Starting Out
 

I am looking to buy my first Jag ! I am in my mid 50's and am looking for a car that I can use at the weekend when home in the UK. I have a budget of approximately £10,000. Due to periodically suffering with my back, ease of access is a necessary consideration.
Any suggestions and advice appreciated as to what model I should be looking for.
I don't want a car that will spend more time in the garage than on the road, so FSH etc. is a priority.
Thank you !

I've moved you question from Jaguar Forums Advice / Feedback & Suggestion Center section to General Tech Help section. The Advice / Feedback section is for posts about the forum and not for technical questions.

It would be useful to add whether your back problem precludes consideration of the 2 door XK8/XKR models. If so, your choice will be between X300, X308, X350, S-Type and X-Type.

Graham

West Cork, Welcome to the Forums. I think you will like it here. Lots of straight forward answers here and people that are here to have a good time. So, sit back, get yourself a cup of Joe and go from there.

As for what you will be looking for, you have to answer a few questions first. Are the doors for a standard sedan (ie, 4 doors) wide enough to allow you easy access in and out? Or, do you need the slightly longer doors of a 2 door version to be able to move easily? I would think that you would probably be best suited by doing a trip to a local dealership and sitting in a few cars to see what may be more suited to you in the way of height and ease. It may be that the XK (2 door, but sits low) may be more of a pain to get in and out of due to having to lift yourself up than what a 4 door XJ would be (smaller door so swinging your feet around would be more difficult, but the seat is higher to make standing up easier). The other question is how much performance you want. The X-TYpe is a great cruiser and will drive you around in luxury (smallest of the cars you are considering, so, probably one of the harder ones to get in/out of), but if you are wanting to zip here and there, it is not going to do that and you will find if you get the AWD version, it will be pricy to maintain as the driveline has an inherent weakness in it. Drive it sensibly and it will last forever. If you are after a fun (sporty) weekend drive, then you can probably get yourself a 2 door S-Type R and that would be tons of fun to drive and have a nice large door to get in and out of. But, now you are probably starting to push the upper end of your budget. For the price of an S-Type R, you could probably get into an XJ (same year). But, you would be loosing a little bit in performance, but gaining a lot in ride quality. May even put you a little higher in the budget department too.

If you can, find something in the 2003 and newer range as you will be garanteed to have maximum reliability from the vehicle. Should have a lot of the improvments that Ford added by then and it will be new enough that you should have something that will last a long time with minimal upkeep.