Hello

I've been off for a while as well as my 2.5 X-t parked for more than a year.
Finally I decided to start working on the car. But the car hardly started and after it finalyy did, it refused to move an inch in any direction. It probably ran out of oil in the auto gearbox. This, coupled with multiple other issues i knew it had (blown exhaust valve), made me (unfortunately) scrap the entire car for negligible pennies with the intention to get another one (X/S-type 2.5/3.0) at a later time.
I said unfortunately because, literally 4 days later, a 2003 3.0 manual popped out for sale and couldn't resist calling and finally buying it after few days. It is the same colour and same interior as the 2.5 and could've used a lot of parts from it on the 3.0 only if I would've been a little more patient.
Yes, bad timing is an art and I'm mastering it.

The 3.0 is in much much better mechanical condition than the 2.5 and only things that needed fixing were the scratched windshield (fixed with a polish), RH mirror, cooling radiator, a bulb, knock sensor (err: P0333) and some suspension elements.
The P0333 error comes with cutting the RPM to 3000 rpm and an intermitent error "Cruise not available" that goes on and off. The cruise still works when the error appears.
The clutch seems to aproach the end of it's life but still holds as it should. The clutch bearing has some squiky sounds on very cold starts that goes away after few minutes or if I press the clutch.
Esthetically, the interior is in mint condition (except headliner) but the exterior is the oposite. It has no dents and no rust at all (being an Italy car most of it's life) butit had multiple bad paint corrections and paint protection is gone from trunk lid and roof (probably the only pannels still on the original paint). A total respray will probably happend some time in the future.
The car has 17" wheels with 225/45 tyres and the ride is very harsh compared to the earlyer 2.5 that had 16". Is there something like sport suspension option on the X-type? Anyway, I might switch to 16" and some quality tyres cause I'm not very much after sporty feelings.
It has 175k km and the mileage is original and traceable.
Overall I'm very happy with this purchase and if nothing catastrophic happens, the car is here to stay. And to fix. And to ride as well .. as long as we'll be allowed.