1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee — 5.2L

The 1998 model year sits at the upper end of the ZJ generation's complaint arc, with 1,558 complaints—higher than every prior year (1,224 in 1993, 1,503 in 1995, 1,516 in 1997) and exceeded only by the immediate post-generation spike of 2,113 in 1999 and 1,885 in 2000. Recall activity remained essentially flat across the run at 12–16 per year, while federal investigations dropped sharply from 26 in 1993 to just 7 in 1998, indicating that although owner-reported problems accumulated, fewer rose to the level of formal safety probes by the end of the cycle. Within 1998 itself, the complaint burden is heavily concentrated in powertrain at 459 reports—more than double the next category, hydraulic service brakes at 205—followed by fuel system (82) and engine cooling (69), with 213 crash and 18 fire complaints logged; the data does not specify root causes for any of these clusters. TSB volume actually receded from 135 in 1997 to 114 in 1998, suggesting manufacturer technical service activity was easing as the WJ redesign approached. On balance, 1998 is a mature-generation vehicle whose federal record is heavy on cumulative owner complaints but light on open safety investigations, so it is a defensible buy provided a pre-purchase inspection zeroes in on the transmission and brake system where the complaint volume lives.