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I have purchased a 2001 jaguar xj8L (127,000 miles) for basically free. My isssue with my car is that it cranks but wont start.
Since it was a free car there has to be a few problems but i was looking at the car and all the leather was in near perfect shape / the wood was OK with some cranks in the doors.
One of my doors dont open from the outside and another dont open from the inisde. Another small thing is the inside trunk release button dont work. And it has a traction and abs fault light. But the reason im here is because i love Jaguars and especially with model x308. Where i live buffalo NY i never see any of these cars driving around. Ive looked into bringing her into a certified Jaguar mechanic but the there extremely far and cost thousands.
The car is definitely a fixer upper but willing to put love into her.
I dont know if i did this right but i guess its required.
Welcome young padawan learner. You can't beat "FREE". I can tell you with 90% certainty what's wrong with your doors. The inside door handle is connected to the latch mechanism with essentially a bicycle brake cable. That's broken. Jaguar sells only a complete unit with handle for big bucks but I think its Welsh Enterprises that sells just the cable for like $50. Also the one that doesn't open from the outside is the outside door handle itself is broken. Its basically pot metal and the little lever arm inside that attaches to the latch actuator rod breaks right at the hinge where its barely 3/16" thick. Your best bet there is to purchase a used door handle and paint to match. Some auto paint supply shops can actually fill a rattle can with custom matched paint for about $30, plus a can of clearcoat for $10 and your all set. Welsh also sells the plastic gasket that goes around the door handle for $40. But before you repair either, also check that the plastic on the latch pin in the door jam isn't damaged (its only like $15 at the dealer), that the latch operates smoothly and lubricate if necessary. Any excessive friction in the latch operation will stress those cables and levers.
And I'm 80% sure the ABS and Traction Control light are on because the solder joints on two wire terminals on the circuit board in the ABS control unit have broken. If you can operate a soldering iron, you can fix it with a nickels worth of solder. I won't try to describe the repair here, but you can search for it on this forum and there's even a video on youtube where some guy shows you how. If you can operate an airbrush, your creased leather seats can be doctored to look at least a whole lot better with less than $50 worth of materials. Again, there's posts on this forum describing how and where to get the leather refinishing supplies and help you decipher the interior color code to order. The "no start" issue could be any number of things, but begin with the "cheapest/simplest" problem first and work your way toward the more expensive/complicated, never the other way around. The cheapest/simplest is to search for posts on something called "bore wash" or "cylinder wash". Try that first. If no luck, then post back and someone will suggest what to try next.
Hello,
There's Doing it Right and there's cobbling it together. Cobbling shows from 50 yards!
This car is Way too nice for a Cobbled up job. Fir heaven sake do it Right! The section where Graham has directed you will help you do Everything that needs done.
You will NOT regret taking the time and spending the money (NOT on a mechanic though) to buy the right parts and do the job(s) Correctly. And when you're finished, you will have One Classy Car!
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Crank with no start - get a code reader on it to see what codes are stored or pending before speculating or spending. It's probably nothing serious but throwing parts at a Jaguar can soon get very expensive. Read the X308 technical threads and ask questions.
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new jaguar owner
