i purchased a 99' XJ8 VP last weel, 93k miles

The car is a one owner car and was garage kept in Central New Jersey.
Ray Catena did all the services, the car was purchased new in 99 at a dealer In Pennsylvania

Question: as a new Jaguar owner and this car being 17 years old, what should i look for as problem areas?

Car runs,drives,starts excellent.

Body and interior are practically new.

Radio, ehhhhh Seems you cant get highs out of the speakers

any responses are greatly appreciated

Chris D
Hoboken NJ

 

Sounds like perhaps the factory tweeters are either not functioning, or blown altogether. Typical things to look for on the early levels, are if the tensioners have been replaced, and when. Also check the cooling system, and battery condition. After that, it's standard maintenance, with suspension and transmission A-Drum services hopefully performed. The trans might not have had an issue prior, but it seems to be a common issue with that transmission from reading on here.

 

If you're very mechanically inclined I'd look into pressure valve kits for the 5hp24, replacing those seems to be a good preventative maintenance for saving the A drum seal from exploding. Maybe someone w/ more experience can chime in with regards to that.

The tweeters on the HK system have a poor design where the outer/mounting ring disbonds from the tweeter shell, tearing the voice coil leads and killing the tweeter. solution: get tweeters out of a jag with the alpine system (~00 and later) and they will be a direct fit. Not only is the mount better designed, they are nicer cloth domes instead of the crap plastic cones on the HK system.

Subwoofers like to fail in odd ways, on HK systems the terminals break off the basket, and on alpines the surround rots and falls apart. Should be easy to inspect, just pull out the back cover inside the trunk and you will see the sub on the underside of the parcel deck. I have no idea with regards to a decent replacement 6x9 DVC sub that isn't in the $200 range, I've been looking into a replacement recently and may just adapt a 6.5 driver to fit in there.

All the little interior lights. Basically everything except for steering wheel buttons and vent displays are backlit. Up to you in terms of priority, but I love the sight of the jag interior fully lit in that beautiful warm blue at night. It's really one of the first things that got me hooked on the x308.

Tensioners, don't forget the primaries. One of my primary blades snapped and jammed up against the primary piston and snapped off a mounting bolt flush inside the block. Fortunately the threads were sloppy and I was able to work it out easily, but my heart dropped when I pulled the front cover and first saw that bolt.

rust! Under the wiper cowl, wheel arch corners, front shock mounts, corners of the rear windshield are all places I've heard of.