Pricing Jeeps is extremely subjective. In California our older vehicles stay healthy and tend to hold values better than vehicles in places with wet, snowy, salty winter roads.
As an LJ owner I watch them pretty closely and it is unlikely I would pay that price for that Jeep.
The LJ has lots of benefits over the TJ, I currently own one of each. Interior space with the ability to take your kids or other passengers in the back is probably the biggest benefit. The conversion eliminates that benefit so I feel it is a deterrent. Most folks can and will change the lift to suit their individual needs. If it had a Currie, Rubicon Express, RK, Nth, and a few others I’d see that as a $2-3k adder assuming it was well done.
I’ve recently seen a few nicely equipped LJs for sale over the past year in the $12-18k range as well as a few salvage titles high milers sub $10k. One exception was one guy I met who had just purchased an all stock low mileage pristine Rubihara LJ for $24k.
I was looking for a Jeep for my sister recently. I wanted her to get an LJ and I didn’t want to spend more than $12k. We had a few options but ended up getting her a high mileage decent TJ for $8500. The $15k LJ Rubicon we found with 110k miles and salvage title was probably a better Jeep for her since it already had a nice 4” longarm lift. She just didn’t want to pay that money.
A 4” short arm lift and 33” tires works pretty well with the stock Rubicon axles. When you want to go 35s you need to regear, for 37s you need to change axles (at least the rear). It snowballs from there. I’ve also seen a couple very well done LJs with smog legal V8s, nice axles, atlas Tcase, highline fenders, and a long list of other upgrades for sale in the mid $30’s. Those are pretty good deals when you realize it would cost double that to replicate that vehicle.
Good Luck!
