I am now the owner of an XJ8 Sovereign LWB

It was an impulse buy from Ebay and bought unseen (I keep telling myself not too)

It was listed as having a gearbox fault and no MOT so a bit of a gamble.

Picked it up at the weekend and just drove it home, box was in default as slipping when pulling away.

It had a rusted petrol pipe next to the fuel filter so had to bodge that to get it home first.

Here are some pics I took today








The last picture is of the front right wing which looks like you could poke your finger through it.

I have removed, fixed and fitted the gearbox which was the clutch drum broken at the circlip. I work in a transmission shop so that was the easy part.

Just need to see about getting it ready for testing and on the road. I know it will need brake pipes as they look quite corroded.

The exhaust has been welded up for now as it fell apart on removal, will get new one when car is up and running properly. The engine sump seems quite rusty and started leaking just as I got home, lucky really as hardly any oil was lost and could have been a disaster.

The original sales invoice was in the car. Seems crazy you can buy a £50,675 car for £600.

Anyway that's enough for now

 

The car has beautiful curb appeal, and you are way ahead on your bargain (gamble) purchase by having transmission repair expertise. For most of us that would be $4,000 replacement just to start. Looks as if your biggest problem may be serious corrosion all over the undercarriage. But you are in the best possible position to benefit from buying such a project car because of your mechanical expertise and access to shop tools. Most of us probably should not attempt it because of retail repair costs.

Don't fail to call on the expertise of our Forum members as you learn about your Jag. And please do take progress pictures to enlighten and instruct others as you make your repairs. Good luck to you.

 

Wow, £600 is an amazing price!

 

That's a good deal considering this car is awesome

 

Congrats. It does look like you got a good deal. It's interesting that it is a LWB Sovereign, but it doesn't have the fluted grille and plinth like my VDP. I wonder how the interior looks ? Sounds like you got the tranny issue sussed, but you know about the other little things like the secondary cam tensioners and the water pump and plastic thermostat housing, right ? I guess it also depends on the year it was made. Cheers !

 

All handy information found on this forum, thermostat housing is already on its way now as I didnt know about it before. Cam tensioners I am ignoring for now but service history shows them done already.

 

I did the self same thing. Impulse buy from ebay. Asking £1695 I got it for £1450. No rust anywhere that I can find. Heater not working but looks like replacement pump and thermostat and housing change should sort that.
Really pleased with it. Hope the pics upload ok.
One other thing, how do you update your profile to include pics and car details ?

 

Your car looks lovely, you got a real bargain there

 

Wow the X308 seems to lose its value even faster in the UK than the USA, at least from what I gather from this thread.

 

Yes burmaz, they do. But you must take into account the high price of fuel here. You can pay as much as £1.50 a LITRE. To translate, a uk gallon costs £6.82. That is equivalent to $10.88 per UK gallon. A US gallon, which is smaller would be £5.67 or $9.04 at our prices. Not good for as little as 16 miles to the gallon !!

 

It is a great price! I love the blue colour... nice. If it's the 4.0, then you got a huge steal (I believe the sov LWB will be, as that spec)

I've always thought It sucks that XJs can become "pariahs" like they have... losing value because of economy. Top Gear regularly destroy XJ40s, even nice looking ones. I guess it's because they are the fastest cars for the money.

emosavvy... nice car! Can't wait for pics.

Also, Richy_Jsy, +1 on nice pics!

Love the sapphire blue.

What's interesting is that you got factory-spec Pirelli
tyres on a used car... that is unheard of here, your used
car usually has Goodyear or some crap. Mine had 245-40-ZR18
FK452s fitted, instead of the factory 255 P-Zero.

Cheers,

Ian

 

@Richy, is the word Jaguar back to front on the carpet? or is the carpet face down? it weird'ed me out! 3rd pic

@Ian, the lwb is only 4.0na and 4.0sc - in the super 8's, don't think they made 3.2's?

A lot of these cars have more value in parts now, unless you can cure the issues yourself just like emosavvy has - salt, age, high repair costs and count in depreciation. An old dealer quote when Brent Crude goes up, the leather and a big engine go down, means an amazing value car for cheap...

.... Still a premium for good ones, but they're getting scarce. It's the time of the enthusiast to run one of these cars, as richy mentioned...
LPG seems a practical way of a daily driver, it's 50% of petrol in the UK and Eurozone. I'm planning a trip in my R and the projected fuel bill isn't funny. Dinosaurs? but beautiful ones, particularly the goodun's.

 

I alos bought my on Ebay about 2 years ago.. It's been a fantastic car for me. I had to do nothing to the car, all major maintenance has been done. did replace headliner and windshield- had "bubbles" in it bad. It was a California car. While I paid a lot more than you, couldn't be happier with the Black cat.

Good luck to you with it!

 

Hi again. Sean, although current the pics weren't actually taken by me and it wasn't noticed at the time that that carpet rug, which is from another vehicle, was upside down. The colour isn't right to be for this car, but they don't look bad, and they do protect the fitted carpet beneath. Very observant of you. They are right now.
I intend to take some new pics when weather gets warmer, as Jersey has some excellent views to provide good backgrounds. And thank you for the tip re header tank in other thread. Most helpful.

 

Nice find for that price!

Looks like the rust in the front fender is caused by the muflap rubbing the paint off... I just installed mudflaps on mine, and I'm now wondering what I should do to protect the paint...