Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives What would you buy?

look underneath real good for rust on whatever you get. in rust belt areas $3000 will just get you a guaranteed repair bill every time you turn around. hell $10k isn't much better. i learned that lesson and will never do it again.

Grands had WAY more problems than electrical issues, try electrical, differential, broken blend motor/gate, and on and on. 4.0s may not roast the tires but if longevity is what your looking for look no further.

Blend doors were an issue on wj grand Cherokees with auto climate control, not zjs. The magnum 5.2 has just as good of reliability record as the 4.0. The rear differentials on the v8 zjs do tend to eat bearings as they have an aluminum center section that allows a lot of flex in the housing, but the Dana 35 is an even bigger turd and that was used in the xj too.

Those v8s in the grands were peppy for sure I owned 3 over the years well my wife did. Your right about the 35 but most of the problems with those were from rednecks putting 35/12/50s on them.

My son-in-law recently bought a 2000 Dodge 1500 extended cab 4X4 with 160,000 on it for just over $3000. It came with a cap on the bed and is in decent shape. Of course the AC compressor went out about a month later which added another $1000 to his cost. But he drove it home for close to your budget.

We have a old Trooper that we leave out at the ranch. 1991 model with 4 cyl. motor. Works pretty good and don't have to bang up the pick up out in pasture

While an suv has better seating arrangements for four, they have very little cargo area. I'd say an extra cab truck with a shell over the bed is a much better hunting vehicle than an SUV.

I wouldn't be brand or model specific in your price range, much more important is the condition of the individual vehicle. Just remember a $4k truck is a better deal than a $3k truck in need of $2+k in repairs.

K5 with a manual. Almost the entire truck can be fixed with hand tools. You can find parts at any auto parts store in anytown USA.

I'd save up a bit to make it to the $5k range. An older 4.0L Cherokee would be on my radar. I really like the Toyotas, but rarely see good ones for under $5k.

I just sold an 01 grand cherokee for 3k. 100% ready to drive anywhere. Had 170k on the clock and did not burn oil or leak anything. Probably let it go cheap but it went to a friends daughter as her first vehicle. We had zero electrical or any other problems beyond normal maintenance. Good ones are out there in your price range. I have been told that that the wj 4.0 engines are not as bullet proof as the earlier models, but ours was great.

I have run k5 Blazers for years...can't be beat. Currently have an 89.. Only now good ones are hard to come by...recently I bought a 99 suburban HD...has a 14 bolt full floater and vortex big block had 140k on the clock got it for 2200 dollars and spent about 1000 on tune fluids an rubber....it's more than a hunting rig I tow my 36 ft travel trailer for work and drive it daily....look at suburban they are usually cheap for condition...