According to KBB



Anything with nearly 200k miles has seen its better days.

That said, I will almost guarantee that you will fall in love with it once you get behind the wheel. But if this in your only mode of transportation, I might consider a lesser specialty car with significantly fewer miles on it.

Just my opinion - that you asked for

 

I guess my biggest concerns are aftermarket parts availability and are the transmissions pretty durable. The e320 I had even tho it died with 400k miles it was an original sealed transmission. So I’m wondering what should I be preemptively preparing for to keep it purring.
Even spending $1200 bucks a year on maintaining it saves me a $600-800 a month loan payment.
I do love the look of that Xtype 😀

 

Per one of this forum's gurus (there are a few) =

 

Doz, fat fingers, lol

 

We've had heavy snow in UK in last few days and have only ventured out in my wife's X type and it's AWD (All Wheel Drive) capability meant it performed flawlessly whereas many other cars were stuck.


See this UK TV prog on it's snow capability on TOP GEAR prog-


And being a Jag owner means you'll be in a much more select bunch than those pesky German marques.

 

Welcome to the forum ohiocoot,

My long term love of Jaguars says "go for it". However, that's a lot of miles on the X-Type already and a big daily mileage if it's to be your only transport.

It will inevitably have breakdowns but your past record with the E320 suggests you are more than capable of repairs. If reliability and availability are big factors in the decision, I'd be thinking very hard before taking the plunge. Jaguar parts aren't always immediately or locally available.

Graham

 

Concur with the others that miles are getting up there. Cannot offer guidance with high mileage auto transmission...I did have to replace my clutch at ~130K miles though. I also vaguely recall some changes that came mid-year but don't recall if those were styling or if those included transfer case and other mechanicals.

Unless it was in mint condition, I am not sure I would want to pay the price though. Good examples of the X with fewer miles can be found for less.

There are a number of parts that, although going INTO a Jaguar, can be sourced through Ford. There is a lot of overlap to be had...

 

Change the transmission and transfer case fluid when you get it if owner can't confirm it has been done recently. If everything else checks out offer him $2K, or what you are comfortable with. Make sure evrything works (windows, door locks, heating and AC, etc). If not, note what that is and maybe use that to bargain some money off the asking price. It IS an older car and certainly won't be perfect for that kind of money. If the motor and transmission feel fine and there are no lights on the dash and everything works I'm sure you will at the very least get $2K worth of use out of it. Parts ARE available and there is a wealth of knowledge on here to help if something goes amiss. Overall these are very reliable cars in my opinion. Worst case, you are out $2K, hardly the end of the world. You could do a lot worse looking at other cars that are 14 years old for that kind of money.

If it checks out ok, go for it.

 

Owning a European car mean high maintenant and Jaguar is not exception, buy as late MY and as low mileage as you can aford. 198Km is very high mileage even $2500 is too much. You can check on "Car Gurus" "Auto Trader" or "CaFax" there a lots of X-Type just alittle over 100K miles, they had a lot of pictures ex.and interior to see, take your time to find one with all the features you want with the distance you can come to check it out and test drive.

 

Sorry MR Coot I cant answer your particular question. Only to say that in the UK Jaguar do not have a fine reputation for reliability. The fact that this car has reached almost 200,000 is excellent. Used high end cars such as Jaguar sell for very little in the Uk and at auction Jaguars with anything over 150,000 sell for a mere hundreds of pounds. Due mainly to the high cost of parts and servicing. I only run diesels but I know that if the engine in your car has been well serviced it will run forever. Its the drive units and other bits that will kill it.
Don't be tempted to buy just because of the beauty of this car, "and they are" Look more at the possible mechanical issues.

 

I have a 2005 X-Type, AWD, 2.5L. I bought it 2 years ago with 115k miles on it. It now has 119k miles, so 2k/miles per year. In 2 years and 4k miles these are the highlights of ownership:
Failed emissions inspection due to bad catalytic converter. $1k in parts, 200 hours of labor
Bad control arm: $100 in parts, 20 hours in labor (1 hour in labor if Jag had put the bolt in the correct way)
4 new struts, $300 and 4 hours in labor
Replace front and rear brake disks and rotors: $500 and 10 hours in labor
Replace burned out brake light 3 times: $30 and 1.5 hours in labor
Broken sun visor: $50 and 30 minutes in labor
Broken trim piece at driver door: $175 and 30 minutes in labor
Broken hood latch cable: $150in parts, $50 in custom tools, and 2 hours in labor
Driver side of sound system failed... not fixed yet
Unknown water leak, carpets are soaked after car sat in a garage for months.

I am averaging $500 in parts and 100 hours in labor per 1,000 miles on the Jag. I challenge you to find a car that is worse in reliability.

 

Has the guy that does your labour only got one arm?
200 hours to change a catalytic converter seems a bit excessive
Most of what you have had to replace are normal wear items.
Look on the bright side; you've got lots of new bits on there now so should go round the clock again!
Mine has been pretty good considering; a couple of suspension bushes, 4 new tyres and front brake discs in 3 years of ownership.

 

Yes SteveM exactly- that's NOT been my experience; he must have bought one with a bad history.
Was it checked out by a competent mechanic before you purchased?
Did you get evidence of previous service history at time of purchase?

 

The only thing other than the catalyitic converter(s) were wear items. And the cats are probably from the previous owner neglecting mainetnance and driving around a long time with a check engine light or something similar. You bought at the time an 11 year old car for probably very little money and you should expect some amount of maintenance to be needed, which is what you got. These are very reliable cars as long as they are cared for. Hopefully you have everything sorted now.

 

Brakes and struts are wear items but a single brake light failing 3 times in 4k miles is a wear item? Read this excellent analysis. A sun visor? I have owned 15 old/high mileage cars and never had a sun visor fall off before, nor ever had a failed hood latch cable. Dead speakers, trim pieces breaking off on their own, and water leaks while the car is in a covered carport are wear items? I did buy the car with full service records and a mechanics inspection that pointed out the brakes and struts and plugs and filters which I didn't bother to mention. I expected maintenance but as I stated, $500 in parts per 1,000 miles driven is outrageous.

If you think 200 hours is too much time to change a catalytic converter I think you haven't understood the problem. If you search this forum for P0420 codes you will see how common the catalytic converter problem is and if you search for help on it you will get 1 or 2 techs who have done it in a Jag shop with Jag tools (Thank You, Thank You for your kind help!!) and a few people telling you the car is totaled because of the catalytic converter. The front subframe must be removed. On an 11 year old car in Maryland that means snapping the heads off 50 rusted bolts, grinding the heads off 50 more rusted bolts after you have rounded them off, and actually removing 50 bolts the right way including one that requires removing the carpeting and cutting open the sheet metal in the floor. That was half a day on a single bolt. When you are ready to reassemble you have 100 broken bolts to figure out in order to put things back together. I'm no factory trained mechanic and I'm lying on the ground in my carport in the winter but I have changed a catalytic converter before and it took 4 hours, not 200.

Since my post 2 months ago I have a new piece of trim around the wiper that has broken and makes an awful smacking noise above 30 MPH. A headlight burned out. The last wheel medallion fell off. Two of the front lug nuts rounded over and had to be replaced (seriously...the lug nuts are sheet metal drawn over forged steel with captive washers because what the world needed was lug nuts that are complicated and expensive to manufacture and have multiple points of failure?! As an engineer I am embarrassed for them) and I had an intermittent no-start where the engine cranks but doesn't catch. The OBD showed low fuel pressure so I changed the fuel filter and, knock on wood, it is fixed because from what I read here in this forum changing the fuel pump requires removing the interior seats, trim, and carpeting and using an air chisel to cut a hole in the body to access the fuel pump. After 2 years of owning a Jag I am not surprised by that.

I am not trying to offend anyone, I am just throwing out some actual data on maintenance for the original poster who was considering buying one of these cars. I still own my X-Type so that says something, but I am trying to highlight it is not an easy car to maintain.

 

If anyone didn't mention, the 2002 headliner should be falling down pretty soon. I had a 2002 S-type. Beautiful, British racing green, I got in and fell in love with it. Little did I know that I would have it several mechanic's places almost within a couple of months of ownership. Everyone warned me about Jaguars made before 2003. I did a lot of preventive maintenance, including the wheel lug nuts, which I cannot believe they still used on the XF's at least till 2014, replaced all of the injectors, spark plugs, replaced the timing chain tensioners, broken rear door lock, differential/bearing replacement, replaced the trunk seal, did the manual fix on the headlights drooping problem, replaced the coolant tank, replaced the as I was seeing a very wet trunk, window regulator multiple times. All in all, this probably cost about 1K-2K a year as I had a trusty mechanic. The big issue was that I used the car as a daily driver, in which it was not reliable: electrical battery drain leak (which cause me to finally have a quick disconnect at the battery, otherwise come back to a dead car, vacuum leak which lead to many of hours back at the mechanic rebuilding the hose lines, performing multiple smoke tests, taking the engine apart for weeks at a time and putting it back together, ultimately fixing the hard start issue when warmed up, but never figuring the every once in a while high pitch whistle out; the leaky valve cover gasket, which turned out to be a warped plastic valve cover, which my mechanic changed the gasket about 5 times, under warranty. Yes, these cars were very unreliable, beautiful, and when they were running in top shape, very nice cars to have and to drive. They were like a hobby which you enjoyed as you knew they were to be fixed often and as long as you didn't mind the trips to the mechanic or doing it yourself, it was okay.
I have to say the newer models are definitely more reliable. I own the 2012 XF, and it's been a pretty reliable vehicle, but again I've been trained. :-p Only a very few annoyances, so far, but only time can tell. As people have said, for a couple of grand or less, it may be worth it, if it was kept in good shape. But know that these aren't cheap to maintain especially with the age and mileage and history behind the pre 2003 cars.
Oh yea... I learned my lesson quickly after the first time I brought the car into the dealership for brake replacements... I walked out $1800 bucks less and that is why I haven't gone back to a dealership even for my XF, except for this next Wednesday for a recall issue with the Takata airbags. We'll see how that goes.

 

When I worked as a mechanic in a remote area I saw many cars with massive mileages on them that were used every day. I have never worried much about how many miles a car has done but much more about how well the car has been serviced and generally looked after. Any machine if it is well looked after is capable of lasting much longer than most people would think, after all many aircraft out there are older than you might think reasonable for a car but are still safe if strictly maintained. The biggest problem with modern cars is they get to a stage when they need a whole lot of parts done at once, this is a real issue with sealed gearboxes etc as the oil is often not changed when it should be. Changing the fluids regularly on a time/mileage rather than mileage only basis can really help a car keep young. Many parts used on cars these days will also "time expire" even on low mileage cars, rubber parts will degrade and even the capacitors used in the electronics can corrode internally and leak (which causes some really fun problems).
Having said that I generally never buy a car less than 10 years old, by then they are pretty much worthless, there are plenty of people junking them and selling cheap bits, and there are lots of cheap new parts out there.
My wife bought a new Ford Focus 5 years ago and traded it at 30,000k's and 4.5 years, with interest on the finance and dealer servicing we lost about $30,000 on it or $1 per kilometer. She now has had her X-Type for 6 months and has changed the oil, front discs and pads, and battery, all of which are normal service parts and cost less than 1 months Focus payment.
I think that in your case it really boils down to a caring owner and very comprehensive service history. If it was me I would like to see much more than just oil changes in the history, I'd be looking for struts/bushes/brakes and any other common wear parts.

 

I bought my 2005 X-Type with 130k on it in September for $2500. I've spend about $2k so far for alternator, o2 sensor, bushings, battery cables, service, reversing sensors, bulbs, etc.

I have a laundry list of to-do's that I would like to get fixed too: headlights both need replacing/gears fixing, interior trim on A pillars needs replacing/gluing, CD changer needs some attention, reversing speaker needs replacing, fuel door needs replacing, to name but a few.

I'd be very happy if it reached 200k, not that I intend to keep it for that long personally. That's not to say that I don't believe in having a well maintained car. But I think that 200k is a good achievement for this car and I'm not sure how much more I'd expect out of it.

My point is that you are considering paying the same money for an older car with significantly more miles on it. I'd just wonder what else would come occur. If it were my money, I'd keep looking for a newer, lower mileage X-Type. There's a few around, so I wouldn't buy the first one you see unless it's right for you.

 

Regarding the car in the photos; what's up with the steering wheel? The airbag has curled as can happen with pre-facelift X-Types, but why is the leather on the steering wheel rim black on the sides but brown (like the airbag) on the two lower spokes? It can't have come like that from the factory. Perhaps it had a partly-wooden steering wheel retrofitted, just like I did, but the retrofit wheel shouldn't have different-colour spokes either...