What WOULD sway my decision is the transmission. '02 and early '03 have the 45RFE and beyond that has the 42RLE.
Yeah, early '03s have the 45RFE which is a much nicer transmission. That said, I don't think the 42RLE is a bad ****** either, you just have to keep it nice and cool. A tow-package equipped Liberty will have an auxiliary fluid cooler, so unless it's been abused it should be fine.
Also, I believe early '02s were an inch taller than later Liberties. I may be wrong on when they started lowering them. I think they also had the auxiliary transmission cooler and power steering coolers even if you didn't have the tow package.
My 02 has ABS. But wasn't traction control not an option with a manny ******?
ABS became standard in '06, I think it was available on all years before that as an option.
As for the traction control, I dunno. I know it became much more invasive on the 06+ Liberties. Supposedly my '05 has it, but it's not nearly as invasive as other TCs I've dealt with (the one on my '12 Colorado was
always stepping in to ruin my fun). I've yet to really trigger it in a way that it's stepped in to the point I've noticed it. :shrug:
There were some weird things with the overhead consoles and the tire pressure sensors starting in '04.
In '04, the temperature sensor changed how it communicated with the console. An EVIC from an 04+ won't work in an 02-03, just like an 02-03 EVIC won't work in an 04+. Well, that's not quite right, it will work, just no temperature reading.
In '05 the Tire Pressure sensors changed. They no longer required the magnet to force the sensor to relearn, and how the communicated with the EVIC changed as well. A pre-05 EVIC+PSI will show '--' for all tires in an 05+ Liberty, and vise-versa.
I think the 3.7L engine had some upgrades done to it in '05 to improve engine smoothness and idle quality. I don't believe this resulted in better power or fuel mileage. I will say my '05 idles smoothly.
