Friend of mine is looking at a 97 Wrangler (TJ right?) 5 speed 6 cylinder. Should he be worried about the tranny with 90k miles on the vehicle, appears to be unmodified/unabused? I know duke had his crap out on him...

6/25/2008 9:00:19 PM

Yup. Pretty common problem on wranglers and cherokees. Especially the transfer case.

6/25/2008 9:11:55 PM

my ax-5 lasted until 138k and could have gone longer. i beat on mine and it held up pretty well.

also, you will have the ax-15 if it has the 4.0, not the ax-5 (2.5l 4banger) and the ax-15's are pretty stout trannies. i wouldn't be real worried.


[Edited on June 25, 2008 at 9:20 PM. Reason : .]

6/25/2008 9:20:18 PM

my AX-5 had a catastrophic failure of 5th gear while cruising at a steady speed on the interstate.

it had 110k miles or so.

and that isn't really an isolated incident--AX5s are garbage.


however, a 6cyl will have either an AX15 or an NV3500/NV3550. I think the '97 is an NV3500, but I'm not sure about that. In any case, they're all ok transmissions (unlike the AX5).

[Edited on June 26, 2008 at 1:05 AM. Reason : my guess is the D35 will break first 99% of the time.]

6/26/2008 1:05:31 AM

jeep didn't switch to the nv3550 until '00

6/26/2008 1:11:26 AM