Therefore, Jeep launched the Cherokee XJ at 1984, which catered to the needs of most people. In that year, the sales volume was as high as 78,000 vehicles, which resulted in a new model-SUV, which is a multi-purpose sports car. Moreover, this SUV is a real off-road vehicle, and it has become the object of imitation and transcendence by many automobile manufacturers in the future, creating the myth of North America and Europe. But the pioneer position of Cherokee XJ is not the only reason for its success and popularity.
In the early 1980 s, everyone's impression of off-road vehicles or family sports cars with improved pickup chassis was high fuel consumption, insufficient power and poor comfort. Cherokee XJ completely changed the fact of "hip-pulling".
Cherokee XJ obtains the comfort close to the car by adopting the suspension system and vehicle chassis layout close to the car, and at the same time, it has the passability close to the off-road vehicle, good visual field and interior space performance, and high-speed driving stability. A few years after the Cherokee XJ was put into production, Jeep installed an inline six-cylinder 4.0-liter AMC engine. Although this engine is not advanced at present, it has been discontinued for a long time (no variable valves, low compression ratio, no multi-valve cylinder design as it is now, and no supercharger), but according to the standards of the 1980s, the inline six-cylinder engine is the mainstream configuration, Jaguar has used it on top models, and Jeep is also built on it. At that time, most cars in China were still using carburetor engines. Moreover, the four-wheel drive system of Cherokee XJ is also powerful enough, so Cherokee has won the praise of users.
Nevertheless, the Cherokee XJ model has a bad reputation in China. 1985, Beijing Jeep Automobile Co., Ltd., a joint venture between Jeep and Beijing Automobile Factory, began to produce the Cherokee XJ model, which we called "Beijing Jeep" or "2 13". At that time, there was a saying called "Santana that can't be broken, Cherokee that can't be repaired", which shows that many people are quite picky about the reliability of Cherokee. The reason is that in China at that time, jeeps were regarded as tool cars, and their status was far from high-end cars. In the 1980s, Cherokee's main users were institutional customers such as government agencies and state-owned enterprises. Their poor maintenance of official cars, improper use and unprofessional maintenance led to Cherokee's later mistakes. In addition, the early domestic oil products had high sulfur content, many impurities and improper use and maintenance, which led to serious carbon deposition in the engine and easy failure of the original sensors in the car. All these have also led to an increase in fuel consumption and failure rate. Moreover, if the China auto market was as keen on SUV models as it is now when the Cherokee was launched, it would surely become a generation of wonder cars.
In fact, Americans' positioning of Cherokee XJ is higher than that of Jeep's main model CJ6 (the predecessor of Shepherd): the appearance is hard, the performance is balanced, the modification potential is huge, and the accessories are easy to get; Not only the price is relatively cheap, but also the market share is large. So in fact, Cherokee XJ has a very good reputation in the domestic cross-country enthusiasts circle, and once became one of the most popular models for players.
After all, the jeep Cherokee XJ is far from perfect. There are more choices in the market. Either more comfortable, stronger, and stronger off-road ability; Either the price is more affordable, but these things are combined. At that time, there was only Cherokee XJ.