Hey fellas, I may get a 93-98 Jeep Grand Cherokee and I have a few questions about the diffs and trans:

Do the front or rear diffs fail often if daily driven, not towed with much, and not off-roaded, with either engine?

Do the Dana 35c rear ends break more than the Dana 44al rear ends or enough to merit buying a 96+ with the 44al [all 96+ V8 have them]

Do the 44RH/44RE [5.2] transmissions fail often and which is more reliable?

thanks alot!

Sean

 

Geeeze...I think the answer is "it depends." I have a cherokee sport with 162,000 miles on it and have only had to replace the u-joints in the front axle once. I do take it off road once in a while but stick mostly to the street. These hole up as well or better than everything else.

Brian

 

Transmission:
Cherokee (XJ) uses a way better transmission; it has AW-4 (Aisin Warner) which is famous to last good over to 200K miles with proper maintainance and care.
Grand cherokee uses a really weak chrysler transmission (96-98 ZJ has 42RE/A500 for 6 cyl and 44RE/A516 for 8 cyl). 42RE and 44RE is basically the same design but 44RE is a little stronger (more clutch packs to hold higher torque from V8 engine). 44Re and 44RH are the same transmission, the difference is RE = computer controlled and RH = hydraulic control (they swithed from 44RH to 44RE in 96 model).
From my experience, 1998 42/44 RE has problem with drum seal leaking (happened to me at 70K miles). Once it leaks, transmission will slip and its a rebuild time.

Axle:
Dana 44 AL is weak and often have problem with the bearings (3 out of 5 V8 Jeeps that I tested have whining noise from bad bearings). All V8 from 96-98 have D44AL.
Dana 35C (all 96-98 6 cyl has D35C) is weaker in the shaft but less bearing problems; you can easily break it if you do some hardcore offroading or put a bigger tires there.

Speaking from my experience; open a vehicle repair account or buy an extended warranty if you happen to get a ZJ. It breaks often and expensive to fix.

 

I had an 87 Cherokee pioneer with almost 300,000 on it when I sold it still running. It had its noises, but the 4X4 still worked and the motor and trans were strong, I am not sure what trans was in it, but the inline 6 is almost bulletproof.

 

casper, you have AW4 tranny. All cherokee has AW4. I heard that AW4 is developed and used by Toyota for their trucks (doesn't susprise me if its really strong and reliable).

You must take a good care of it (300K on the tranny is pretty normal if you really take a good care of it). My friend has 385K on his 88 cherokee and it has original engine/tranny.