tl;dr - I'm debating trading off my Mini for a used XK...the problem: I think my man card is gone with this one because my wife already drives an XK.

Hello all,

A tale of two XK's...maybe. I started jeeping about 10 years back with a 1980 CJ-7 and had it for a number of years before I sold it and bought a Mini Cooper....yes, yes, laugh it up. The real amusing bit is that about a year later my wife sold her Dodge Ram (ok yeah I drove a mini and my wife drove a truck....lets move on) and she bought a used 4.7 Commander to cart around the kids that we didn't have (yet) and we still have her XK. She swears that when it dies she'll be digging through the local junkyards to resurrect the beast. After watching her drive her Dodge into the ground (we got a $1000 for the trade in out of sympathy) I hope it stays running strong for a long while. For those keeping track of these things, that leaves my wife in the V8 XK and me in the R53.

Seven years and 100K miles on the Mini later, and its time for something new(er) well sort of. I miss the CJ-7 except the raining inside the jeep with the hard top on, oh and the spending each weekend fixing the next thing that broke, oh and the I'll just change this light bulb only to have the wire break and then while replacing the wire somehow ending up having to replace a motor mount. OK that last part is a stretch but lets face it, old jeep repairs are ALWAYS an adventure and generally lead to heavy drinking. Even with all of that, I sort of miss the old jeep. Though the Jeep was a PITA sometimes at least you could work on it or find someone to work on it.

I am facing a conundrum. Do I go for an XK or a WK to replace the Mini? I've never really been in love with Grand Cherokee's because they always felt too car like for me. Intellectually I know they are quite capable four wheel drive machines (except those 2WD monstrosities) but they just never felt like it to me. The upright front window on the XK really gives it a different feel. I drove a 4 door JK last week and it just didn't really feel like a daily driver to me. The local dealership has a couple used XK's at an out of town location and I'm having one brought in to look at. To be honest it has everything I'm looking for in either a WK or XK.

So there you have it. Am I completely doomed? Is my man card gone forever now that I'm contemplating "his" and "hers" XK's in the driveway? What do you think? Go for the XK? Look for a WK?

Thoughts? flames?