Essentially those series Cherokees were still "Jeeps" and other than a Toyota Land Cruiser which wasn't gonna happen for 99.9999 % of ppl the Cherokee was as close as you could get to Jeep heaven in "rock crawling". They were fantastic at off roading.
However, only the transfer case (if operated correctly) auto tranny and the diffs were of reasonable quality. The entire rest of the vehicle was pure sh*t.
For example, the exhaust manifold and intake manifold gasket was one piece. Like why
So if you had a intake leak you were looking at a mega labour job just to replace a lousy intake gasket. I have never seen a I6 that had the drive pulleys in alignment and they used this elaborate one belt system that was a real nuisance. These are just a drop in the bucket. As for the type of engine: @ 4.0 L, 15 mpg, it should have yield way more power.
It survived because it was the only game in town.
