It's a black on black 2001 S-Type 3.0 with 180,162 miles. The owner is asking $1,750. I offered $900 today and he said he'd get back to me tomorrow.

The problem is, the transmission seems shot. Almost zero movement when you put it in Drive, or any of the J-gate gears. Reverse works though.

Driver seat is torn. Passenger front fender is dented. It's been hit before also, I can tell by the orange peel in the paint on the hood and driver door/fender & how clear/new the headlights look. Not terribly noticeable though, and everything lines up good.

It has 1 flat tire and 1 pretty bald tire. Check engine light is on also.

On the upside, everything works in it that I could tell, it started right up (with a jump, it had been sitting), ran smooth, no noises when I moved the steering wheel, brake pedal was firm, and the body is pretty clean (7/10), no rust.

I know this has the Ford-sourced 5-speed transmission (which I assume is less complicated than the ZF)... I located a few junkyard transmissions in my area that have been tested, and they're selling for $500-$600 with low-ish miles on them, and I have a transmission shop to install it for ~$350. Is it a safe bet to throw a used transmission in these cars? And would $900-$1000 seem like a good deal for it? I posted here before about an '03 S-Type I thought about buying that needed even more work and I listened to all the suggestions and passed on it. Just wanna know if I should pass on this too or if it may be a decent buy. Any input would be great.

 

The transmission would be a big question for me. The junkyard would probably give you some kind of warranty, but it is didn't work, you would still have to pay the transmission shop to R&R it again. This might cost you a lot more that the initial investment of the transmission and labor.

The only other thing would be the "check engine light". You might go back with a code reader and pull the codes and see what problem might be there.

It sounds like it could cost you a lot of money to get this thing going. So the question to you would be how much money do you want to spend on a car? Then what would it cost to buy a comparable car that doesn't have any problems?

If you can't do any of this work yourself, the cost could go up quite fast.

 

After thinking about this for a few minutes, if it were me, I would think about putting a 5-speed manual in it instead of an automatic; which is what I did to a Mustang that I owned in the late 1980's that was a couple of years old.

The 1987 Mustang transmission, an AOD died, and I was faced with the same situation that you are looking at with this S-type. I don't know a lot about automatic transmissions, but don't have any problems with manual transmissions; which usually don't have all of the problems that automatics have.

You would have to find all of the pieces for a conversion, that might some research, but the S-type did come from the factory with a 5-speed, at least I think that it did.

The biggest problem would be the clutch pedal and linkage. It is possible that there is a Ford part number for these parts. When I did the Mustang conversion, I was able to buy everything from a autowrecker for less than $400. I then sold the AOD to a transmission shop as a core for $50.

 

It would throw codes if you put wrong trans in (incl. manual).

Could just be stretched shifter cable or maybe low oil.

 

I figure with 180,000 miles, the car is probably worth about $3,000 running/driving, maybe a hundred or 2 more. So I was thinking if I paid $900-$1,000 for the Jag, maybe $850-$900 getting a (hopefully) working transmission installed, I'd be ahead of the game (roughly 2 grand invested with another $1,000 in equity). Not sure though...

 

So you think I could get lucky and the trans that's in it might be salvageable? It didn't seem to engage in Drive at all, but it seemed like I felt slight movement when I gave it some gas while it was in Drive. The owner said it wouldn't shift past 1st gear for him, but I couldn't get it to move at all. I didn't see a dipstick so I'm guessing there are none on the 5-speed-auto S-Types...

 

Just guessing based on an ocasional fix on here but otherwise the solenoids would be a fair bet. No way to know without working on it.

Could well be gearbox codes.

 

If they came out with a manual transmission, in some applications, and you changed the transmission wouldn't there be a way to tell the computer that something is different?

When I did the Mustang, I realize that this was before OBD2, there wasn't a computer input to the ECM anymore.

 

Abandon such thoughts or get Searching on here and weep.

 

If you were to do all the work yourself, it might be reasonable to take on this project. As you plan to use a transmission shop, the $$ could mount up very quickly.

That's only the transmission. Whenever I read 'jump start' and 'CEL', it's often the start of a trail of bad news.

Then there's tyres, bodywork and interior repairs.

All in all, too many faults to offset the low purchase cost.

Graham

 

If you're thinking of doing this cause it would be a fun project and love doing your own work, then go for it.

If you're doing it just to save some money- run for the hills.

 

Agreed. No way would I assume such risk even if the car had been given to me for nothing. That's a problematic car with a ton of miles on it - a money pit just waiting to suck you in....

 

the only way I would tackle this if I did the job myself & only if I enjoy working on jags if you have someone else do work on this car and if something comes up than it could cost you a lot of money to fix(plus finding some mechanic you can trust)

 

Before you spend that much for a used transmission I would take it to a transmission shop. The car has a common 5 speed Ford automatic and is not that expensive to repair. A rebuilt unit is usually around $1500.

But 180K is pretty high miles!
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