Got a oddball question with back story that I thought I would ask here before going to a proper Jeep forum.

Well as we have suspected my fathers 91 Mercedes Benz is beginning to bend a rod and oval out the cylinder bore and nothing short of a new block and full replacement can fix it now.

So I'm doing my duty as the good son to try and find a possible replacement or at least info on a replacement vehicle specifically a diesel.

Now before people start throwing Excursions and Powerstrokes at me let me explain that my father is using this a road trip highway vehicle so it needs to get good highway mileage at least.
Also I don't think he would be willing to pay for the work the 6.0 and 6.4 need to be bulletproofed nor deal with the size of another full size truck in the driveway.

My father is a larger man so he isn't comfortable in any of the small VW TDI's and none of the recent Mercedes or BMW diesel sedans are even close to our possible price range ($20-25K est. max).
So I have come across the 3.0L turbodiesel powered Jeep Grand Cherokee made from 07-08 and I have a few questions.

Is the Grand Cherokee fairly roomy for 4 full size American adults with 2-3 days of luggage?
How is the mileage?
What sort of aftermarket support is there?
Are there any DPF's or EGR coolers that need to be deleted to insure reliability?
Is a GC a decent highway cruiser?

Any help from you guys and gals would be great.

 

I think I can only answer these..

What sort of aftermarket support is there? Everthing you dreamed of and will dream of is bolt on for nearly any Jeep, somewhere.
Are there any DPF's or EGR coolers that need to be deleted to insure reliability? Na.. they are reliable.
Is a GC a decent highway cruiser? Its all relative.. in compared to a merc.. probably not, but for an SUV, probably pretty decent.

 

The gc's are nice vehicles and he could find a gasser to drive to check out the size and ride. I don't know much about the diesels. Who made the engine and will parts and service be a problem since in was only done a couple of years may be the issue. Also, I haven't heard much about the diesel's fuel economy.

 

I believe Mercedes is the diesel mfgr..

 

Should be a good engine then. I saw a 190D in town the other night. I don't know that I've seen another that size that was diesel.

 

I didn't even know they had those in diesels? Might have to keep my eyes peeled.

I am actually planning on buying one of the 93-98 era GC's with the 318 V-8 to tow my other Heap' one of these days. The one (94') I test drove had 230k miles and still rode pretty good and had good solid power, darn cheap too. The higher mileage ones can be had for 1-2k. The owner said he was getting around 17 MPG's with the V-8 model, not shabby for a full-size vehicle with 8-cylinders IMO.

We also test drove a 00' but my wife and I didn't like it much compared to the old version. They look nice from the outside but the inside had a mini-van feel to it. It also drove like a mini-van, not like the earlier one that drove like my Cherokee.