Hi everyone, new to the forum and almost new to owning an F type. After your thoughts before I take the plunge...

I test drove a 2019 Type R Coupe today, absolutely beautiful in all the right colours, and features. Metallic grey, pano roof, two tone seats (black and cream), the list goes on. It has 28k miles and is priced at £57k.

• Firstly, is that a fair price for that mileage and age? It seems to be in the right ballpark from what I can see but I haven't been looking for long.

• I'm coming from a Lotus Elise and confess I really love the open air nature of the Lotus and so have been thinking about the convertible F type. However I'm not keen on the looks of the convertible when the roof is up. I imagine opinions on here will be equally divided but, keen to hear them anyway

• What are you thoughts on the value of these going forward? I know its a guessing game but are you thinking the V8s will go up or down in value?

• Any features that are a must have on these cars ?

• Any colours to avoid? Ideally not the metallic grey

• Finally, anything I should be checking at this sort of mileage?

cheers

Nick

 

As long as you don't expect Elise-levels of handling, an F-Type is a beautiful but heavy mid-higher end GT car, and you get the switchable enabling of your inner teenage tendencies

Price? Depends a great deal where you are. Here in the US, things are a bit nuts right now so I can't say for sure. Same goes for the investment value, as with the world economy being rather unstable right now, it may go down more before leveling out or increasing.

And for color - that's entirely up to you!

 

@nichop, colour is a subjective thing as you know. Future value is anyone's guess. The most important thing to look for with any used vehicle is the service history.

Whilst inspecting the vehicle, look for any signs or smells of coolant leaking as the plastic water outlet pipes and the rear heater pipe are known failure points that can result in catastrophic engine failure.

 

The 2019 should have the revised pipes, surely?

 

The pipes have been revised and upgraded since the 2015MY (North American market), but they're still made of plastic composite and can only withstand a finite number of cold to hot to cold cycles prior to failing.

Any drop in coolant level deserves a thorough investigation as to the source of the loss via a pressure test.

 

Many feel the Vision Pack is a must, but I'm totally happy without it with aftermarket front and rear cameras instead. The pack adds blind spot and parking sensors. You don't actually have any blind spot in a coupe, and I would not rely on the sensors anyway. And I think the cameras make the parking sensors unnecessary.

 

Don't confuse Blind Spot Monitoring (BSM), reversing camera and parking sensors with Reverse Traffic Detection (RTD).
IMHO and experience RTD is an absolute must at least for the coupe and more so for the 'vert with the top up, not so much for the 'vert with the top down.
Conversely I rarely ever use the reversing camera or parking sensors and I almost never take any notice of the BSM.
I can never remember which of these is and is not included in the Vision Pack and even then it may have changed over the years/models, all I know for sure is that my F-Type has them all.
Back to the RTD, it has saved my bacon so many times I have lost count when reversing out of a tight parking spot between other parked cars (such as in the supermarket underground parking lot). With the poor 3/4 rear vision in the coupe it is impossible to see what is coming across the bows from the rear until the **** end is already half way out which by then could be too late, but the RTD has never failed to alert me of something coming that I simply could not see. It has also never given a "false positive" so I have learned to trust it.
So make sure you get a car equipped with RTD!

 

Well I imagine this will be like any forum when asked if buying the car (in which the forum you joined and asked) would respond. They are great, fun cars. They are not anything like the Elise you owned or the Porsche's I have owned. They are just their own beasts and since you drove one you hopefully have a good feel for the change from the Elise. I joke and call mine a more refined muscle car of this era. I think it is a beautiful looking car and if you have the R, then you have plenty of power which can easily be modded to 650hp or so if you choose.

 

...........time waits for no man.............

 

Hence, Carpe Diem

 

Very important point. RTD would be ideal. What I did, since my car does not have it, was select a wide angle camera for the rear. It distorts distance, so you have to get used to that, but it is a wide enough view that I can see traffic coming in both directions as soon as the rear of the car clears anything that physically blocks the view. Works great.

 

I prefer Carpe Pesce. Seize the fish.

All joking aside, I just joined the Jaaag family, with my F Type. I paid $63K for a 16 R Convertible in the US, which is about the price in this environment.

I look forward to having this for a long time, but in my mind, the worst case scenario is 5+ years of ownership, and car will go down $20K in value. Total guess on my part, but I think it is probably pretty accurate.

I do not think the car will ever appreciate, but I am not investing, I'm buying a toy.

 

On the US MY 2017 F type that I have, built late 2016, the 'old style' flanged heater/coolant pipes were still there. From what I researched on this forum, this car was somewhere in the middle of the last building of cars with those flanged pipes and the new style. I was able to show my dealer the owner reported issues, and the pipes (and water pump, since the OE pump would not work with the new pipes) were replaced under warranty. I have the 2017 version of the Vision Pack and you need to have a back up camera. I am 5 ft 6, and have good body rotation ability, but without the camera, it would be very difficult to make sure there is nothing behind you when backing up. The camera this car came with has a panoramic view/wide angle, so it does help seeing what may be coming at you in a parking lot situation. It has the amber lights in the sideview mirrors that light up when something is in that blind spot, but I always check my mirrors and do a head check when changing lanes, especially on roads that are commonly used as racetracks. Some have commented that they wish the sideview mirror lights also made beep noises. I don't know about that. We had a Cadillac as a loaner and that beeping was almost constant when driving on a multilane road. I didn't mess with investigating if it could be turned off, since it was just a loaner. The MY2017 doesn't have a front camera, but it does have the Park assist, which has bars and beeps when approaching a front curb in a parking space. The 2017s front end was designed with a lower center front spoiler 'lip' that I think was made to take the hits.. it's easy to replace and the part is not expensive. I have the Ammonite Grey and I like it. IMO it's an elegant color and fits the personality of the car. But color is what YOU prefer. My 69 E type is Sable, and I only thought less than 2 minutes about changing the color when I stripped it down for minor body work and a repaint. It's a color one either loves or hates, and I decided to stick with it.