It's official for me now..the Jag is home!

Yesterday was a good day. Two new firsts for me.
1. First Jag we've ever owned
2. Found a car on the internet, flew out to see it, bought it, and drove it home.

Of coarse you know it would rain about 2/3rds the way home on my 500+ mile trip. But.. she did very well and ran perfectly the whole way home.
I had high confidence in the situation / seller and there were only three "surprises" that will need attention. Two of which I understand he didn't know about. But the 3rd I think he should have disclosed. Anyway all is good and over the next 1-2 months I'll be doing all the service and repairs getting this ready for duty as a family car. (car stays in the garage 24/7 as my wife is a homemaker)

As I get into the repairs I'll be doing searches and asking Q's. Thanks for all y'alls efforts in making this site a solid source of info and when I can, I'll contribute too.



Home after 500+ miles and through a lot of rain.


Interior hasn't been cleaned at all. Still looks great


AC on at 70mph most of the way. Got 32.1MPG!


Engine room not cleaned by the previous owner. In pretty good shape if you ask me.


Leaving east coast and headed west


Seller should have said it needed tires. :-<

 

" Seller should have said it needed tires. :-< "

And possibly an alignment too... Comgrats! Nice looking S-type.

 

+1 be sure to get an alignment before getting new tires installed. Search the forum for allignment specs and take them with you.

Nice S Type. 500+ mile drive on a whim after purchasing is brave of you but the fact you made it means your Jaguar is probably in great shape!

Congrats

 

Looks good - a V8 NA by the look of it.

Don't wash the engine bay! At least, avoid water or by VERY VERY careful to avoid the many connectors. Watch out for brittle vacuum lines.

 

very nice...is that the British racing green I hear about....sweet color....seats look immaculate...cannot beat jaguar leather or their seat design IMO...I have spine issues and my jaguar is the first car I have driven that I can sit for hours in....great buy..congrats

 

--jh9,
I would check in to your computer color rendering. The color shows a Blue car. Although, may be it's mine. Yep, it was mine. Fixed. Car now looks more green.

wydopnthrtl----Glad you made to trip with no issue's. The next time you buy a car some distance from home, the second thing to look at are the tires. The first of course is, is this the car? Your lucky you didn't have a blow out at 70 MPH.
Beautiful car. You'll enjoy it...

Cheers

 

Upper and lower ball joints are common wear items. Have a Jaguar specialist or competent alignment shop check for worn parts and have the replaced prior to purchasing and installing new tyres.

 

Looks green on my PC. I'd guess code HGZ.

 

 

Thanks for the info and tips... Its Green and I was prepared for the drive home ;-)

Yes its a 4.2L V8 w/the ZF 6 speed auto.

When I get new tires it will get aligned at the same time. Their prices are competitive and they give "free alignments" every 6 months if you buy tires from them.
Fortunately I have been trained on and have access to a new hunter alignment rack and tire balance machining. After I put a few miles on them I'll check as compared to the posted specs. As well as all suspension looseness.

This was always serviced by the same Jag dealership since new so I have good chance its in good shape. (all the fluids look good and there are zero leaks)

The 03 has 16mm ball joints right?

 

Your comment is dead on.

I've owned probably 40+ cars and I've learned a lot about scoping out used cars. And being a hard core car guy + a OEM automotive engineer for 26yrs + designing a few parts on the S-Type helped prep me for this endeavor.
Some other key things things I look for are sellers who volunteer info and high quality photos. If I have to pry info out of them, they generally don't know much about cars or are hiding things.

This one drove flawlessly on the way home. It's tight and quite. Even the with the left front tire nearly bald on the inner edge it went through water well and hydroplaned momentarily in only deep washes.
One of the problems he disclosed, I did experience on the drive home. The wipers always work on high speed. But at lower speeds they will instantly stop when you move the lever down or off. It did that 50% of the time. The other 50% they worked as they should in all lever positions and settings. After tires this will be my #2 item to repair.

 

Blue/Green?

See edited post above.

Cheers

 

from jagv8 code it comes up jaguar racing green pearl.....no matter what color it looks like on a monitor, I bet it is magnificent in person....again great car inside and out...I have the same color interior and if I ever did a re-color...that green would be the one

 

Yes, that's a lovely colour.

 

Gave it a bath while smoking dinner. I was hoping these pics would show how bright the green is in the sun. I think the closest of these is the open hood shot. The front bumper and RH fender show pretty good.