1990 Jeep Comanche Eliminator 4WD Short Bed 4.0L I6 from North America
Summary:
Great daily truck for the money!
Faults:
The manual Alison transmission in this truck has been awesome with no problems. BUT, the internal slave cylinder or throwout bearing has been replaced 6 times in the lifespan of the truck. This was due to a faulty seal design. The major pain is that the entire tranny needs to be removed to replace this $40 slave cylinder. Each time I had replaced it, it could only be bought with the entire clutch kit, so the clutch was replaced every 50K miles or so with it. I do not ride my clutch, so each time the slave cylinder was replaced, I had a clutch that was practically brand new! This wouldn't be a problem on auto tranny models, but those auto trannys wouldn't hold up as well as this Alison one with the 400K+ miles I put on this truck.
All other things were routine maintenance in my book.
General Comments:
The look and running of this truck have been awesome! This truck has seen 2/3 it's life in the NorthEast and 1/3 its life in the Pacific NorthWest. The NE Winters are what did in this truck and force me to sell it this past year (rusted floor board & fenders).
The truck started right up in any weather condition and ran perfectly with minimal maintenance.
I got 20 MPG highway & 20 MPG city - fully loaded pulling a 3500 LB trailer, or empty, I only saw my MPG vary by 1 MPG!
I have a 1990 Jeep Cherokee Laredo with the same engine & tranny with 280K miles and still going strong! These were great trucks and beat any of the newer Jeeps out there today! I also have a 2000 Grand Cherokee that I think is garbage compared to these two 1990 Models. But these were AMC designs, not Chrysler.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know
Review Date: 12th February, 2009
15th Apr 2007, 09:27
Rather than lowering it and ruining its usefulness, you could pick up a 4WD axle and transfer case out of a junkyard, cheap, from another Comanche or a Cherokee, since they use the same drive train. It's a bit of a process to put it all together, but I've had a friend do it, and it worked very well.