Well, touch wood at the moment the car is fine and absolutely everything works how it should, but the more I read about the problems people are having here and on the UK forum the more concerned I'm getting about what might break. Old worrier I know, but money isn't plentiful so I need to know what I should be planning for.

I have a 52 plate MY2003 3.0 SE 6 speed auto with SatNav and 48,500ish on the clock which I bought a couple of weeks ago.

The service book has a stamp every year regular as clockwork, so she's effectively been serviced up to 100k miles. I bought her from the local independent specialist (The Jag Centre, Spixworth - just outside Norwich) who have been brilliant, very helpful and friendly, with a fresh service and MOT so hopefully all will be well for a while but the only thing she didn't come with was any bills/receipts etc and the "Repair and replacement record" in the service book is blank so I've no idea whether she's still on the original exhausts / CATs etc or not.

Any advice on what I should be looking out for at this age / mileage would be gratefully received.

 

The S-Type FAQs sticky post at the top of the S-Type section will tell you 95% of what you need to know initially. Take some time and read that post. If you have additional questions, post them here and we'll be happy to assist you....

 

Many makes have a service schedule which omits all manner of things that ought to be checked / headed off before they turn into expensive things. This is where DIY where you spend time looking hard for problems in the making saves big money. If you can't DIY then I'd find an indy who's good. Even a good dealer will be horribly expensive for routine jobs. If you can DIY all the ordinary things such as oil changes, make sure you do.

I'd buy at the very least an OBD tool that reads codes and can do live data so you can keep on top of codes & fuel trims - the latter point towards things like imminent cat damage before it's too late. Spend the time finding how to use the tool.

DIY is like paying yourself at a heck of an hourly rate.

For sure read and study the FAQs here. And get JTIS and spend time with it.

 

Wouldn't hurt to set aside a few dollars a month for maintenance. I was told that you eventually have to pay in order to play with these vehicles...stay on top of the maintenance!