that Buying Your First Jeep Feeling! 1997 Jeep Cherokee Country 

Thank you! Good times and hard ones as well. Doing the best we can

Yep

Yeah he seems like a cool dad

She loves it

Retro inspired, stylish, functional, spartan, serviceable, and indestructible, I just described everything, modern cars, including Jeep, is not.

It’ll be a great vehicle for her! She’s so excited

Hahaha yea I remember before I had my license I would just turn my car on and listen to the radio outside my house

Haha!! Yep. That's exactly what she has been doing. Hence the dead battery. LOL. Great lessons on car maintenance

You must do a propane conversion and still retain the ability to use petrol also. You will not believe how affordable fueling up will be using propane as a fuel. The kit is readily available online and is relatively easy to install.

Yes. That’s what I am hoping for

Passing on the passion

I hope she becomes a lifelong fan of them 😋

That's great! Glad my videos have helped 👍🏽

Bill, my 98 has neither.😁

Death wobble is nearly comically easy to fix. It terrifies people because it is so striking. But anybody with mild mechanical knowledge can easily fix the issue. I have fixed many death wobble / death rattle vehicles with great ease. I find that buying solid front live axle 4x4 vehicles with death wobble can get me extremely good deals because the owner believes the vehicle is destroyed. One time, all I changed was a single bolt on the track bar and set the toe of a Ford F-250 and resold the pickup truck for $5500 more than I paid for it. Death wobble, though dramatic, is near child's play to fix.

None of my XJs ever had death wobble. Most of the suspension parts are easy to replace. My lastest XJ is a leaker from HELL. Oil and rainwater leaks. Fixed the oil leaks, but the rainwater is coming throught the cowl I believe.

My 96 has neither, and it's got about 600,000 miles on it.

@@JeffDeWitt 600,000 your engine should be buttery smooth, still have great compression, and have another 200,000 before you have to do your first rebuild. Even then, just substitute a quart of Lucas Engine rebuild in your oil change and you can probably baby it to one million.

Yeah! I hope it brings lots of great memories

Agreed. There was a day shift worker that was in a panic when I came in for my third shift because her car would not start. I barely touched jumper cables to her battery and it started right up. She did not even have a clue the car had a battery. When I went to help her initially, I asked her if she thought the battery was dead, she said, "It is not an eletric car. I just put gas in it." I knew not to ask her anything else at all, after that most unfortunate answer. She looked amazed when I jumped the battery and started her car. I told her not to turn off her car because her battery was bad. She proceeded to get grouchy as she exclaimed again that her car was not an electric car. I just said, "Do not turn it off and go straight home. Have a great night and stay safe." I walked away mid sentence as she was suggesting I knew nothing about cars. I never told her that I am the night company mechanic that repairs everything from small equipment all the way up to the company lorries and fork trucks. Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but it sure makes people very vulnerable and look really arrogant sometimes.

@@indridcold8433 I... How does she think the radio and AC works then???

@@bunnyofdoom87 Well with the fuel she puts in the tank, of course.

@@indridcold8433 🤣

Thank you! We're anxious to get started on it. Perhaps creating a life long jeep lover 😁

Thank you! It should produce many great memories

Thanks. First goal is just replace some worn parts. Get it in great working order.

@@JeepSolid Check the track bar connection to the front axle. That is biggest source of the dreaded death wobble / death rattle. The right rear spring will be the spring that fails. But you already know all this. Have her be hands on when the repair time comes.

Thank you!! We are excited about it.

Haha!! Yep. I want her to know the basics. Prevent getting ripped off in the future at some shop.

33x12.5R15 Dick Cepek Xtreme Mud Terrians, on 15x10 inch Soft 8 rims aluminum rims to compliment the blue paint with a nice offset so no scratching of tires takes place, 4.5 inch Skyjacker lift system, bushwacker pocket style fender flairs to cover the edge of the beefy tires, Dana 44 rear axle, Terminator AX-15 Rockland Standard transmission, Atlas II transfer case, rhino lines floor boards, 4.11 to 1 gears with a Detroit auto locker for the front, ARB air locker for the rear, barricade winch bumper for the front with Stinger and extra flood lights mounted on it. Hella LED retrofit headlights, pillar mounted LED spotlights. 52 inch combination flood and spotlight LED light bar with Amber clearance LEDs built in. Smitty built roof rack with spare tire holder and a place for a shovel and a HiLift Jack, Sideband CB radio, HF, VHF, UHF amateur radio with modificationals to be able to be able to use it on low power 49 Mhz, MURS, FRS, GMRS, diamond plate aluminum trunk with MREs, water purification tablets, fire starter, high intensity torches (flashlights), first aid, recovery strap, chains, a crossbow, complete basic tool set, smoke grenades and flares. On the rear Barricade bumper with Jerry can holders an HF antenna. On the Smittybuilt roof rack, a VHF antenna and UHF antenna, in the tuffy console, her 9mm Glock, and a box of bullets is saved in hopes she never has to use it but she is fully capable to use it. The best thing she will have onboard her Jeep Cherokill, will be thed knowledge and ability to use everything onboard it.

That's awesome! I have that same great first car memory

Whether it is a bone stock Jeep Cherokee XJ or a highly modified Cherokill XJ, they are volumes better than anything Jeep has today. Jeep really lost its way. The Wrangler and gladiator are the only two Jeeps with solid live axles. They are more like tribute vehicles to the, "legacy Jeeps," (pre 2006). The Wrangler is starting to faulter with fragile components like screens, and worthless exterior plastic bumpers and over engineering. The ridiculous automatic engine stop and start design flaw that is in the JLs is an engine killer. Who ever thought it is a good idea to let a vehicle's engine stop and go to zero oil pressure and restart over and over is a true idiot. But hey, it saves a spoonful of fuel per full tank. Never mind the engine suffers every start with low oil pressure. I am guessing there will soon be an independent suspension equipped Jeep Wrangler that will cater to the obese soccer moms with no Jeep vehicle retaining solid live axles. I am currently looking for a 1995 through 1999 Jeep Cherokee XJ. That engine had the thick cast AMC 242ci I6 that is near impossible to distroy. Most of them in the junk yard can probably be made to run with extremely minimal effort. I went to a junkyard to get a 4.11 : 1 reversed cut Dana 30 front axle for a customer and saw some XJs lined up. For fun, I just tested compression on the first three cylinders of three of them. All three of them still had great compression. It was likely all three engines would likely fire up with minimal effort. Today's Jeep engines will likely never see 200,000 miles. Is this really progress at all? The current jeep vehicles will likely have very short service lives. They will be sent to the junkyard way sooner than any previous model Jeeps ever. But they save fuel. However, the idiot, "greenies," do not realize that melting down an old vehicle to make another vehicle will use far more energy than any vehicle could ever use during its service life. The process to melt it down will also produce far more pollution than any vehicle could ever produce during its service life as well. If you want to save the world, keep your current vehicle as long as possible and keep it running as good as possible. Save the world and the vintage Jeeps. Do not scrap them.

@@indridcold8433 I've got a 96 Cherokee XJ that I bought when it was one year old with only 20k on it. It's about as basic as they come, 4.0, stick, 2 doors, 2wd, AC... and that's about it. It didn't even have a console and the dash had a speedometer and gas gage. It now has a full dash, a console, the nice alloy wheels off a Wrangler... and 600k on it. I've bought four other vehicles over the years to be my daily driver, and the old Jeep has outlasted all of them, and I expect I'll have it for the rest of my life. Best car I've ever had.

@@JeffDeWitt wow I'm looking at a 95 XJ for $2000 with 250,000 mi

@@MrDaBears83 I don't really know what they are going for these days but if the thing is in good shape I'd buy it.

Till piston fall apart

Yes. Should be a good one.

Sure was! Thanks

Thanks! She's excited!

I wouldn't call it a safe vehicle. in an accident with a modern car with a rigid structure that has passed modern crash tests like euro ncap, it will be a horror show. Even a small hatchback like a ford fiesta will punch through that Jeep like a pinata.

Thank you!

Yes! It’ll be a fun project

Yeah. It's a good one

Thanks! It will be fun. I'll have to check out your channel

Did he just call your videos professional? You’ve come a long way Dale

Haha! Yep

Knew I’d find you here!

Me too for real

@@johndenver5029 I like your music sir

Thank you

It is still way cheaper to own an old Jeep than a newer car. It will last way longer than a newer car, has true 4x4, (something no modern car has except Wrangler),it has far more space and utility, it will be cheap to register, insure, and no excise tax. This will save her thousands of dollars a year. Plus, it will be spared from the crusher. It takes far more energy to melt down a dead vehicle than the vehicle could have ever used in 10 service lifetimes. It also makes far more pollution than the car could have ever made to melt it down as well. It is good for the environment to save an old car from the crusher and furnace. It is also extremely user serviceable, parts are cheap, and they look incredibly good as compared to modern crap. I bought my current Jeep new in 1996. With 411,000 miles and climbing, this year was the first big repair. All I did was change the no longer supported New Venture Gear NV3550 that was failing with the fully supported, new, Aisin - Warner AX-15 transmission that is still being produced and the company is still in business. It was near child's play to change the transmission. Any idiot could do it. Hopefully that is my first and last expensive repair. It cost $1200 for the AX-15 transmission. Since I was in there, the clutch and pressure plate cost $100. I paid the Jeep in full in 2001. It has been near free transportation since then with the exception of the traditional fuel, insurance, oils, and washes. I think I can get another 25 years out of my dese Stargazer.

Haha! Yep