I didn't use CL, I bought both of these from a friend.
He had mentioned several years back that a neighbor of his had a nice 2001 Cherokee for sale and he wanted like 6k for it. I jokingly told him he should get it and sell me his 88. I had been looking for something small for hunting, and a used 4 wheeler was out of the question price wise. He laughed at the time.
A week later, he asked me what I'd give him for it. He came by and I took it on a test drive, and paid what he was asking, $950. He got the 2001, but sadly wrecked it about 3 months later, and evetntually ended up with the 96 I now have.
When he decided it was time for yet another change, he again asked me if I was interested in the 96. I asked him how much, and he said $1000, I said sold without even as much as a test drive. (blue book was well over 4k at the time).
Both have been trouble free, and have allowed me to use my more expensive fullsize truck for towing duties only, which means a ton less miles on them.
The 88 is getting long in the tooth and the trans is starting to really show it's age, so I have a complete spare engine/trans combo with about 75% fewer miles on them, but still from an 88 (due to the renix system, not feeling like changing all that stuff over, and they were only $100) from a buddy who was scrapping his 88 cherokee.
You can find parts pretty cheap for them, and CL is a good place, but it is amazing how many people on CL don't know the differenece between a cherokee and a grand cherokee, or a v6 & an inline 6.
I did find a rare cherokee on there, an 88 with the AW4 trans, 242 tcase, 4 cyl and 4.56 factory gearing. I went and test drove it, but passed cuz the guy wanted too much money for it IMHO. I wanted it for the axles & trans, but the trans was questionable, since the shifter was broken, there was no way to know if the issues it had (lousy shifting, even manually with the trans pcm disconnected) were in the trans. or due to the shifter, and he wanted $1800 for it. I told him I could regear mine for easily less than 1/2 that, but he wouldn't budge.
