Hello, I am new to this forum, I joined because I am wanting to purchase a 2004 or 2005 X type. I love the styling of this model. I know it is an entry level model but I am still drawn to it over the BMW and Benz of the same age. My only concern is I do hear about all these maintenence issues. I am a very hands on person and do most of my maintenence myself. I am just looking for some input good or bad and maybe some things to look for. The cars I am looking at are around the 100K range.

Thanks for any help.
MikeG

 

Hi Mike and welcome to the forum.

Things to look for...ask the current owners for any and all maintenance records. Check for regular oil changes, other fluid changes, and for any signs of collision damage. when you take a test drive - make sure to drive the car thoroughly at both low speeds and higher speeds. On straightaways, turns, hills and grades. In other words, not just a drive around the block. Listen carefully for noises (turn the radio and heater fan OFF) that might indicate drive train early failure. Next, stop the car and test every single switch, function, gauge, latch, light bulb, etc. Everything. Brings some portable ramps and check underneath for rust. Feel the carpets for moisture from leaks.
If it passes all these checks...you'll be getting a good car you'll enjoy.

Good luck,
Tom

 

I bought my first X-Type almost a year ago, May 2013. It's a 2004 3.0 AWD with only 48k on it. I lucked out because the previous owners and the dealer I bought it from great care of it. Every time I get behind the wheel, even at the cars age, I get that new car feeling. It handles like a dream.

Plus the fact that every car on the road these days has the same look, thise is a beauty that wont really break the bank if care and thought is taken. Also it doesnt look like every other car on the road, espseically with the leaper on the hood! :-) Oh and handled fantastically in the snows we had this winter on Long Island. (pirelli p6 4seasons tires)

Just my 2 cents

 

I know how you feel, Mike. I agonized for about three weeks before I finally took the plunge. Bought a 2002 X type with 114,000 miles sitting beside a country road in Missouri. The first week I wasn't sure I even liked the car and I was somewhat afraid of the maintenance. Now I LOVE it and I'm learning how to work on it. You'll have plenty of help with the experts here on the forum and the maintenance manual is a free download. Trust me, you'll be glad you bought a Jaguar!


Gary

 

Thanks for the replies, you are really making me feel better about my decision. I know there will be issues there always are with a used vehicle. I presently own 2 Toyotas a 2000 tundra and a 2000 4 runner so I have become acustom to the higher price of replacement parts. This will be a third car so it it needs to be down for repairs I should be able to take the time to do them myself.

 

I just came home from the Detroit auto show and it makes me appreciate my Jag even more. All of the sedans look the same and the price tags are ridiculous.
If your going to drive the Jag in the winter, look for the DSC button by the sport button under the gear shift. Probably makes a difference in the snow.

 

Hi mike,
Ive just recently brought my 2001 xtype and though the base model I really cant fault her she came from 3 ownwers who fortunately had all been good ones so all maintenance had been kept up. Im not goin to spk to soon if you get my drift. Just remember old cars have issues look hard look well be patient and you will find gr8 cars rush you get crap lol.also folks who have probs seem to go so far then give up and get rid, remember wen you get the fixes done you have a car that will drive and feel gr8
Welcome and good luck in ur search
All the best Rob

 

Gentlemen,

Enjoying the hell out of my 2003 X-Type this rather harsh Chicago winter!!! It blasts right through anything nature can throw at her (Katrina). Bought her a few weeks ago and can’t get over how tight she is even after 120,000 miles! (If only my wife were….never mind!) ..Anyway,I can’t wait until it warms up just enough so I can start working on her properly. A few tidbits and/or missing pieces I am anxious to collect are….*i/e: tow point covers F & R, front air dam louvre/splitter vane, rear seat child safety latch cover, defrost vents are kinda warped, too). Any suggestions guys? }; )> PTABOY

 

redline, with the X-Type, I will call out a few things that you need to be very aware of. These are the common problems that we encounter:

- take the car out for a drive and get it up to 65 mph. Do you hear a hum coming from some place that you can't recognize? This would be the carrier bearing for the rear driveshaft either needing replacement or at a minimum a good greasing. Does the steering wheel shake side to side any? If so, at a minimum the alignment is out. It may be possible that either the inner or outer tie rods would need replaced. A double check on this is to check the inside edge of the front and rear tires to see if they are abnormally worn (this would indicate that the alignment was was out and was recently returned).
-when driving slow, do you hear a metallic ticking/grinding? If so, leave that car alone as it most likely has a bad transfer case and unless you plan on either doing a lot of work yourself or spending $3000 on a new transfer case, it is not going to be worthwhile getting unless the price is very low.
-find a long sweeping turn that you can take at about 25 mph with little to no gas. In the middle of the turn (in a controlled manner), give the car a decent amount of gas (like you were going to pass someone in the middle of the turn). Does the rear end feel like it is going to step out on you? If yes, the rear suspension has worn lower/forward control arms and they will require replacement.
-when you first get in the car, turn the key to the RUN position (do not start it) and make sure that the CEL light comes on. Then lower the driver's window by giving the button a quick push and then releasing. Did the window go all the way down or stop? When raising the window, give the button another quick flip of the switch. Did it go all the way up? If the window doesn't go all the way up and/or down, then that tells me that they disconnected the battery for some reason and that you need to pull the string on making sure that the P1111 code can be brought up on their scanner. Otherwise, you may have a ticking time bomb on your hands as they have cleared the code and am hoping that they can get it off of the lot before it comes back.

The last thing that you need to be aware of is that in March 2004, Jaguar went with a different style transfer case. The 02-03 cars (to include the early 04's) had a viscous coupling in the transfer case. The viscous coupling garanteed that you always had power to 1 front tire and 1 rear tire. In the later 04 and on cars, the viscous coupling was removed. On these cars, you need to make sure that on the center console you have 2 black buttons there (1 marked "S", the other marked "DSC"). If you only have the 1 button (S button), you are probably not going to want the car as the AWD system is going to not be a true AWD system (yes, all 4 wheels will have power applied to them, but without DSC, when one tire looses traction, all the power is going to go to that one wheel and leave you stranded, might as well have a 2wd vehicle).

The rest of the stuff is going to be pretty obvious. Something you may want to consider is whether you want NAV built into the car or not. This has pros and cons to it. The pro is that you have NAV already in the car and the heat-A/C system is automatically controlled which is a nice feature. The downside is that if you are planning on upgrading the stereo, it can make it very costly to do as all the heater controls are built into the radio and you would have to retrofit to the manual system at a high cost.

The last thing to look at is the door jams on all 4 doors. At the bottom of the door (under the interior panel) and on the matching spot on the main body of the car, do you see rust starting to form there? If yes, this is another one of those things that you are going to want to walk away from the car for. To repair this costs a lot of money as you are affecting the structural integrity of the car.

 

Uh oh... my 2004 doesn't have the DSC switch... but it still handled great... or as great as can be expected in 3-4" of snow... Keeping my fingers crossed for snow driving.... lucky here there isnt as much as many parts or the US. :-)

 

joec, what is the build date of your car (written in the driver's door). If it was built in March 04 or earlier, you will have the viscous coupling transfer case. If you have one built in April 04 or later, then, well, wish you luck in the snow. There are some tricks to get through the snow, just have to know what they are.

 

Wow thanks again everyone, I am very impressed on how quickly people have given feedback.

 

redline, I will put one other caveat into this mix of comments. If you are looking for something that will go light to light, this is going to be an expensive car for you. A lot of the transfer cases were built with too much pre-load on the bearings and if you are hard on them quite a few times, then they will eat up the bearings and now you are looking at replacing the transfer case. If you want something that you can cruise for long distances or have something for bad weather, then the x-type is a good car. if you are after sport, then I would be saying to look at the S-Type or the XJ. Both are slightly bigger cars, but they have the option for a much more powerful engine and therefore better sportability and light to light fun.

 

Thermo, Thanks I am actually looking at it to drive back and forth to work mostly highway not really into hard running light to light just a comfortable smooth driving machine.

 

Yep...that pretty much sums up the X-Type.

Nice, smooth, comfortable cruiser (with a little bit of ***** when you need it!).

It's a fun car, for sure.

I'm sold. I would buy another one (though the ivory leather interior is a PITA to keep clean).