Hello All

05 XJ Super V8 owner here looking to buy another car due to the SV8 being down right now due to unfortunate no recognition of key in the ignition problem.

I have found right in my hometown an 03 S-Type 3.0 Manual transmission car with 86,000 miles and 5 owners that is excellent in every other way except for the clutch. NO RUST, new battery, firm handling, decent rotors and braking power, even tire wear, clean rims, perfect underside under light inspection, all lights work, no clouding in headlights, no pitted chrome or paint, clean carfax with regular visits to the dealer for maintenance, oil was so clean it must have been just changed, etc.

The longer story is I first saw the car on car gurus, went to see the physical car in the lot to make sure the listing for the manual was not a mistake, and now have been driving it for the afternoon. The dealer/salesman was not familiar with the car, and had to go check on its status. He started right off and said that the service people said it wasn't drivable because it needed a clutch and suggested we could talk about an as is price. I said fine.

He came back however with the car and offered for me to drive i. Evidently the tech must have said drivable but with the known clutch problem. I did a short test, and I checked out all the other things above. We talked about price, he came down quickly from 6K to $4500 plus tax and title (about 500 more), so 5K out the door. He saw my hesitation and said I could take it for the afternoon.

I had a car expert friend drive it and he immediately said it was a pressure plate (he trained on manuals back in the day and is a certified tech), - and said the the plate is not at all releasing completely. He then identified parts on rack auto and said the were not expensive.

Dealer really wants to be done with this car, and I'm thinking $1,500 for a shop to do the work provided no surprises.

I know (or think I know) that the manual does not add value per se to the car, but the shear rarity (relative rarity) is intriguing and I just think it's so cool to have one.

I've read the x-200 forum on the rarity and there is no real knowledge or consensus on numbers in the States. Besides that, the car should be much easier to maintain than my current jag.

Again price is about 5K total.

What do everyone think?

Thanks
Mike

 

Oh - In addition, I called the previous owner whose business cards were in the car.

I asked him about other issues - he said right off - I thought they were going to send it to auction - which alerted me that somethings else might be going on, or that parts right now for the fix are unavailable, etc. Otherwise in his short 6 month ownership he said everything else was fine.

 

If the car dealer in question is a new car franchise, older cars such as the 2003 S-type are routinely sent to auction, or wholesaled; there is typically an age limit on cars carried in inventory on their used car lot. Exceptions can (and will) will be made for unique vehicles. Right now, clean used cars are hard to come by for dealers too; this may have impacted their thinking on wholesaling/auctioning the Jag.

I cannot comment on the pricing, which seems a bit high, given current market conditions pricing is what the market will bear... Good luck!

 

Thanks for your reply -

Yes it's a new car dealership with used as well of course.

I think however, that the car was purchased from the previous owner, by a dealer, whereupon this current dealer bought it from auction about 6 months ago.

They are now ready to dump it.

I've driven many S-Types now, and they are plentiful on the market, usually around the 5-7,000$ mark here in OHIO. And generally well cared for being an executive / older persons car.At least the 3.0 L perhaps. What surprises me is the absence of rust. And of course the facelift cars are much nicer in every way.

And reading older forum comments about how the manual performs, in general most like it but one older post criticized it based on being sluggish out of first, and a bit sloppy through the box, plus a long and heavy travel with a very late gear engagement set up. I agree with the sluggish out of first, but otherwise the rest is fine for me and I didn't think the gear box, even on a car this old and with the known issue, was sloppy at all.

I will say that driving a manual yesterday alerted be to how fast cars have become in general, and how aggressive and impatient drivers are nowadays with the fast shifting automatics and too much horse power in regular about town driving.

I'm going to offer 4500$ out the door and see if it flies.

Hopefully others will comment too.
Thanks

 

this is already STR money for a car that can’t even move under its own power

 

Good Morning to all who replied -

xalty
I agree with you, as I've taken time to think about this, 5K for an 18 year old car with 86K miles, even with everything else apparently in excellent condition upon careful visual inspection, seems too high for a car that needs to go directly from the dealer lot to the repair shop. Perhaps if I did my own wrenching - but I don't and that's the reality I estimate value upon.

I also believe that if this clutch needed only a pressure plate, master cylinder, slave cylinder etc, type repair, that someone would have done that already considering the general excellent condition of the car. This 5-speeds are the GETRAG 221 which is an industry standard as we know, but what if the gears etc. inside are worn where the entire thing needs to be replaced or other major service??? To me and my suspicious mind, somebody is hiding the truth of a bigger repair (of course).

Besides, the offer of the car at 4500 was not really that - just as I was leaving the dealer for the day I mentioned out the door price adding tax, title, and I said so about 4800, to which the reply was add a 250 dealer fee. So the offer of 4500 was always 4750 to them, and which adds 50 bucks to the tax. So we are now at 5151.25 out the door.

To be honest, I want the car for its supposed rarity, that it harkens back to the original inline 6's, plus I believe that I can at least get my money back (and maybe more) upon selling after a year of ownership, or nearly so. On Bring-a-Trailer, a search revealed NO sales of modern S-types (99 to 08) and there has been only one (recently) on Doug DeMuro's Cars and Bids which was this his past October.

That one was a manual, which Doug liked a lot, but general condition was not near as nice as the one I'm considering, with some rips in upholstery, sagging head liner, and other nicks, despite being a Call car. It was bid up to 6300 which did not meet reserve - commenters thought that price was fair, and I agree. So, I think I'm looking at 8K maximum after fixing any and all problems. Initial price is therefore important.

Readers might say, correctly, that if you want the car buy it, the difference between my ideal price and their final is small and the Getrag gear box is great once fixed.

Interestingly, I have the carfax and some previous owners names, but not the original owner. However in reading the forums regarding opinions on the manual 03 cars, an owner from Dayton OH chimed in about how much he loved the car, described a trip in winter to South Carolina, giving performance, data, gas mileage, and RPM's at 70 MPH which were 2750.

I say this because the carfax shows original owner for 15 years as being in Dayton, and a list of regular dealership maintenance. I suspect that this is his car, given the scarcity of the model. Fun fact.

So that's it - Thanks for your time and opinions. I'll let you know what happens next.

Mike

 

I purchased an 05 X-Type Sport about two years ago (which I still own) for $1,800 primarily because of it being a manual transmission. It had 154,000 miles on it but was in decent shape mechanically and cosmetically. I've got about $ 3,500 in it including shipping and fluid changes (engine oil, transmission and transfer case fluids, brake fluid, etc.) I was also able to pick up a spare used transmission with low mileage for $ 300 (the one in the car is . The engine and the transmission are a bit tired, but driving it is way too much fun. I know that this is apples and oranges (I also own an 02 S-Type 4.0 automatic) and have been watching resale values for both models. Despite it's rarity, the manual X-Type is likely worth no more than $ 3,500 and the S-Type around around $ 5,500. The point of all of this is that you buy the car to enjoy driving it. Resale values not likely to significantly increase over the next few years given the prevalent opinion is that all Jags of that vintage are rolling money pits. My bottom line; buy the car if you want it, drive it until you're tired of it, then sell it move along to the next fun buy.

 

max224

I agree with you about why to buy for sure.

I do have a bad habit of being interested in some recent Jags come my way due to a potential for profit or breakeven after ownership motive.

This unnecessarily complicates things but has the benefit of not overspending on a car, especially since I don't do my own work.

I agree with xalty on this one-- that to pay 5K for a 18 y/o car that needs immediate tranny work is too much.

Also since, when I was checking out operation of things, the sunroof would get to the end of its track then retract - I had to incrementally get it close to shut it - and I'm not certain it closed all the way.

Thanks for the comment - I'mm going to work on the price and if they don't come down leave it alone.

Regards
Mike

 

I wonder too about the availability of parts for the manual trans.

supposedly it’s a Getrag 221 but neither Jag nor Getrag support the unit.

despite this gear box broad general use are parts available? Does the 200$ LUK kit from rock auto work etc?

any experience here?

 

The X-Type uses a Getrag transmission, but the engine and transmission are mounted "sideways" when seen from the front of the engine compartment, not longitudely like the S-Type. Not sure if the transmission is the same as the S-Type. When I purchased my car, the transmission shifting was "notchey" and it had a grind going into third tear. It also had a loud whine in all gears. After draining and refilling the transmission with Red Line fluid, the grind soon went away as did most of the whine. Bought the spare transmission in case it blew entirely. Sorry, I don't have any idea where rebuild parts for this box can be purchased.

 

All

I decided today after a conversation (texting) with the salesman that I would not purchase this car. I had negotiated down to 5,000, from 5,151, and still in my mind, this was too much to pay given that the true cause of the tranny problems are unknown. My concern is that the internal gears are what's the problem and so the entire unit would need to be replaced.

Obviously, given the rarity of the species, that could be a problem. Additionally, in speaking with a euro car shop today, they cautioned that replacement is often the best or only way to fix a Getrag as rebuilding the internals and getting them to mesh as required is VERY difficult to do. It's just more risk than I care and can handle right now, especially since my XJ is still having its key not recognized glitch.

I mean, if you're gonna have 2 Jaguar's, then I do believe at least one of them should be operable - collecting ones that don't run is a bad hobby and can sometimes come with divorce papers.

I also reasoned this way - if the problem really was just the clutch, then the 1,500$ (tops) cost to replace it would have been done long ago, given that the rest of the car is stellar. So my suspicion is it's deeper than that. The Carfax shows that the first 2 owners drove it normally (about 8K per year) and maintained it at the dealer at normal intervals. But after 68,000K miles in 2011, it was driven only 1,700 miles per year until 2020, then sold to a guy up in Cleveland who kept it for 1,000 miles, then sold it to an area dealer. They told him they would send it to auction whereupon my columbus dealer became the owner. The regular visits to the dealer maintenance stopped at 68,000K so I assume care tailed off.

Finally, my text conversation was quite funny with the salesman. I ultimately told him - if you want me to pay 5,000 for the car then I want a full report about the status of the gearbox and an estimate for repair. I told him that his initial conversation to me was that the car was not drivable, and then after talking to the mechanic he brings it around for me to try anyway. I told him that if I'm paying top dollar then I need to know cause and cost in writing.

He came back and said that mechanic said no report but that cost would be 1,200 to 1,500, which I figured. I replied, trying to drive him to the original price he offered of 4,500, that 5K is a lot for an 18 y/o Jag with a bad transmission.
The punch line is now - He replied "this car doesn't have a transmission".
And I closed with -Well OK, it's a manual transmission that has a stick that moves gears within a box that transfers power from the engine to the wheels of the car instead of the machine doing it.
I then said - Never mind - I'm no longer interested in the car.

In retrospect I guess I could have simply said No s... We could have a contest judging replies.

There are lots of really nice S-Types out there, and lots in Columbus. I'm surprised at how nice they handle, how comfortable they are and how well many of them have held up. Until now I had bought into the near constant negative remarks about these models. I mean how about this one - 2008, 99K miles, no rust NY car, Pirelli winter tires, dealer maintained, recent service to heating and cooling among others, regular oil change. 6,900. I bet he'd take 6,500 as it's been siting in his small lot since May.

Anyway thanks for the advice to everyone, I appreciate the time. Reasoning is one thing and you all help with that, but my gut said not to buy. I think for me I made the right choice. However, if the salesman would never have added the dealer fee of 250, the car would be mine today - I'm glad it worked out the way it did.