My SiL, a car person, lent me his Cherokee to go shopping today. It's his daily driver: a 4 litre auto with LPG conversion. Recently he got it - off Ebay I think - some sticking-out black wheels with some sort of knobbly Goodyear offroad tyres.
Today it was running on petrol (the difference is not great) and he had stuck it in permanent 4wd in view of the conditions. It certainly had more grip in acceleration and braking than my Chrysler Cruiser, and felt quite reassuring. But it didn't steer as sweetly as the Chrysler, and too much foot in bends made it slither about more than the Chrysler. Its steering isn't up to much in the dry either. SiL says the steering damper is shot and he means to get it new suspension, special offroad big dampers and so on, next year. He says on LPG it's not that thirsty either, giving 400 miles for 60 or 70 quid's worth of fuel.
He told me he had been fancying one of the new Discoveries, but the Jeep has been so faithful and practical that he has decided to keep it. It's a pleasant vehicle apart from the lumpish SUV steering, leather seats and the engine makes a pleasant big-six noise. Although it's bigger than the Cruiser it's a hell of a lot easier to reverse and manoeuvre in too. Almost fancy one myself especially if this sort of weather is a taste of climate change to come.
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>> ...he had stuck it in permanent 4wd in view of the conditions.
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>> But it didn't steer as sweetly as the Chrysler, and too much foot in bends made it slither >> about
Doesn't it lock the diffs if you select 4WD? I hired one in Canada (in summer) and on a gravel car park put it in 4WD just to try and it wanted to go straight on when I tried to steer it.
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It's a proper Yank tank; low-tech, durable but expensive to run.
Has the same rear axle as my old GMC pick-up truck BTW; another typical American thing, if it ain't broke etc...
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>> Doesn't it lock the diffs if you select 4WD?
Very likely. Something of the sort did occur to me.
The same SiL has a quite heavily tweaked Skyline GTR, a very quick machine indeed. That one has three limited-slip diffs which, in tight manoeuvring, snatch and graunch in an alarming manner. But you can forgive a car anything when it goes VROOOMTWEETVROOM and hits 90 in second gear in about three seconds.
He's never offered me a loan of that one to go shopping in. Perhaps when I reach the age of 75... I don't blame him at all. If it was mine I wouldn't let anyone drive it either.
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The four wheel drive is electronic it just allows the drive to go all the wheels when required if it locked the diffs it would rife its self to bits going round corners.Its the same electronic gear unit as fitted to Chevy Blazer and Tahoe also Ford Explorer if I remember correctly.
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Bet that was fun AC. Will he let you keep it for a while ?
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Apparently there are various systems
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep_four_wheel_drive_systems
at least one of which, used on the Cherokee until 2001, could b put in permanent 4WD and had no centre differential.
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Cherokee in snow - Bill Payer
