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I found a 2000 Jeep Cherokee Sport with 205,000 miles on it.
Is it worth buying that model year because I heard that the head cracks on them.
How common is this cracking issue or is it nothing to worry about with normal maintenance?.
I don’t plan to abuse it I will be using it off road from time to time but nothing crazy I don’t plan on mudding or rock crawling or anything like that just going on some trails to camp destinations or whatever.
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Heads cracking was a design/manufacturing defect… Some things cannot be avoided, even with proper care…. All I can say is that with a vehicle that has that many miles on it, anything can happen… If you purchase it, be financially prepared for it…
Cheers
-Karl
Honestly, I would never buy a Jeep Grand Cherokee or anything that resembles it. I know it’s the ‘original SUV’, but the fact is that I get more questions about issues with those vehicles than just about any other. Now, to be fair, they did sell a lot of those vehicles. The reason I could get so many questions could also be because there are so many out there.
I should also say that I’d buy a CJ or Wrangler any day.
Cherokee Sport and Grand Cherokee are different models I don’t know much about the Grand Cherokee’s but my brother in law had one with 460,000 miles all original before it got totaled in a wreck.
I do do know the Cherokee’s before 2000 were nearly impossible to kill with normal maintenance but in 2000 they switched to a new head which was the 0331 head and it had a manufacturing flaw causing them to crack on a lot of them but not all so its confusing.
Straight 6 engines are usually more reliable. But every car is going to have its problems Honda’s, Chevy’s, Chrysler, Ford, Subaru, Nissan, Toyota, and so on all have there issues and bad ones in the bunch.
People these days assume that normal maintenance is just spark plugs and an oil change but its not and because of this they make good vehicles look bad.
As far as potential cylinder head troubles go, the “0331” head casting was improved during 2001 to cure the cracking issue. While the improved head still used the older 0331 casting number, it had “TUPY” cast into it between #3 and #4 cylinders, which is where the previous casting was prone to cracking.
It’s possible that this Cherokee’s original head has already been replaced with the improved “TUPY” head. Remove the oil filler cap and you should be able to see whether it has the TUPY code or not. If it doesn’t have the code, you might be able to talk the owner down a few bucks. You could always change the head yourself if you decide to buy truck.
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