Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited: It Exists
Posted by Doug DeMuro in It Exists on | 15 comments
To begin: I know I didn’t post much last week. There’s a reason for that: I took a five-day trip to Charleston, one of my favorite cities, and my hotel overlooked a drawbridge. As a result, I simply sat on the balcony and excitedly watched the bridge go up and down. This left little time to post here.
Fortunately, I’m going to remedy that today with a new “it exists” piece about one of my favorite subtly cool vehicles: the 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited. This one is so subtle I actually completely forgot about it until I received a suggestion from a reader to write it up.
Let’s start with the basics. The first-gen Grand Cherokee came out in 1993 as a replacement for the Grand Wagoneer that we all loved, unless we drove one. In 1996, it was heavily facelifted, and in 1999 it was redesigned altogether. But there were several unique special editions along the way, of which the coolest was by far the 5.9 Limited.
The 5.9 Limited was a 1998-only model that served as the SUV’s top-range trim. It had a few luxury items that boosted its stature above the regular Limited, but most importantly, it had a new powerplant: 5.9-liter V8. Aside from the SRT models, this remains the largest engine to ever go in a Grand Cherokee.
The huge V8 had 245 horsepower and 345 pound-feet, which meant the 5.9 Limited reached 60 in something like 7.3 seconds. Considering this was a time when the top-end Audi A6 had 172 horsepower, that was lightning.
Aside from its engine, the best part about the 5.9 Limited was its subtle styling upgrades. Namely: it had unique five-spoke wheels and very cool hood louvers. It also had very subtle mesh grille inserts, which are tremendously hard to spot unless you’re the most pedantic car lover in history. (In other words: me.)
Of course, the 5.9 Limited guzzled gas, which is probably why Jeep didn’t bother bringing it back on the next generation Grand Cherokee. But thanks to its short model run and minor detail differences, the 5.9 Limited is still among my favorite Grand Cherokees.
15 Responses to “ “Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited: It Exists”
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Great write up, never heard of this trim level before.
On another note, if you ever need a sub-tagline for this site, you have just created it in the form of “… unless you’re the most pedantic car lover in history. (In other words: me.)”
Something along the lines of “For Pedantic Car Lovers”, or really anything less cheesy, but still uses the word “pedantic”.
That’s the whole site!!!
Cool, this is new to me. So…I have been looking at Grand Wagoneers, they are affordable and classy. What was the bummer about driving them?
Very affordable, very classy. But so slow and ungainly! They make my Range Rover feel like a Jetta.
I had a 98 ZJ with the 5.9. If I was careful it would get 12mpg. Great at towing though. Rated at 7700lb and yes it would easily do it. However, it would eat alternators. About every other year the alternator would die. Thankfully, the alternator was on the top of the engine on the passenger side. Easy to remove and replace. Incredibly hot under the hood, made worse in the hot Arizona summer. Other than that it was a good vehicle.
What happened to it?! I never see any of them on the roads anymore…
The 5.9L was my favorite SUV of the 90s.. Followed by the slightly less quick (and reliable), but equally as cool 5-Speed version of the Land Rover Discovery!
Cheers
Certainly a subject for a later column! Was on a walk the other day and I glanced inside a Disco – it was a stick! I about died, primarily because I thought there wasn’t a single one of those left on the road.
Every now and then, I get a bit delusional and browse CL for 5-speed Discos…
Hopefully you never find one and if you do, hopefully you never buy it! I can’t imagine the nightmare that would be.
The front grille also extended forward about an inch compared to the lesser trim levels to accommodate the larger radiator required with the bigger powerplant. It also added extra speakers in the rear overhead above the rear seats, calf-skin leather, real wood veneers, and I think it only came in three colors…silver, black, and white.
Ah yes, but not just silver black and white. Bright Platinum, Deep Slate, and Stone White. Ahh, Chrysler colors.
Never knew the thing about the grille. Interesting.
This thing was a BEAST back in the day! My mom bought a ’95 Grand Cherokee Laredo in 12/1994 and I had an inexplicable and irrational affection for that thing! It had the standard 4.0L AMC/Jeep Inline-6, which was as smooth as sandpaper but as durable as an anvil. As long as you kept oil in it (leaks were common) and changed the oil once in a while, the body would turn to dust before the 4.O would ever give out! Unfortunately, the transmission used on 2WD 4.0L models is one of the most unreliable and trouble-prone of all time. My mechanic has never seen one make it past 120k miles and most never saw 100k. They didn’t require any maintenance though, since you would just replace the transmission at the same interval that you would normally change the ATF in most other vehicles!
They also offered Chrysler’s 5.2L V8 an an option on most trim levels. Performance gains over the 4.0L were negligible, but it had an even worse reputation for oil leaks. It also guzzled 3-4mpg more on average than the 4.0L. And no one would ever accuse the 4.0L of being economical to begin with. But it did produce enough torque to pull like a freight train, which is one of the main reasons Jeep-lovers still revere the 4.0L I-6 to this day…and detest the pathetic, gutless boat anchor of an engine that replaced it, the PowerTech 3.7L V6.
Jeep ended production of the 4.0L at the end of the 2006 model year (in the Wrangler, 2004 was the last year it was used in the Grand Cherokee). The only reason reason it was discontinued was because the manufacturing tooling was worn out.
I just found a ZJ limited 5.9 in Cincinnati, I had to have it. Brought it home and boy is it nice.
I own three 5.9′s, because two are always under repair. I maintain that the 5.9 is the greatest “muscle car” ever built, mainly because it is AWD, which all the others were not, and the functioning hood grills, which are rare on any muscle car.
When you stand on the accelerator of the 5.9 in deep snow, it’s doesn’t spin off the road, it just moves side to side a little and takes off. Try that on a 2WD muscle car! Plus I pass cars 5 -6 at a time on the two lane road to my ski area. 0-60 isn’t the important specification, 60 to 110 is.