Hi everyone,

Potential new XF owner here looking for advice. Never had a Jaguar in the past, but been looking at this model for some time and I think I am getting convinced that this may be the one to get. That said, I need to find the specific one to buy!

I am located in Dubai and have initially looked at a couple of "Approved" 2016 XF's offered by the authorized dealer. Nothing wrong with them, but today I came across a 2015 XF offered by a non-AD, which has 0 km on it. The dealer positions it as a "new" car, even though it is actually 3 years old (see below). They say it has never been registered. Price is attractive but not ridiculous. AD prices were 10-15% higher for vehicles with very low mileage.

I went to look at the car in person and it seemed fine visually/mechanically. Stickers on the door/hood suggest a manufacture date of 09/2014.

The dealer claims they purchased the car from an AD which is located just down the street. I went to that AD with the VIN and they said they don't have any record of it in their database.

My initial thought was that this is some type of insurance write-off from the US, but stickers on the car have Arabic writings on them, which suggests that this has originally been a GCC (Gulf Coast countries) spec... which appears legit.

I've been trying to run a VIN check using various online resources, but with little luck getting meaningful information.


What do you all think - what could be the story behind a zero-mileage, never-registered car that is over 3 years old?

 

If you have pictures of the stickers in Arabic on the car can you post them here? I have experience with GCC cars and I can read Arabic so I might be able to tell you something.

Usually a new car is a new car. However if you can't ask them to discount it more ask them to replace the tires, change the oil and possibly flush the coolant. Temps in the middleast get very hot during summer time and you wouldn't want a new car to break because of old fluids.

Best of luck

 

Has it ever been registered with jaguar? That will impact the warranty. It runs from time of registration. So it originating dealer registered it before passing it on (which they often do to count in their sales figures) then warranty could be mostly gone.

I would be quite suspicious if they say it came from a dealer who has no record of it. How certain are you that it really has zero km?

 

Get a copy of the Vehicle Identification Number and call Jaguar Corperate.

They will have a record of any sales and will give you the ordering dealership and where is was shipped to. They will also know if it was ever sold/registered to a person or corporation and when. That will be the start of any factory warranty period.


My 2013 sat on the Dealer lot until February of 2014 and the dealer ended up registering it in their name and used it as a VIP loaner. They used the car until it had 1000 miles on it and then put it up for sale as a used car.

It sat on the dealer lot until I stumbled on it in August 2015. I bought it for $27,000 less than the sticker and they extended the warranty as a CPO for 6 years/100,000 miles with the starting date marked as February 2014 which was the original purchase date when the car was bought from Jaguar and sold to the Michigan dealer that I ended up buying it from. SO now it is warranted by Jaguar until February 2020 or 100,000 (whichever expires first).


You may find out that something similar has happened for the vehicle you are looking. But in the end, Jaguar Corperate will know the full history.

 

My first Jag had a similar story; one of the last 340 saloons, which had been sitting unsold and unregistered in a main dealer showroom until I bought it in 1969.
Be very careful about deals in the Arab world; things are not always what they seem, and the law will not find for you in any dispute with a local individual or business..

 

Thanks a lot for your replies, guys. I do have the VIN but not the photo of the sticker with Arabic writing on it.

With regards to how certain I am that it really has 0 km... I can say it does look and feel like new, and even has some plastic wrapping on the steering wheel, etc - but of course I understand that none of it could guarantee anything.

With regards to warranty, the non-AD actually touted this as an advantage, saying that because the car was never registered, I would still have full AD warranty ahead of me. At the same time, the AD said that, if the car was not originally produced for the UAE, they would be happy to honor the warranty but only after charging ~$14K to "register" it within their system. Quite a trick, I thought.

Not sure this is worth pursuing after all, but out of curiosity I will try contacting Jaguar Corporate to see if they could offer any insights. Will let you all know.

On a related note, could anyone recommend a good Jaguar VIN decoder website? I have seen some very good ones for BMW that give you a lot of of details on the vehicle (packages, equipment, etc).. but for Jaguar I have only been able to find some that give basic info, and even that is not always accurate. One of the VIN decoders identified the car I described above as a 1985 XJ

 

Have you tried the forum VIN Decoder?
Near the top of the page under Tools.

 

 

Jaguar's Topix system is about as good as it gets.

 

Update: I have finally heard back from Jaguar, and they confirmed this XF was originally made for a dealer in Yemen, not UAE. They have no official service history on it anywhere and don't know how it ended up in the UAE. The warranty did start in 12/2014, contrary to what the dealer here was saying. Jaguar is advising against purchasing this car because it could potentially be an odometer rollback.

Needless to say, I will not be purchasing it.

 

Sad outcome but a wise move I suspect.

 

Yes, I'd agree with that. The whole story sounds very unlikely. Steer clear!

 

My original assessment wasn't wrong:

"Be very careful about deals in the Arab world; things are not always what they seem, and the law will not find for you in any dispute with a local individual or business."

As a kid in the fifties we actually used the expression "Lying Arab", when questioning a peer's truthfulness.

 

The salesperson was actually a westerner 😀

 

I said "in the Arab world". Many corrupt Westerners are attracted to business there because anything can be facilitated by bribery.