A 2005 XJ6 Sovereign for the price of the new iPhone.
Discussion
So, having been working from home since March and the company I work for informing us that we'll be continuing to do so for at least the next 12 months, I decided I could no longer justify paying £250 a month for a car on HP which spent more of its life on the drive than on the road. After selling the car for £1,000 more than I owed on the finance, I decided to see if I could go back to my old habits of finding a bargain banger.
After trawling Facebook Marketplace for a few days I bought a 2004 BMW X3 for £1,000 on the nose, which I immediately hated, so, back on Facebook I went where I spotted an advert for a 2005 Jaguar XJ6 3.0 Sovereign with about a month's MOT and 180,000 miles up for £1,995. At the bottom of the advert though was the magic term "Swap or PX welcome", so after a quick message and a socially distanced meet up to inspect each others cars where after a small test drive he immediately proclaimed he'd be happy to swap, smelling something fishy, but disliking the X3 so much, I was now the proud owner of a bargain basement Jag for (effectively) a grand.
I put it in for an MOT almost immediately where it proceeded to predictably fail, although only on a corroded brake pipe and a knackered rear calliper. So £160 (and 2 bloody weeks) later it had a fresh ticket and I was ready to do my best Arthur Daily impression.
I've done just shy of 800 miles in it so far and touch wood (and there's a rather large amount of it to touch) it's been spot on. Being a Sovereign it has the Alpine sound system, sat nav, xenons, heated front and rear seats, electric everything and was specced with the larger 19" wheels. It also came with both keys and a stack of history, including a folder with dozens of invoices for everything from screen wash to a gearbox and diff service in 2018.
Condition wise it really is nice, the wheels are good, there is almost no aluminium corrosion (just a small amount where the rear window meets the lower scuttle) and everything works. The steering wheel was dyed black as I'm assuming the original beige had worn away, but other than that it wears its 180,000 miles well.
As with any car that's a bit too cheap, I'm still waiting for something to go bang, but so far it's really gone over my expectations.
Currently my plans are to give it a full service next week, I've ordered a mesh grill to replace the slats and weather permitting I'm going to go over it with a machine polisher tomorrow. [
url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/1o5Du32R[/url]
After trawling Facebook Marketplace for a few days I bought a 2004 BMW X3 for £1,000 on the nose, which I immediately hated, so, back on Facebook I went where I spotted an advert for a 2005 Jaguar XJ6 3.0 Sovereign with about a month's MOT and 180,000 miles up for £1,995. At the bottom of the advert though was the magic term "Swap or PX welcome", so after a quick message and a socially distanced meet up to inspect each others cars where after a small test drive he immediately proclaimed he'd be happy to swap, smelling something fishy, but disliking the X3 so much, I was now the proud owner of a bargain basement Jag for (effectively) a grand.
I put it in for an MOT almost immediately where it proceeded to predictably fail, although only on a corroded brake pipe and a knackered rear calliper. So £160 (and 2 bloody weeks) later it had a fresh ticket and I was ready to do my best Arthur Daily impression.
I've done just shy of 800 miles in it so far and touch wood (and there's a rather large amount of it to touch) it's been spot on. Being a Sovereign it has the Alpine sound system, sat nav, xenons, heated front and rear seats, electric everything and was specced with the larger 19" wheels. It also came with both keys and a stack of history, including a folder with dozens of invoices for everything from screen wash to a gearbox and diff service in 2018.
Condition wise it really is nice, the wheels are good, there is almost no aluminium corrosion (just a small amount where the rear window meets the lower scuttle) and everything works. The steering wheel was dyed black as I'm assuming the original beige had worn away, but other than that it wears its 180,000 miles well.
As with any car that's a bit too cheap, I'm still waiting for something to go bang, but so far it's really gone over my expectations.
Currently my plans are to give it a full service next week, I've ordered a mesh grill to replace the slats and weather permitting I'm going to go over it with a machine polisher tomorrow. [
url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/1o5Du32R[/url]
Around town I'm getting around 18/19 mpg and on a steady cruise I've had 28 show on the trip average. joropug said:
Mate had a bargain basement one of these I had the pleasure of driving for a few hours , what a fantastic car for the money and for a grand if it throws up anything horrific at least you won't lose sleep.
That's the plan, it's actually quite refreshing not to worry about a car. My prior car was a BMW 5GT which was about 3 months away from its approved warranty expiring, and I just knew I'd end up fretting that if something inevitably went boom a week after the warranty went I'd have a massive bill which I'd have to pay otherwise I'd be stuck with a broken car but also 8 grand owed to the Halifax! Macron said:
Amazing!
How come you hated the X3? They certainly seem to be marmite with people either keeping them for years or five minutes!
It was just so depressing. It was noisy, tinny, didn't feel planted (although the cheap tyres probably didn't help with that) and it had a couple of electrical issues. I mean for a grand I could hardly complain, and the guy who swapped with me didn't mind it so each to their own I suppose. How come you hated the X3? They certainly seem to be marmite with people either keeping them for years or five minutes!
Lovely car
Check the tank straps, they rust through and your tank ends up going AWOL
They are battery sensitive, when the battery starts to die it will throw up lots of random warnings. Learn the procedure for resetting the handbrake.
Lots of fomoco parts in them so always worth seeking out a ford part over a jaguar one.
Enjoy, you rarely see them, great alternative barge rather than the common german choice.
Check the tank straps, they rust through and your tank ends up going AWOL
They are battery sensitive, when the battery starts to die it will throw up lots of random warnings. Learn the procedure for resetting the handbrake.
Lots of fomoco parts in them so always worth seeking out a ford part over a jaguar one.
Enjoy, you rarely see them, great alternative barge rather than the common german choice.
One little job done today. I never liked the look of the slatted grille and looking on eBay genuine Sport grilles were going for almost a fifth of what I paid for the car! So, £49.95 later and I had ordered the mesh inserts from Lockwood International. It only took 20 minutes from pulling the grille out to changing the inserts over, and I think it makes a big improvement.
Steve421 said:
One little job done today. I never liked the look of the slatted grille and looking on eBay genuine Sport grilles were going for almost a fifth of what I paid for the car! So, £49.95 later and I had ordered the mesh inserts from Lockwood International. It only took 20 minutes from pulling the grille out to changing the inserts over, and I think it makes a big improvement.
Looks great!
Steve421 said:
One little job done today. I never liked the look of the slatted grille and looking on eBay genuine Sport grilles were going for almost a fifth of what I paid for the car! So, £49.95 later and I had ordered the mesh inserts from Lockwood International. It only took 20 minutes from pulling the grille out to changing the inserts over, and I think it makes a big improvement.
Always looked smarter with the mesh than the original. I used to make decent money about a decade ago buying original XJ grills off eBay cheap and putting the proper gauge mesh in them. Took about a hour minutes to cut out the sections with a Dremel, sand down the stumps, cut the mesh and built them back up. Even did a few X-type ones.I used to put them on eBay and make about 4-5 times what I paid for them after fees and postage. At the time I could easily make more than my weekly wage on about five grills.
Edited by sutoka on Saturday 24th October 17:08
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