Newbie Needs Advice On First Jeep Purchase

My advice, first figure out what you want the vehicle to do. For example, I wanted to pull a 3000 lb boat on the highway, launching sometimes where there's no ramp ... so that's probably a truck. I also wanted a daily driver (low octane, reasonable mileage) for summer/winter city/highway, occasional mild offroad into the bush to small lakes for fishing/camping ... I already decided that's either awd or 4wd, 4 doors (ok 5). After cruising the manufacturer websites etc, and visiting manufacturer lots, I decided a used

4 litre, 4 wd, auto transmission XJ (pulls 5000 lbs but I wouldn't try it) would be perfect. I cruised the used car lots for a month or two and found a '96 XJ that ran well ... went for the test drive, liked it, bought it, put on a transmission cooler, new wheels/tires for summer (use the originals with snows in winter) and I'm a happy guy. Oh yeah, one last thing ... before putting down the cash, I dragged my wife along for a test test drive ... even though she said "whatever you think" so that if (make that when) things go wrong ... :-)

For me money is a luxury else that big diesel truck woulda done the job, along with a new boat :-)

I've pulled that much (probably a little more) and it's "entertaining" to stop and don't even THINK about going up any sort of hills.