UKC

Time to get myself a 'daily driver' and the thought of getting some awful boring modern car sends shivers down my spine. So I fancy getting myself an old XJS; specifically a V12 version.

Can anyone offer advice on what to look for with these cars? I'll have a budget of 5k max but preferably cheaper (found a few for between 3k and 5k) so I'll likely end up with a car with issues for that price. But as I'll only have the car I year or so I don't mind if bodywork/paint/interior isn't great. I just don't want the thing blowing up on me!

I know my stuff car-wise (built a few myself) but have no experience with this one so don't know the specific things to look for. Can anyone offer advice?

In reply to crayefish:

It's pronounced Jaaaaag.

Beyond that, I can't help.

In reply to crayefish:
Try this.
http://forums.finalgear.com/questions-and-answers/advice-on-buying-a-jaguar...

In reply to David Bennett:

Thanks for that. I actually saw a shorter version of that somewhere (presumably sections cut and pasted) but good to have the whole thing. A few extra things to look for there.

Trouble is most advice goes along the lines of 'buy the best you can get' but I want 'if you're going to buy cheap and don't intend to keep it long, then just make sure XXX is ok'

In reply to crayefish:


LPG is 69p a litre

In reply to crayefish:

http://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/reviews/jaguar/xj-s/

A lot of car for the money.

The late model Anniversary models and the decent cabriolets are likely to appreciate in value.

In reply to crayefish:

I drove one many moons ago, the smooth V12 power is quite intoxicating. Spend as little as possible of your 5k buying one and the rest putting fuel into it. When new the build quality suggested they had been assembled by the remedial metalwork class. St Jeremy of Chipping Norton did an admittedly very amusing skit where Top Gear bought one for about £500, fitted nitrous to it then toasted a number of new supercars in a drag race, so you may as well try that as well.

In reply to crayefish:

12 ish mpg doesn't exactly fit my criteria for a daily driver but I like your style. A distant relative of mine drove a white soft top xjs v12 and even as a 10 year old I thought it was ace.

In reply to crayefish:

My mate has one and its nothing but trouble, English at its best. Terrible electrics and a complete pig. Looks the part but has spent most of its time in the barn, as its too unreliable and not worth risking taking out.

5k ish your into 5ltr V8 M5 territory. Doesn't that take your fancy. A lot more reliable and guaranteed to blow the cob webs away. Wiki says its 394bhp!

In reply to crayefish:

top gear like them

In reply to crayefish:

I drove an XJS V12 for a couple of years and for all the problems the 5.3 litres are fantastic fun and I still think it's a beautiful piece of automotive sculpture. Engine so smooth the only way I could tell if it had dropped a cylinder was to hold my hands over the exhausts. Took practically a full day just to change all the spark plugs - which are not all easy to get at! No specific advice - obviously you'll be expecting various electrical items to fail on a rolling programme, but so what? I assume it's easy enough to still get bits. I still get misty eyed thinking about it. I'd ignore the naysayers and go for it.

In reply to crayefish:

I drove one on "L" plates - my Uncle had one and I joked that the bit next to the rear number plate was exactly the right size for my plates and he said "ok, go get them" Sadly, it was only round a car park. Also my first experience of driving an automatic.

He only sold it recently when he moved house - nice burgundy one, if you could get over the trashing from my cousins (one of them once threw up in the back of it) and the smell of his golf shoes in the boot

There's one on a driveway round the corner from my sister - 4 flat perished tyres, filthy and covered in green mank. Presumably has major problems and owner can't afford to fix them.

In reply to crayefish:

No experience of Jags but having had a couple of the same ilk I'd definitely not recommend a daily driver that struggles to do double digit MPG and has 2 or 3 times as many engine parts as the average car. Fun cars are great but cars that are too expensive to use as cars aren't much fun.

On a Jag that age I suspect just about every system has to be considered suspect. Ok as a hobby, draining as a daily driver. SL500 is probably a safer bet in that price bracket if burning money in a big V engine is your thing

jk

In reply to jkarran:
Merc 500SEL, Looks like a barge, goes like starship. Pagani nicked the engine for the Zonda.

Sorry, 600SEL with the 6Ltr V12

In reply to floss_81:


The electrics were Italian, I think.

In reply to TMM:


Cabriolet is a good idea, you can sit in it when the sun is shining and it's being fixed.

In reply to crayefish:

My father-in-law just got rid of his. Alas the dreaded "engine-management" light popped up. Turned out to be a sensor buried in the chassis somewhere. MOT failure or £thousands repair bill. On a spanking car worth > £5k, it wasn't worth it.

Weekend cruiser - yes. Daily drive - v expensive.

In reply to crayefish:

http://www.kwecars.com/jaguar/process/upgrade-renewal-packages/index.php

In reply to crayefish:
Anyone with experience of a Jag XJS?

Well I drove one once if that counts. Passed everything in a blurr except the petrol station. Plagued by cranky electronics, nearly always caused by water ingress or poor connections. It felt like lying in a sleeping bag and driving at the same time.

If you haven't got a MIG welder or a multimeter yet then make them top of the list

In reply to wilkie14c:


Have both... in fact two of each

In reply to jkarran:



I won't be doing more than 20k miles a year in it, I get discount fuel and frankly don't care about petrol costs I've never owned a fuel efficient car and never plan to. lol

On that note... I generally dislike all modern cars, but especially German ones (eg. BMW and Merc). Too boring for me.

In reply to Andy Clarke:


Exactly my plan! Why be sensible when you can be stupid and have fun? (assuming one has breakdown cover. lol)

In reply to crayefish:
According to Top Gear once they're sorted by the people I've linked to, they drive really nicely and don't wallow about and be unreliable like they do with factory spec.

Should you ever have the cash that is...

In reply to crayefish:

From what everyone is saying that is one certainty!

Even the Merc CL?

In reply to Timmd:


Hopefully you will.

In reply to crayefish:


I thought this in the past and after a brief ownership of a TVR learned to appreciate the reliability of German cars.

In reply to floss_81:


A TVR is a whole other level of unreliability... I would agree that that would be a bridge too far

In reply to crayefish:

TVR factory is <was> just down the road from me, if you drove one off the production line to my house you wouldn't get out of second gear. Used to have a wander round with my lad when they were loading the race team cars on to the lorry. After several buy out failures the bulk of the place is now a gym, cafe and lawnmower shop. Sad to see it happen on your own doorsetp <litrally>
Hope you get the XJ, be interesting to read your exploits!

In reply to crayefish:
I've restored lots of Jags including the XJS over the years, both for myself and for business. The budget you indicate isn't enough for a 'daily use' XJS. Probably 15-20k would get close to a low mileage, original body, or maybe a restored vehicle.
I like the engine block a lot, it's a shame it's let down by the ancillaries around it. Desperate problems with hidden corrosion, especially around areas like the trailing radius arm mounts which it inherited from the E Type.
I'd buy one for 3-5k, but only to strip and restore, and even then I would be very circumspect about the purchase.

In reply to crayefish:


20k is a lot at 10mpg (if you're lucky). I found I saw less of my friends as I couldn't justify burning the fuel to travel. Fair enough if you have money to burn and it won't gnaw at your conscience but there's my experience of 300+ Hp daily drivers.


Boring is not the right word but I know what you mean. Overweight and excessively complicated would be my complaint about modern cars, still, some are great fun (and most, like old cars are dull).

jk

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

That does seem to be the wisdom from what I have read. To be honest I really don't mind about rust as I have a welder (for essential stuff) but in reality it will probably be driven for a year and then sold as I move onto something else... I want to do the rounds so to speak as my rally car is the 'constant car' in my life

But obviously if it's breaking down every time I take it out (basically driving to the drilling rig and back every two weeks) then that wouldn't be good. But perhaps with a spare cap/rotor the main problem can be avoided? Though I don't want to spend my life working on it as have another car for that.

I don't care whether air con, electric windows and all that stuff works or not... coming from a back ground of landies and self built racers, I haven't ever actually spent much time with a car that had ANY mod cons... just windows when its hot and a jacket when its cold!

In reply to wilkie14c:

Same experience here with Marcos which was in the local town. Real shame to see it go!

In reply to jkarran:

Well, now that I am working in drilling for Shell I get discount petrol and some money to burn so not too bothered My other car does 5mpg around town (at best!) and used to drink oil before I built a new engine for it... and I ran that as a student. lol

In reply to crayefish:

>...I get discount petrol and some money to burn so not too bothered My other car does 5mpg around town (at best!) and used to drink oil before I built a new engine for it... and I ran that as a student. lol

Ain't you heard of climate change?

In reply to crayefish:

I don't mean to a be a killjoy... ()

In reply to Timmd:

I think realistically the amount of fuel he will *really* be burning versus the recycling of yet another classic car is a net gain for the planet. I can see him getting properly fed up of standing there for half an hour at a time filling those cavernous fuel tanks, fuel card or no fuel card

In reply to woolsack:
Maybe so, it's a bit of a pain climate change, or we could have a lot of a fun without feeling bad about what's in store for our nephews and nieces and children and future generations.

There's worse things to go without than driving gas guzzlers...

In reply to Timmd:



And you think manufacturing new cars is greener? The CO2 produced as a result of manufacture of a new car would mean I'd have to drive it for a few hundred thousand miles to come out negative! False economy somewhat.

But I feel that I can offset a little CO2 given my research was in making cars more fuel efficient... though that might be cancelled out by working for an evil oil company

In reply to crayefish:

Run it on LPG, my V8 110 Land Rover loves it and it is a cleaner fuel

In reply to crayefish:
But you don't have to buy an old *Jaguar XJS*.

It's a boring car but my dad's 96 A6 estate does around 35-40 mpg.

So there. That'd be even greener. ()

In reply to Timmd:




I'd rather let a rabid dog chew my leg off If you saw my other car you might understand lol

In reply to crayefish:
Yeah, it's that gas guzzling rally 4x4.

I hope your children's children's children's children's children's children all forgive you, because we certainly won't... ()

In reply to crayefish:

Mackay (he of SWtHA) quotes someone else who I can't recall, but in whose peer reviewed paper I do recall confirming the claim, which is that a new car (don't know which, probably some average family thing) takes about 80,000 kWh to make, all told. If that energy all came from liquid fuels, it would require about 8000 L, with the emission of about 20t of CO2e. If it was all provided by UK electricity, it would cause about 40t CO2e of emissions. So lets settle on 30t CO2e. To emit that by driving, at the UK average of about 8 L per 100 km (35 ish mpg) you would indeed need to drive about 100,000 miles, or maybe 20,000 in an XJS.

In reply to mbh:

Yep that sounds sensible. Don't also forget the distribution, advertising, show rooms and all that other stuff that adds some CO2 to the total output (but obviously the car being the major part). Chuck in some lithium batteries such as found in hybrids and you can revise that figure upwards a lot!

In reply to Timmd:



No doubt by then the human race will either have died due to global warming or have developed gills