so this is a video I've wanted to make for a while now mostly because when I went searching for this information I couldn't find it the Jeep XJ which is something I have absolutely fallen in love with over the last couple of years two wheel drive versus four-wheel drive really what are the differences and you know what you're going to be surprised because they're pretty profound having lived with both of these now for a while I bought this one last year there's big differences in some areas and where you would think there would be a huge difference there really isn't so we'll get to that a little bit later you're going to be surprised at how this thing works so this all started about 2 and a half years ago and I wanted to add a station wagon to the fleet I needed a wagon vehicle right vintage stuff was a little bit out of hand as far as as far as you know what people were asking for them you know the classic long roof is a high dollar ticket these days so I says you know what this is just going to be a Knockaround vehicle I don't want anything that I have to really care about so I says you know what let's look at Jeep xjs Cherokee xjs or maybe Kathy said it I don't know one of us said it and I said okay fine so I hit Facebook Marketplace and I find this one so it's on there is needing work for like 800 bucks so I go I drive up there I look at it the body is pretty straight the paint is you know so so interior was nice started it up and the motor's knocking tuck duck duck tuck say all right 800 bucks fine I'll fix the motor no big deal so I drive it home it drives all the way home I realize it's a broken piston it's a piston skirt because it it's got oil pressure everything is good and we actually did a video on this uh last week or week before about swapping a piston on this one which is done complete finished so as I'm driving this over a couple of weeks I I started to really fall in love with it and I'm like I don't know why I love this truck as much as I do because I've had XJ experiences before I was a mechanic in New York xjs all over the place I worked on many of them drove many of them but they never really did anything for me but why was I so in love with this Jeep I it's been for the last two years it's been like my daily we've put 75,000 miles on this thing since we picked it up most of that with the engine going duck duck duck duck duck duck duck but early on I realized that the difference between the Jeeps that I had been driving and this one was that this one was two wheel drive all of the previous Jeep experiences I had were four-wheel drive now it wasn't that I was down on the four-wheel drive jeep they're fine they they function but they never really grabed me this one grabbed me it's just the happiest most Nimble friendly truck vehicle car whatever I have ever encountered and I decided after not too long after I picked this up that I will never go for a period in my life where I don't have an XJ so I started looking for other varieties of XJ and I picked up a couple of them and none of them did it for me I narrowed it down I said it's the 97 to 01 version that I really like and I like the 98s So I says all right I'm going to go find another 98 but I want a full wheel drive version so that this way I've got the best of both worlds I've got a two wheel drive to just do my daily driving and running around with and I have a four-wheel drive so if I want to do some light off-roading I can do it so now this one came from Facebook Marketplace as well this one was first listed at like $2,600 or $2,700 which is about the going rate for a slightly shabby XJ we'll talk about prices of these things in a minute but this was originally listed 24 2500 bucks I forget and then there was a price drop to $11,000 and I was like you know what for 1,000 bucks I'll buy it just for parts so I ran out there started it up and it's making a rocket and right away know as soon as I put it in gear it went away so I knew it was a cracked flex plate so I gave him $1,000 for it I swapped the flex plate over and it's been perfect ever since so these two Jeeps are about as identical as Jeeps can be they're both 98 they both have 4 lers they both have aw4 automatic transmissions they both have 355s in the rear diffs the suspension on these things is absolutely identical where this one has obviously a full front differential this one has a tube that takes its place but it's got the same spindles the same Springs the same everything they're identical only difference being this one has a transfer case a drive shift and an active front diff this one weighs 3,50 lb this one weighs 3,300 lb so there's a 250 lb difference between these two vehicles all of that 250 lb almost all of that 250 lb is the weight of the diff the drive shaft the transfer case all stuff that has to spin and that's where the profound differences come in this Jeep running around like normal driving just just your a you know mixed driving so around town 40 50 mph roads Interstate mixed driving on a full tank I will experience a minimum of 20 M at a gallon it's usually more than that 21 22 on the highway it'll average 22 23 but mixed use I never see less than 20 M set of galing with this thing I call it 21 identical truck in in every way shape and form same options same everything but this is four-wheel drive I'm lucky if I see 15 MP gallon mixed use now both of these have this one has 205,000 Mi on it this one has 212,000 Mi on it so they're both the same all of the controls you know the emission controls all of the electronics all function exactly the same the trucks they're both intact they're the way they were designed to be but there's a minimum 5 m gallon difference between this one and this one and I can only attribute that to the extra parasitic losses of having to drag not only the transfer case turn the transfer case but you've got to drag the guts of the transfer case through oil and the same thing with the front diff it's all got to get dragged through oil you can really feel the difference when it's cold like on a cold morning you get in this thing you start it up you pop it in gear she goes you get get in this one same conditions let's say it's a 30 or 20 30° morning and when you put it in gear go to accelerate you can feel the thing holding back you can actually hear and feel the engine working against the converter there's a definite notable difference so this one is born two wheel drive this one is born four-wheel drive but here's something they don't never tell you all of your two wheel drive Cheroke Keys came with a limited slip differential Su grip or or track lock whatever they whatever phrase whatever word they use for it they're all limited slip differentials the four-wheel drive on the other hand comes with two open diffs so the rear diff same rear but it's open so in other words on your two wheel drive jeep you've always got two wheels driving you and on your four-wheel drive jeep you've only ever got two wheels driving driving you at a time cuz remember open rear it's going to transfer power from one wheel to the other so you've got one wheel at the front doing its thing and one wheel at the back doing its thing you can get an optional or they had an optional sh grip or limited slip diff for the four-wheel drive but it wasn't standard so if you just went and bought one of these things you know no options just off the showroom floor this comes with a sh grip or a limited slip and this one comes open both of them leave the showroom floor two wheel drive they just configured it's just two different Wheels doing its thing but how much of a difference does that actually make in the way these things handle so a lot of people will scoff at two wheeel drive xjs because it's like well it's it's supposed to be a Jeep it's supposed to be four-wheel drive and they really look down upon but we have a an area over here on the other side of the shop where they just cleared things out and there's a there's a nice size Hill it's kind of slippery it's on grass and loose dirt and I want to show you guys the difference between this thing in two wheel drive and this thing in four-wheel drive RI there even is a difference that this is something to note this car has regular street tires this one has all terrains so this one here has a tire advantage and before you think before you say that well this car got more rolling resistance because of the tires I run these things I have run them way over inflated there's very minimal drag to the tires it's not enough to account for the 5 to 6 MP gon difference that I find between the two in them regularly maybe 1 mile per gallon the rest of it is all in the drivet train so let's take these things over to our Hill over there and uh we'll take we'll run this one up first and then we'll do this one first in two wheel drive and then we'll run it up in four-wheel drive I know it doesn't look like much on camera but trust me there's a serious incline over here let's give this thing a [Applause] shot [Music] it's pretty capable are so now we're going to try the four-wheel drive truck in two wheel drive and then we'll make another lap in four-wheel and then we'll do one in four low and see if we can really blast that thing [Music] that was funny it made it up the hill in two wheel drive fine with just a little tiny bit of wheel spin but when I went to turn around up there kind of got stuck all right let's uh let's just skip let's skip four high and go right to four low okay you can't do that with two wheel [Music] [Music] drive so to sum it all up two wheel drive is the ticket if this is going to be like your your road car you your basic Transportation there's a profound difference between the performance of the two just in regular driving around the two wheel drive is the way to go light off-road or heavier off-road you find a lot of mud holes you like to play in or steep hills four-wheel drive I mean it's kind of like a no-brainer but either way you can't go wrong the Jeep XJ in my opinion and been around a lot of lot of vehicles done a lot of stuff in my opinion the Jeep XJ thousands of years from now when they look back on our civilization they're going to recognize the XJ is Mankind's greatest achievement these things are just phenomenal in every way go get one whether still relatively affordable the prices are on a steady incline I know I'm not the only one discovering the magic of these things the prices have been on a steady incline a really clean a nice example you can pick up one of these in this basic condition both of mine are in driver condition they both really need Paint they both need a little bit of body work uh you could still pick these up in this condition in the in the 3,000 $3,000 to $5,000 range but when you start finding the real clean examples you know the ones that survived not being turned into off-road toys and everything they're they're heading north of $110,000 I see it more and more all the time so the collectors are on to these things go get one while you still can all right I hope you got something out of that I'll see you tomorrow
