I fell in love with the the XK8 when I first saw her in a restaurant parking lot in 1997. She was so gorgeous I had to press my nose to the driver's window to peak inside. The interior was gorgeous--the lap of luxury in my opinion. I vowed to buy one day.

I decided about six months ago to start my search for a top quality pre-owned in Phoenix Red--post 2000 (wanted at least second gen pre-tensioners and no nikasil worries). I saw a 2000 sitting on the lot of a one of the nearby Jag dealers. She looked great, but I sat the first time I sat in her and tried to put the top down, I took a shower in green hydraulic fluid. It almost made me decide to go for an SC430 or SL500, but I still loved the XK8 and decided to stick it out and find the "one".

Flash foward two months later. I found a dealer with a 2001 XK8 with 18,250 miles on the Odometer. I had the car inspected by one of the top Jag/Aston specialists in NY (and there are a number of them here fortunately). I had every test run on it. The tech told me the car looked like it just rolled out of the factory. Not even a scratch on the underside. He took cover off the engine and peeked inside. Everything looked brand new. There wasn't even any "schmutz" on the spark plugs to wipe off. I had him put the top up and down 10 times and check the hydraulic fluid and top operation. Perfect. Car never even had a code show up on the computer, nor did Jag USA have a record of any repair work performed under warranty (other than routine maintenance).

Anyway, bought the car on Saturday. It was raining when I picked her up. I just drove her home and stuck her in the garage (which had been prepped for the new baby). When the sun popped in afternoon, I got inside of her and pressed the button to drop the top. Rear windows went down and I heard the motor whining to power the hydraulics and nothing happened!!! I have seen this story before... I look up and there it was. Green Hydraulic fluid--this time peeking through the metal mesh on the overhead console. Oh ****!!!! THIS CAN'T [EXPLITIVE] BE [EXPLITIVE] HAPPENING!!!!

This was a rought way to start our relationship. I called the dealer and brought the car back to the shop that checked it out. I believe the dealer is going to pay the cost of the repair. I took out a "bumper to bumper" warranty before the purchase, but it doesn't kick in for another 30 days/1000 miles. Just my luck!!

As you can see from the pictures I posted, she's a hottie. I guess I just got my jaguar cherry popped a little early.

 

Welcome to the forums
Glad, you got what you like and have many happy miles

 

Awesome post! Your baby is a beauty. Sorry to hear about your top. Heres something that happened to me when I got home after my purchase:

Pull into my driveway, turn off the car, hubby says wait dont turn it off, I want to drive, too late I turned it off. Then he gets in tries to turn it on.
AND NOTHING !!!!!

I was in pure shock, I thought the irony, how can this be I just done paid 10K in cash no warrantee nothing, I felt tears coming and then, we got out, locked it and unlocked it again, got back in and it started.

Hopefully, it was a fluke but it was scary.

 

Howdy est190

Welcome to the forum!