I've bought a couple more X300's.....
#1
12-13-2015, 11:30 PM
I've bought a couple more X300's.....
School started in August, and our 16 yr old began commuting in the Excursion, my "Spare" car - the one that allows me to tackle repairs and maintenance beyond my capability without worrying if I can complete by Sunday evening so everyone can get to work/school, etc. on Monday morning. However, once/mo, I needed to take it to the metroplex and top it up with diesel to take full advantage of my Kroger fuel points. (You get $1/gal discount up to a maximum of 35 gallons on a single transaction. 1000 points is easy enough to accrue in a month, as they offer 2x points for gift cards...and I do have 5 kids to feed, as well. I use those on the Ex because it will easily take 35 gal when it is down to 1/4 tank.) Therefore, I had to lend my X300 to the lad for his school commute. He had been back-n-forth lately between wanting a pickup like his brothers have, or a car - we try to get them something used in a reasonable price range that will last them through college.
When I got home with the August tank of diesel, he was all, "DAD, I want a car like yours!!!" I told him that would mean we could get his car sooner than later, as those were selling well below any pickups that would fit the bill. Secretly quite pleased, I figured the sentiment would pass, soon enough. However, when I arrived after buying the September diesel, he was even more enthused and was searching out X300's in ads, and learning to distinguish the X300 from the X308. So I figured he'd been bitten and joined him in the search. We found what appeared to be a sweet VDP out in Phoenix, but it had only been an AZ car for about a year, previously registered in the Seattle area. I studied all the online pics, and called the dealer, Jaber's Auto and Truck Sales, and inquired about it. I had a friend and former colleague in Phoenix and asked him if he'd take a look at it. He's not a Jag aficionado, nor even a "car guy" as far as I know, but an engineer and Navy Vet so I figured he'd spot anything major. I told him my primary concern was corrosion, particularly on the undercarriage where there were no pics. He had a hectic week but finally managed to get over there and have a look during lunch on Friday, 9 October. He got caught in traffic and didn't have time to drive it, but pronounced it very clean & sweet appearance-wise, with no corrosion evident anywhere.
Meanwhile, a day earlier, a member of the forums posted this one:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/p...ouston-151199/
As we also had a couple of targets in Southern CA, I was pretty sure I would soon be maintaining 2 X300's, so it would be foolish to pass up a running one for $200. Besides, I had already begun searching for a cam-cover to clean up and paint for mine - I think mine is sound, it is just starting to bubble the paint and I don't want to be down a week or two while it is off for cleaning/blasting/painting, et al. On Friday, I got a response via PM, confirming I was first in line for the Houston X300. Later in the day, I got a phone call from my Phoenix friend with the good report. A little foggy now, but my recollection is that it was listed as "special internet price" of $4995. Naturally, there are a lot of fees and costs added on to that. By the time I got the sales-lad to throttle-back a bit, he was already north of $5,700 and still going in computing the "out-the-door" price. "Dude" says I, "I don't care what the fees are called nor what they total, I'd like to walk onto your lot, and drive it away for $5,000; I'll register it in TX. Take a few minutes to do the maths if you like, I'll wait."
"I can do that if you give me $500 down, now." As he didn't spend more than 3 seconds on the maths, I reckon I could've had it cheaper. Well, it seemed to be exactly what we were looking for and the lad was overly chuffed about the color. During previous phone conversations, he'd said "everything works" that he had only one key and FOB, and that it had a full set of floor mats. I could tell from the pics that the clock didn't work, and that it had two keys and two FOBs, so I figured that was a wash as far as truthful representation.
So Friday, 9 October, I figure I entered into binding agreements to triple my X300 holdings. I found a $100 one-way flight DFW to Phoenix on Wed, 14 October and took Vacation for Thur/Fri. Here is what I found after Uber dropped me off at Jaber's lot:
Having plopped down in the middle of Phoenix to drop $5k on an unseen 20 yr old Jag with 103k on the clock...that "needed" to get me back to Decatur, I was a bit anxious. I'd brought along my OBDII Adapter and a cassette tape to 3.5 mm pin adapter and my phone. I got the keys and started my pre-buy inspection. (He'd assured me over the phone it would get to TX - I asked) In fact, they extended a 500 mi. warranty on all sales....30 days I think, but don't remember the time term exactly. They were careful to inform me the warranty was only good in AZ when I joked they'd be out of warranty exposure by lunch tomorrow! It checked out nicely - I borrowed a few tools to fit the battery hold-down bracket properly. The headliner was sagging - no surprise that a 96 X300 would have a saggy liner, but it was artfully absent from any of the pics. The car was already warmed up - well, it was in the mid-90's that day - but they'd just had it out for its state inspection - for what reason I have no idea - maybe a law it has to be current when they sell it? But it passed with no discrepancies.
I took it to the Hilton Garden Inn on the northern edge of the city then headed to a nearby Walmart for a few jugs of distilled, a roll of "Rescue Tape," "just in case" some bottled water and snacks for my 15 hour drive, then hosted my friend and his wife and daughter for dinner as a thank-you for taking the trouble to look it over for me.
I topped-up after dinner in preparation for my 4 am (local - I had a 2 hr advantage due to the time zones and AZ's refusal to participate in DST) launch.
The car ran great, everything truly did work, including the floppy sub-woofer that I wished didn't about an hour or two in. I averaged 22-24 mpg running 70-80, maybe some bits at 85. some 15 hours and 1,018 miles later, I arrived home.
I got up early Friday morning and vented the battery, as I'd noticed it wasn't connected when I was fitting the fixing bracket. I also noticed then that the positive cable clamp was assembled backwards, making a looser connection the more you tightened it. Also found the battery ground rather loose. Lucky I didn't have a no-crank issue at one of my fuel stops! Anyway, by the time he was up it was ready for him to take to school on Friday.
We subsequently mended the sub-woofer with RTV, fit Andy's bracket and a K&N filter and performed an oil and filter change. I heard some little whisper-belt noises on cold start-up. Not squeals nor chirps, just noise in the belt drive that is not there once it comes to operating temp. So I marked the damper. After a couple of weeks' operation, still looks like this:
I have new drive belts that I'll install one of these days.
The $200 Jag was a lot harder to come by! I was prepared to hook the Exc up to the trailer and drag down to Houston to fetch it, but preferred to do it on a weekend and save my vacation days for some higher, more relaxing purpose than driving to Houston and back! Hailcesarz was relocating and with holidays on-rushing had plenty of places to go and things to do on weekends. He began to talk in terms of "driving it up to the metroplex from Houston" and I, of course encouraged these sentiments. So finally, we managed to meet in Denton on 6 December and complete the deal! My son and I drove over in the car pictured above. Since he would be driving, following me home, he preferred to take his car rather than mine.
Hailcesarz left it idling in the parking lot whilst we conducted business. His family accompanied him in another car and headed into the mall for some shopping while we finished up. After he left to join them I found an OBDII scanner in the pax seat. We clipped it under the windscreen wiper of the car we'd seen his wife drive up in and confirmed later via text he'd found it. I was greeted by coolant-low-level and AIRBAG warning lights in addition to windscreen washer low, bulb-out, and Anti-lock caution lights when I slid behind the wheel. I'd brought my BT OBDII Adapter, phone, and mount so I checked temp to confirm the guage reading in the middle was accurate. Same issue I reported in another thread with this adapter - all three X300's it freezes-up, stops reporting after 15-20 seconds. So all the way home, it was "Quit Torque, restart, swipe to temp display" I also got oil-pressure dropping to 0 and associated warning light twice during traffic light stops on the roughly 35 mile trip. Stopped more times than that due to traffic lights, but only lost oil-press twice. No pinging or banging from the bow end, well, no EXTRA, anyway..it's a bit louder and rougher than our other two..so as a veteran X300'er, I didn't worry - probably the transducer acting up. It had four codes stored, but no CEL lit.
Couldn't get the boot open, no joy with button on bootlid nor dash. Key would insert and turn about 1/8 of turn, but didn't sound like anything was actuating, and bootlid still solid shut. I got it in the shop this weekend and tried to fish it open with a rod bent into a hook on the end through those two little slots behind the number plate. Friday night I was about to give up and come to the house, but thought I'd shotgun the PB blaster to it through those holes. I had already lubed the keyhole liberally. I fired up in there until the straw blew off the end and I lost it into the bootlid. Then, I got the bright idea that maybe it's just a fuse and I could get the electrics working! Took a few pics of the fuse box map on the underside of the tool box cover under the bonnet and sat down to blow them up on the phone and look for it. Finally found it! a 15A, zoom out to see location of the bootlid rel fuse....yep..it's there in the boot fuse box....shoulda seen that one coming. WTH, may's well go to the house - but gave the key one last go, and voila` bootlid popped open!
The immediate plan is to use this one for a maintenance task trainer - something needs doing to one of the black ones? We'll try it first on this one to see what we're facing. First up will be the headliner. Both 96's have the same color material, so when (if?) I find it in 1/8" foam, I'll buy enough to do both and we'll do this one first. I also plan to lift the cam cover off this one before too long and refurbish it for the 95, then refurbish the 95's and fit back on here. This car does not have seat heaters, so once the worst of winter has passed, we'll borrow the clock module and fit it to the other 96 while we send that one out to module-master for refurbishment. THis one makes a loud squeal on cold-start so I've marked it's damper as well. We'll see after a bit of run-time if those marks separate. Long-term plan is to return it to service, but in the short term, we will use it for maint. training and possibly for emergency parts cannibalization - if it's cheap, will buy two and replace both. If expensive and we rob the Spruce car to fix a daily driver, probably order one and put it on the DD, returning the Spruce's original part back to it.
When I got home with the August tank of diesel, he was all, "DAD, I want a car like yours!!!" I told him that would mean we could get his car sooner than later, as those were selling well below any pickups that would fit the bill. Secretly quite pleased, I figured the sentiment would pass, soon enough. However, when I arrived after buying the September diesel, he was even more enthused and was searching out X300's in ads, and learning to distinguish the X300 from the X308. So I figured he'd been bitten and joined him in the search. We found what appeared to be a sweet VDP out in Phoenix, but it had only been an AZ car for about a year, previously registered in the Seattle area. I studied all the online pics, and called the dealer, Jaber's Auto and Truck Sales, and inquired about it. I had a friend and former colleague in Phoenix and asked him if he'd take a look at it. He's not a Jag aficionado, nor even a "car guy" as far as I know, but an engineer and Navy Vet so I figured he'd spot anything major. I told him my primary concern was corrosion, particularly on the undercarriage where there were no pics. He had a hectic week but finally managed to get over there and have a look during lunch on Friday, 9 October. He got caught in traffic and didn't have time to drive it, but pronounced it very clean & sweet appearance-wise, with no corrosion evident anywhere.
Meanwhile, a day earlier, a member of the forums posted this one:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/p...ouston-151199/
As we also had a couple of targets in Southern CA, I was pretty sure I would soon be maintaining 2 X300's, so it would be foolish to pass up a running one for $200. Besides, I had already begun searching for a cam-cover to clean up and paint for mine - I think mine is sound, it is just starting to bubble the paint and I don't want to be down a week or two while it is off for cleaning/blasting/painting, et al. On Friday, I got a response via PM, confirming I was first in line for the Houston X300. Later in the day, I got a phone call from my Phoenix friend with the good report. A little foggy now, but my recollection is that it was listed as "special internet price" of $4995. Naturally, there are a lot of fees and costs added on to that. By the time I got the sales-lad to throttle-back a bit, he was already north of $5,700 and still going in computing the "out-the-door" price. "Dude" says I, "I don't care what the fees are called nor what they total, I'd like to walk onto your lot, and drive it away for $5,000; I'll register it in TX. Take a few minutes to do the maths if you like, I'll wait."
"I can do that if you give me $500 down, now." As he didn't spend more than 3 seconds on the maths, I reckon I could've had it cheaper. Well, it seemed to be exactly what we were looking for and the lad was overly chuffed about the color. During previous phone conversations, he'd said "everything works" that he had only one key and FOB, and that it had a full set of floor mats. I could tell from the pics that the clock didn't work, and that it had two keys and two FOBs, so I figured that was a wash as far as truthful representation.
So Friday, 9 October, I figure I entered into binding agreements to triple my X300 holdings. I found a $100 one-way flight DFW to Phoenix on Wed, 14 October and took Vacation for Thur/Fri. Here is what I found after Uber dropped me off at Jaber's lot:
Having plopped down in the middle of Phoenix to drop $5k on an unseen 20 yr old Jag with 103k on the clock...that "needed" to get me back to Decatur, I was a bit anxious. I'd brought along my OBDII Adapter and a cassette tape to 3.5 mm pin adapter and my phone. I got the keys and started my pre-buy inspection. (He'd assured me over the phone it would get to TX - I asked) In fact, they extended a 500 mi. warranty on all sales....30 days I think, but don't remember the time term exactly. They were careful to inform me the warranty was only good in AZ when I joked they'd be out of warranty exposure by lunch tomorrow! It checked out nicely - I borrowed a few tools to fit the battery hold-down bracket properly. The headliner was sagging - no surprise that a 96 X300 would have a saggy liner, but it was artfully absent from any of the pics. The car was already warmed up - well, it was in the mid-90's that day - but they'd just had it out for its state inspection - for what reason I have no idea - maybe a law it has to be current when they sell it? But it passed with no discrepancies.
I took it to the Hilton Garden Inn on the northern edge of the city then headed to a nearby Walmart for a few jugs of distilled, a roll of "Rescue Tape," "just in case" some bottled water and snacks for my 15 hour drive, then hosted my friend and his wife and daughter for dinner as a thank-you for taking the trouble to look it over for me.
I topped-up after dinner in preparation for my 4 am (local - I had a 2 hr advantage due to the time zones and AZ's refusal to participate in DST) launch.
The car ran great, everything truly did work, including the floppy sub-woofer that I wished didn't about an hour or two in. I averaged 22-24 mpg running 70-80, maybe some bits at 85. some 15 hours and 1,018 miles later, I arrived home.
I got up early Friday morning and vented the battery, as I'd noticed it wasn't connected when I was fitting the fixing bracket. I also noticed then that the positive cable clamp was assembled backwards, making a looser connection the more you tightened it. Also found the battery ground rather loose. Lucky I didn't have a no-crank issue at one of my fuel stops! Anyway, by the time he was up it was ready for him to take to school on Friday.
We subsequently mended the sub-woofer with RTV, fit Andy's bracket and a K&N filter and performed an oil and filter change. I heard some little whisper-belt noises on cold start-up. Not squeals nor chirps, just noise in the belt drive that is not there once it comes to operating temp. So I marked the damper. After a couple of weeks' operation, still looks like this:
I have new drive belts that I'll install one of these days.
The $200 Jag was a lot harder to come by! I was prepared to hook the Exc up to the trailer and drag down to Houston to fetch it, but preferred to do it on a weekend and save my vacation days for some higher, more relaxing purpose than driving to Houston and back! Hailcesarz was relocating and with holidays on-rushing had plenty of places to go and things to do on weekends. He began to talk in terms of "driving it up to the metroplex from Houston" and I, of course encouraged these sentiments. So finally, we managed to meet in Denton on 6 December and complete the deal! My son and I drove over in the car pictured above. Since he would be driving, following me home, he preferred to take his car rather than mine.
Hailcesarz left it idling in the parking lot whilst we conducted business. His family accompanied him in another car and headed into the mall for some shopping while we finished up. After he left to join them I found an OBDII scanner in the pax seat. We clipped it under the windscreen wiper of the car we'd seen his wife drive up in and confirmed later via text he'd found it. I was greeted by coolant-low-level and AIRBAG warning lights in addition to windscreen washer low, bulb-out, and Anti-lock caution lights when I slid behind the wheel. I'd brought my BT OBDII Adapter, phone, and mount so I checked temp to confirm the guage reading in the middle was accurate. Same issue I reported in another thread with this adapter - all three X300's it freezes-up, stops reporting after 15-20 seconds. So all the way home, it was "Quit Torque, restart, swipe to temp display" I also got oil-pressure dropping to 0 and associated warning light twice during traffic light stops on the roughly 35 mile trip. Stopped more times than that due to traffic lights, but only lost oil-press twice. No pinging or banging from the bow end, well, no EXTRA, anyway..it's a bit louder and rougher than our other two..so as a veteran X300'er, I didn't worry - probably the transducer acting up. It had four codes stored, but no CEL lit.
Couldn't get the boot open, no joy with button on bootlid nor dash. Key would insert and turn about 1/8 of turn, but didn't sound like anything was actuating, and bootlid still solid shut. I got it in the shop this weekend and tried to fish it open with a rod bent into a hook on the end through those two little slots behind the number plate. Friday night I was about to give up and come to the house, but thought I'd shotgun the PB blaster to it through those holes. I had already lubed the keyhole liberally. I fired up in there until the straw blew off the end and I lost it into the bootlid. Then, I got the bright idea that maybe it's just a fuse and I could get the electrics working! Took a few pics of the fuse box map on the underside of the tool box cover under the bonnet and sat down to blow them up on the phone and look for it. Finally found it! a 15A, zoom out to see location of the bootlid rel fuse....yep..it's there in the boot fuse box....shoulda seen that one coming. WTH, may's well go to the house - but gave the key one last go, and voila` bootlid popped open!
The immediate plan is to use this one for a maintenance task trainer - something needs doing to one of the black ones? We'll try it first on this one to see what we're facing. First up will be the headliner. Both 96's have the same color material, so when (if?) I find it in 1/8" foam, I'll buy enough to do both and we'll do this one first. I also plan to lift the cam cover off this one before too long and refurbish it for the 95, then refurbish the 95's and fit back on here. This car does not have seat heaters, so once the worst of winter has passed, we'll borrow the clock module and fit it to the other 96 while we send that one out to module-master for refurbishment. THis one makes a loud squeal on cold-start so I've marked it's damper as well. We'll see after a bit of run-time if those marks separate. Long-term plan is to return it to service, but in the short term, we will use it for maint. training and possibly for emergency parts cannibalization - if it's cheap, will buy two and replace both. If expensive and we rob the Spruce car to fix a daily driver, probably order one and put it on the DD, returning the Spruce's original part back to it.
The following 2 users liked this post by aholbro1:
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#4
12-14-2015, 07:13 AM
I love the lines of the XJS, but something's wrong with all the sellers...they don't seem to realize used Jags are historically unreliable and should suffer greatly reduced prices in the used market! I've not yet fallen deeply enough into the addiction to fancy the V-12.
Haha...I have the shed...it just comes down to what I may have to throw out to make room for a Jag or two! For now, I have a few walking paths in there allowing me to get to most tools without undue contortions...and can get any two cars in if I place the tractors to the porch....
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overtheatlantic (12-14-2015)
#5
12-14-2015, 07:41 PM
The following 2 users liked this post by motorcarman:
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overtheatlantic (12-14-2015)
#6
12-15-2015, 06:34 AM
#7
12-16-2015, 02:00 PM
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aholbro1 (12-17-2015)
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#9
12-17-2015, 12:13 PM
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Damon /Houston, Texas
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If youre looking for another Im selling my beautiful 95 VDP with 41,000 miles for $7800
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aholbro1 (12-17-2015)
#10
12-17-2015, 03:23 PM
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aholbro1 (12-17-2015)
#11
12-17-2015, 05:04 PM
Member
#12
12-17-2015, 07:57 PM
Spit1? or Spit2? (I've got one of those kerosene heaters that is poking its head into the bottom of the pic - good piece of gear!)
Dang Brutal, I thought your X300 got T-boned a year or two ago and you were parting it out? Wish I'd known, may've saved me a trip to Arizona. Is it late enough in 95 to be LWB? (I thought none were...but then I saw some info indicating the LWB was introduced late in MY95...)
Dang Brutal, I thought your X300 got T-boned a year or two ago and you were parting it out? Wish I'd known, may've saved me a trip to Arizona. Is it late enough in 95 to be LWB? (I thought none were...but then I saw some info indicating the LWB was introduced late in MY95...)
Last edited by aholbro1; 12-17-2015 at 08:03 PM.
#13
12-18-2015, 08:39 AM
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Damon /Houston, Texas
Posts: 7,254
Received 2,183 Likes
on
1,355 Posts
Spit1? or Spit2? (I've got one of those kerosene heaters that is poking its head into the bottom of the pic - good piece of gear!)
Dang Brutal, I thought your X300 got T-boned a year or two ago and you were parting it out? Wish I'd known, may've saved me a trip to Arizona. Is it late enough in 95 to be LWB? (I thought none were...but then I saw some info indicating the LWB was introduced late in MY95...)
Dang Brutal, I thought your X300 got T-boned a year or two ago and you were parting it out? Wish I'd known, may've saved me a trip to Arizona. Is it late enough in 95 to be LWB? (I thought none were...but then I saw some info indicating the LWB was introduced late in MY95...)
#15
01-02-2016, 12:36 AM
Update
Hey HC, Spit2 is looking good!
I changed one bulb in the tail-light and a side-marker in the rear and took it for inspection 30 Dec. Passed with flying colors! Proceeded up the street and registered it.
I keep discovering surprises.....like it has 17" tires/wheels vs. 16's on the other two VDP's. Now I need to dig through all the panels and parts I stashed in the boot to see if the spare is a 16 or 17...I didn't think to look when I had it out...just assumed everything was 16". One of the first things I checked on both cars when I got each up on the ramps was the lower condenser bushes: The black one has some looking similar to the OE ones (at least from the bottom) except they are made out of aluminum or some other metal. (Thought I snapped a pic, but can't find it) The Spruce one has broken tie-straps in lieu of lower condenser bushes. It also makes a pronounced hi-pitched belt squeal on cold-start that disappears after it comes to operating temp...but here is how the damper looks after a couple of days' running:
I'll post a build-thread on "Spruce Bruce" as my 14 yr old daughter has christened it in a few days or weeks when I get some rough plans worked out for it.
I changed one bulb in the tail-light and a side-marker in the rear and took it for inspection 30 Dec. Passed with flying colors! Proceeded up the street and registered it.
I keep discovering surprises.....like it has 17" tires/wheels vs. 16's on the other two VDP's. Now I need to dig through all the panels and parts I stashed in the boot to see if the spare is a 16 or 17...I didn't think to look when I had it out...just assumed everything was 16". One of the first things I checked on both cars when I got each up on the ramps was the lower condenser bushes: The black one has some looking similar to the OE ones (at least from the bottom) except they are made out of aluminum or some other metal. (Thought I snapped a pic, but can't find it) The Spruce one has broken tie-straps in lieu of lower condenser bushes. It also makes a pronounced hi-pitched belt squeal on cold-start that disappears after it comes to operating temp...but here is how the damper looks after a couple of days' running:
I'll post a build-thread on "Spruce Bruce" as my 14 yr old daughter has christened it in a few days or weeks when I get some rough plans worked out for it.
Last edited by aholbro1; 01-02-2016 at 08:52 AM.