a hot day and keep the sales person outside in the heat for a while they will come down on price once you made them sweat for a hour lol.

 

If you are looking for a newer one do yourself a favor and look at 2000 and 2001s. You'll get a better deal for just this reason:

You're not the only one that has figured this out. Budget $500 for a head replacement, and replace it right away as a maintenance item, and you'll be good to go. Let everyone else fight over the '98-'99s.

 

sometimes people have cracked head and didn't know about it, keep running the engine. Over time, the bad oil mix would wipe out the bearings.

You potentially may just need to replace the head, or a whole engine. U just don't know.