Having a laugh surely...

[Piersman2]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Jaguar-XJR-V8-Automatic-SUNR...

1999 XJR with 32K miles. OK , it might be low mileage, but for the £12K he's asking I'd have thought the engine must have solid gold covers!

Surely only worth half that even assuming it's in tip top?

[Jaguar steve]

Of course it's real value is nothing more than precicely what somebody is prepared to pay for it, and that's a difficult one. Show 20 different people the same car - especially if it's a bit unusual or unique in some way - and ask them how much it's worth to them and you'll get 20 wildly different prices.

The whole notion of "trade" or "book" price based on criteria like age, condition and mileage and all the publications such as Glass and Parkers are actually a fabrication that establish and stabilise trends in pricing rather than follow them. It's nothing more than an attempt to bring some sort of order to a otherwise chaotic market and take the uncertainty out of a vendor's pricing - most car dealers rely religiously on what the book says in order to protect their margins - if they all guessed values of purchase and sale price most of them would quickly go out of buisness. Go to any auction for example - you'll see most traders doing exactly the same ritual. As soon as the car comes in the hall it's a quick glance at the car to see what it is then a lot more time spent thumbing through the book to get a price, which proves to me even the experts don't actually know what it's worth.

If you think about it long enough we all make value jugements - logically we are all quite barking to spend so much more money on running Jaguars rather than a basic hatchback. For example, I spend at least 75% of my driving miles cruising at 65/75 MPH on motorways and dual carrageways. My sisters 1.4 Saxo is very nearly as good at doing that as my XJ, my mate's 15 year old deisel Omega is actually better - it's just as smooth and quiet and a lot more comfortable, and both of them are far more practical too and much, much cheaper to run.

I recognise this and see the sense in it too, and add to that the fact that I don't enjoy driving much nowadays and absolutey hate spending money then it's clear the only thing that keeps me in an XJ is my value of it. Driving an XJ is worth the extra cost to me, but to my sister and Omega driving mate - both of whom I know could comfortably afford a much newer XJ than mine - it's not.

Edit for 'speelin.

Twice

Edited by Jaguar steve on Tuesday 23 February 07:54

Edited by Jaguar steve on Tuesday 23 February 07:56

[jagracer]

It looks like he just over prices his cars, there's a 14 year old Escort for over £3K, it's probably worth £500.

[a8hex]

Jaguar steve said:

The whole notion of "trade" or "book" price based on criteria like age, condition and mileage and all the publications such as Glass and Parkers are actually a fabrication that establish and stabilise trends in pricing rather than follow them.

Before I bought my XJ I ran a Celica GT4. These aren't exactly common. A mate's other half took a fancy to it so he tried to find her one. All the Toyota dealers he called weren't interested "Never see them, no one wants them, not worth it...etc."
Anyway, he knew I'd found one so asked me to look for him. I popped into see the local Toyota main dealer where I'd bought mine.
He sat me down pulled open his desk, riffled through it for a moment and came out with a A4 pad with a page almost full of names.
"All these people want a GT4, I'll add you to the list, but you have to understand the rules. I get them in reasonable regularly. I then call everyone on the list and the first person to turn up at my desk and buy it gets it. Oh and don't bother looking in the guides, they're miles out"

A year later I parked mine in a ditch and decided it was time for a change.
He paid me miles over the guide price even though it was in pieces on his garage floor. He bought it off me for all most exactly the same price as I bought it off him two years earlier. When seemingly I'd spotted it on the his forecourt before anyone on his list had arrived.

The point is the guides might be useful for run of the mill common stuff, although a nephew in the trade last year didn't reckon that even here they were worth the paper they were printed on at that time. But for any thing unusual then they are pretty worthless.

Where else are you going to find a mint 32K XJR?
If someone is looking for one and has £12K then he's asking the right price.
If he can't find a buyer then he's asking too much.
I guess he feels he knows his market.
He isn't alone in asking that sort of money Robert Hughes is asking £12,500 for one and Robert's cars are usually lovely.
http://www.roberthughes.co.uk/stocklist.html
He is also asking £9,500 for an X300 Daimler Six with 35,000 on the clock and has a XK150 FHC which looks almost exactly the same as mine for £47K (ok it's low mileage and in better nick than mine)

[Piersman2]

I fully understand and agree with the points above, but they really apply to a specialist , sought after, rare, classic type of vehicle.

I wouldn't have though a 1999 XJR would yet fit into any of those categories, even with just 32K on the clock.

If it had been shrinked wrapped from new and stored in an air conditioned environment I could appreciate that it may have some 'collectability', but a well used one like this???

As said above, I guess a car is worth what someone will pay for it... but I think you'd have to be a very 'speshul' customer to pay that money in this case when ones with maybe 70K are readily availble for half the money he's asking.

It's not even a decent colour combo!

Ah well, best of luck to him.