Considering on getting a 2004 xj. Currently have a 1996 xj6 and was wondering what everyone's opinion was. Been looking to upgrade and the 04 is 4500 in decent condition with navigation and 106000 miles. Anything I should look out for? Is it worth it?

 

No way of knowing what you're in for, unless someone kept a maintenance log and receipts for work already performed. Miles are decent and the price is certainly attractive. Would you still want this car for $7500? You can have $2500 worth of repairs in a hurry.

Major bugaboos:

Leaking airbags on the shocks (walk around the car and put a ruler to the wheel arch clearance to see if it's level)

Leaking transmission lines (important to know, because you don't want a car that's been run low on fluid. No dipstick to check the level)

Worn out air compressor

Plugged heater core (no heat on drivers side)

Suspension bushings seem to wear out a bit soon

==================================

Beautiful cars, and they drive like a dream.

 

Saturns reply is all correct; a good summary.

Your '96 is an X300, (I assume), the first full "Ford" car after they bought the Jaguar company. It put the curves, and, more important, reliability back into Jaguar but was made for only a few years, (95-97) Somebody in Ford must have taken against the straight six engine ! The next saloon looked almost the same, but had major changes, with a V8 engine that was a total disaster up to about year 2000 with Nikasil coated bores, and timing chain tensioners that fell to bits. Front and rear suspension was changed too.

It was all fixed eventually, so 2001-2002 cars are pretty good, but then the aluminium saloon came out in 2003 in the UK. Apart from being constructed from aluminium, these differ from all previous XJs in having air suspension that can suffer from one or two problems, the main one being the air compressor, a notoriously short-life component. However one of our posters sells a piston seal kit for DIYers, and the aftermarket sell new compressors for not much money. It is a Wabco unit, BTW, and used by Audi, and others, not just Jaguar.

If an air spring/shock fails the price of a new one from Jaguar is really eye-watering. Problem is the thing is constructed as one part, so spring or shock cannot be replaced separately. Bilstein now sell theirs, (the OEM part) in the after market for a lot less than Jaguar, but it's still painful. Then in the USA you can buy the Arnott re-builds, or their new air units, or even steel coil springs.

Apart from this, the cars generally are known to be reliable and many have run the Marathon, even gone to Mars and back (only kidding on that one !!). A form of corrosion peculiar to aluminium can affect the cars, especially those run in winter on salt-laden roads. This is called "filiform", or crevice corrosion, and occurs where aluminium is exposed to water/salt, in the absence of oxygen. Little corrosion cell forms and creeps under the paint film drawing more water across the paint film by osmosis pressure. It is unsightly. but not a car killer like rust. Just do a forum search on "filiform" and you should bring up my previous posts on this. My car had it in 2010, but I got it cured, and it has not come back. Jaguar did repaints under warranty, but some owners just didn't bother about it and the poor second and third owners have to fix it !

 

There is a plethora of threads asking this question, I would do a search and research all the "common" issues before jumping in. However much I love my Jag, any issues to resolve are going to fall in $$$ or $$$$'s and knowing about them what I know now, may have changed my thoughts about buying one in the first place.

 

Trosty, your BRG XJ is a BEAUT.

Thanks for filling in the details Fraser, plus I hadn't heard of that type of corrosion before. Every now and then I tap on the fender when I walk by, just for grins.

 

Thanks guys. I lost out on the one I was describing but found another one with 169000 miles for 4995 but no navigation. What do ya think? Worth the buy? Always garage kept and looks great from the pics.

 

With miles like that you really must view and test-drive the car, as so much can be neglected that you don't see and needs immediate attention. When you view, you can at least check there are no fault messages on the annunciator display, and no yellow or red fault lights.

A service record is also essential

 

It is inspiring to see that these cars are still running strong and on the market with well over 100,000 miles on them. Yes, they are expensive to fix but having paid cash for my 2004 XJR with 69000 miles on it I figure that I'm about 1000.00 a month car payment ahead every month I keep it.

 

I had very little awareness of the new XJs when we found ours, and at first I made the assumption they all had the NAV system. After having lived with it awhile, I wouldn't choose another Jag without it. The DVD based navigation is pretty accurate.

Aside from that, it really makes the sound system a joy to use. One thing they skipped out on is using that nice big screen for a back-up camera. Maybe those are best left to Japanese shopping mall SUVs anyway..

 

I like the X350 primarily because of the aluminum body, hence the better gas mileage than the X308. I would be extremely leery of a $5k 2004 XJ8 ---- way too low, must be something wrong with it, in my opinion. Unless you can get your hands on it and get the maintenance history, I'd pass on it and look to spend double that on a good one.

 

? The DVD stores the maps, but they're pretty useless without a GPS/SatNav signal so the car knows where it is.

 

I did NOT know that. My apologies for misinformation, I thought it was a calibrated system that just ran off the DVD alone. Still learning about these cars, and thanks for the correction.

 

Yeah, the map information is in the DVD, which is put on the screen with the car's GPS position from the satellites, (3 to get a good position, 4 is best, and gives height, but not used by the sat-nav on the Jaguar). The system also stores last known position and then updates when the GPS signals are received; it will track without them using speedo and compass, but gradually loses position. It is interesting when we cross the English Channel going on holiday, it shows Dover for a short time when we get to Dunkerque, and then suddenly updates to show car at the port of Dunkerque ready for us to drive off to Germany, System works wonderfully well when we are on holiday in the Rheintal.

 

You gotta do a test drive, or, at least get a PPI. The test drive will show if you have any air suspension problems or bushings failing. At 100k+ miles, Id suspect those to be issues, if they haven't already been taken care of. But then, the service records will let you know if they have.

Getting one without the Nav is actually better, IMHO. Had I known at the time how expensive it would be to fit in Aux-in, Bluetooth, Voice etc, and how limited my aftermarket options would be, I would have looked for one without Nav.

But the mechanicals would be what I would worry about, so get it checked out by a pro and get a test drive..

 

Thanks for the help guys! Haven't thought it yet, trying to offload my 96 xj6 first!