XJR Newb question

[drumm23]

Gents, I'm looking for an "executive looking" run around to use for work (meeting clients) while keeping something a bit more sporty for the w/e
I don't want to knock about in something slow (god forbid!) though and I've always liked the stealthy XJR which looks like a good used deal these days.
I'm in Dublin so choice is severely limited, I'm going to have a look at this car on Saturday and was wondering why it doesn't have the aluminium "gills"... guess there was a facelift that brought them in? Anything else that changed, how's the reliability?
http://www.carzone.ie/search/Jaguar/XJ-Series/XJR-...

[Jaguar steve]

Reliability is generally good on the aluminum bodied XJs. There have been one or two issues which have been dealt with on recall and I've heard the air suspension pump can occasionally play up but otherwise that's about it. A couple of early examples I've looked at suffered from poor paint finish, and I really don't like the ride quality at all on the larger diameter wheels, but that's a personal thing. Buy one at the right price and look after it and it should serve you well.

Have a look on Honest Johns (Daily Telegraph) site for a detailed description and extensive road test - admittedly of the disesael version - but there's lots of info there.

[sjc]

Looks like a pre-facelift, with to my eyes the nicer dash finish than the ali look of the later cars. An awful lot of money though,what are the implications of taking one back from here,certainly the starting price would be lower?

[cardigankid]

I agree with Steve's comment ref the low profile tyres. Look great, but at unnecessary cost to the smoothness. Otherwise a brilliant, brilliant car.

[drumm23]

Cheers lads.
I won't pay anything like the asking price, there's no chance he'll sell it for anything near that in this market and with our road tax; I'll go in much lower and tell him to call me back in two months when he still has it.
Bringing them back from the UK isn't really a goer because of our import duty.

[sjc]

drumm23 said:

Cheers lads.
I won't pay anything like the asking price, there's no chance he'll sell it for anything near that in this market and with our road tax; I'll go in much lower and tell him to call me back in two months when he still has it.
Bringing them back from the UK isn't really a goer because of our import duty.

How much would the duty be as you could pick up an 06 30K miler for very early 20's here I would think?

[drumm23]

sjc said:

How much would the duty be as you could pick up an 06 30K miler for very early 20's here I would think?

Sit down.
.
.
.
€22,000 ... or £20,000

Seriously mate! And the Irish wonder why the country's screwed.

Edited by drumm23 on Friday 25th September 20:21

[Lancs Jag Boy]

I've got 2003 XJR and yes the air suspension pump is to be watched out for and yes the paint finish is not as good as it should be on a car that cost £65K. The brakes also require close attention. I've just paid £1000 to get the front and back brakes correctly done by the dealer (who did a great job). It has to be Jaguar pads and discs and fitted by someone who really, really knows these cars, my local independant guy did'nt and the problem dragged on for ages. But the car you are looking at does look litte on the expensive side, although I know nothing of the Irish market.

[RW774]

Lancs Jag Boy said:

I've got 2003 XJR and yes the air suspension pump is to be watched out for and yes the paint finish is not as good as it should be on a car that cost £65K. The brakes also require close attention. I've just paid £1000 to get the front and back brakes correctly done by the dealer (who did a great job). It has to be Jaguar pads and discs and fitted by someone who really, really knows these cars, my local independant guy did'nt and the problem dragged on for ages. But the car you are looking at does look litte on the expensive side, although I know nothing of the Irish market.

What was the problem the dealer have to do? just replace the discs and pads
or were there issues over the hanbrake. Warp can occur with the Brembo discs I believe.

[Lancs Jag Boy]

It was mainly down to run out of the discs. The Jaguar discs that were originally supplied by Jaguar and fitted by my local man were faulty and they must be fitted with absolute care and attention to detail, "clean, clean, clean" was the Jaguar guy's mantra on this topic. The dealer checked run out on all the discs, then swapped around and checked again, refitted new discs and didn't give me any grief about me buying them and then having them fitted somewhere else, even though I could'nt find the invoice for them. They then fitted new discs under parts warranty and only charged me for a couple of hours and these were discounted by 20%. These were standard XJR discs, not the Brembo discs.

[Piersman2]

Lancs Jag Boy said:

It was mainly down to run out of the discs. The Jaguar discs that were originally supplied by Jaguar and fitted by my local man were faulty and they must be fitted with absolute care and attention to detail, "clean, clean, clean" was the Jaguar guy's mantra on this topic. The dealer checked run out on all the discs, then swapped around and checked again, refitted new discs and didn't give me any grief about me buying them and then having them fitted somewhere else, even though I could'nt find the invoice for them. They then fitted new discs under parts warranty and only charged me for a couple of hours and these were discounted by 20%. These were standard XJR discs, not the Brembo discs.

Blimey. I replaced ALL the discs and pads including handbrake pads myself about 3 weeks ago. All pattern parts for my XJR 350 Brembos.

Cost me £250 'sih. Took me about 3 hours. Bled the brakes through at the same time.

Perfet brakes, no problems.

Maybe I was just lucky.. or some kind of diy automotive repair god!

[RW774]

Hi Piersman,we `boxed `sometime back about wheels,I`m sure you remember.
Just out of interest we have a nice XJR in the shop at present with vibration problems. The alloys, all four ,are buckled (poor tyre fitting) and the rear N/S is actually cracked across the rim. Not the first time we have seen this kind of butchery/ fatigue as discussed previously. The owner was very keen to talk of his fast driving exploits, not so after pointing this out.
I don`t remember anyone treating this point as important ina previous topic, but it is . In the event of a serious accident, if ancient flaws within alloys were found to be the root cause, your Insurance would be null and void.
I still feel they should be part of the ministry test and have tried to persuade the ministry to do so,what do you think?

[69 ssk]

slightly off topic i know but could anyone explain disk run out to me,experiencing similar problems in my xjr.brake vibration that is.

[Piersman2]

RW774 said:

Hi Piersman,we `boxed `sometime back about wheels,I`m sure you remember.
Just out of interest we have a nice XJR in the shop at present with vibration problems. The alloys, all four ,are buckled (poor tyre fitting) and the rear N/S is actually cracked across the rim. Not the first time we have seen this kind of butchery/ fatigue as discussed previously. The owner was very keen to talk of his fast driving exploits, not so after pointing this out.
I don`t remember anyone treating this point as important ina previous topic, but it is . In the event of a serious accident, if ancient flaws within alloys were found to be the root cause, your Insurance would be null and void.
I still feel they should be part of the ministry test and have tried to persuade the ministry to do so,what do you think?

Hi RW, how could I forget

With regards to the MOT I think a visual imspection should be carried out and any significant damage should be noted as an advisory. To check alloys properly would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming to be done as standard. Then, if someone had a crash where a noted damaged wheel was involved there may be a case for negligence if the wheel was a contributory factor.

Actually I have changed the wheels!!! I hadn't been able to get the original set balanced well (especially at speed) and they were getting to the point of needing refurbing. Then catching a kerb with one of the original back wheels and doing it hard enough to rip a lump out of the side wall of one of the tyres, along with your comments about things made me finally decided to spend a few hundred quid on getting some fresh alloys. So I had a look around and found a set of chrome 19" which are now on the car.

Now I'm just trying to get this set properly sorted to get rid of the vibrations. Took them back last weekend because I was getting vibration at 70mph from the rears, Much better now, but I do have a vibration that seems to come in at 110mph, not sure it's tyre related though as it was doing it on the last set, didn't do it when I got the car, but somewhere in the last year it's started... any ideas? It seems to come from the body shell rather than through the steering wheel.

Another one for you... the gearbox change! All fine except from lst to second. Try to pull away smoothly from still, and about half a second in as it changes up, it kinda lurches, like it's momentarily losing drive before second is engaged. Thereafter perfect. I've had the fluid changed out at the service a few thousand miles back. The car's always done it since I bought it 2 years ago.. it's just starting to annoy me now as much of my driving is stop start. Again, any ideas?

Actually it's annoying my so much now that I'm kinda starting to look around for another lower mileage example... but the prices seem to have firmed a bit over the last few months and I'd rather be selling this one on with everything 'right' !

[Jaguar steve]

Lancs Jag Boy said:

It was mainly down to run out of the discs. The Jaguar discs that were originally supplied by Jaguar and fitted by my local man were faulty and they must be fitted with absolute care and attention to detail, "clean, clean, clean" was the Jaguar guy's mantra on this topic. The dealer checked run out on all the discs, then swapped around and checked again, refitted new discs and didn't give me any grief about me buying them and then having them fitted somewhere else, even though I could'nt find the invoice for them. They then fitted new discs under parts warranty and only charged me for a couple of hours and these were discounted by 20%. These were standard XJR discs, not the Brembo discs.

Excess disc run out seems to be a regular problem with XJ's. At 90k I'm on my third set, and have just replaced the osf one again - no lectures about changing them in pairs please - the nsf one is still true and less than 1.0mm thinner than the new one. The first replacement set were patten ones which lasted less than 7k, after much whinging these were changed under warranty and I did a deal to upgrade the replacements with ATE OE standard ones. These managed about 17k before excess run out started to cause juddering and, as I was planing to change the car at the time thought there's no way I'm forking out Jaguar prices for a set of discs so put another patten set on, one of which I've just replaced. No need for a dial gauge this time to find out which one was out of spec. The osf one that got binned was so bad you could actually feel and hear it binding when you spun the wheel.

Yes, clean and care should always apply whenever you work on a car, any contamination or corrosion on discs / hubs / calipers / brackets / pads or a partially siezed caliper piston can lead to uneven wear after a few k's which can give the same symptoms as a warped disc. Quite why XJs seem to be chewing discs up more than you'd expect is not clear yet - maybe there's a crap batch around?

[RW774]

Piersman, good man, seriously well done for changing them. I wish others would do the same. Your gearbox issue sounds like solenoids or valve chest.
Find someone locally with Autologic,if not contact Autologic and they will tell you of the nearest specialist. He should be able to illiminate or diagnose the solenoids within the box.The harness within also breaks down as does the valve block, which cracks I`m afraid. If neither of these, the valve chest needs a strip/ check and clean.
Re the vibration, if it is since the new wheels/ tyre fitment then it has to be isolated to the same components.Try another shop and see if they can be balnced on the car, if not come and see us!
We can share saga holiday snaps !

[Piersman2]

RW774 said:

Piersman, good man, seriously well done for changing them. I wish others would do the same. Your gearbox issue sounds like solenoids or valve chest.
Find someone locally with Autologic,if not contact Autologic and they will tell you of the nearest specialist. He should be able to illiminate or diagnose the solenoids within the box.The harness within also breaks down as does the valve block, which cracks I`m afraid. If neither of these, the valve chest needs a strip/ check and clean.
Re the vibration, if it is since the new wheels/ tyre fitment then it has to be isolated to the same components.Try another shop and see if they can be balnced on the car, if not come and see us!
We can share saga holiday snaps !

I don't know how old you are Paul, but I've got some way to go before I become elligible for Saga !!

I may have had Jags for 20 years or so... but I started very young.. my first at 21 years old. A lovely series III sov. I had a break for 2 years some years back but otheriwse have always had at least one.

Thanks for the info... I'll maybe try the local gearbox guys, see if they know what to do with it.

The vibration at 110mph seems to have come on in the last year at some point, I don't think it's to do with the wheels... I can feel it mainly through the pedal? It's really quite unpleasant, like some in the engine/gearbox is out of balance.

I'd love to let you at it, but having just looked up where Sudbury is... shame. I'm in Reading, the other side of town.