Hey gang,
It's with a heavy heart that I will be selling my xjr. Unfortunately my wife never liked the car and the needs of modern useablilty required the sale.

I will make a formal post soon but if anyone is interested in a rust free xjr with all the maintenance and upgrades complete, please pm me.

 

I dunno, this is like losing the dog and visitation rights in a custody battle....I'm fightin' it.

 

Sorry to hear, you put a ton of work into that car. Hopefully someone will appreciate everything you did. Where do you have it listed?

 

haven't listed it yet as the weather has not permitted the taking of proper pics and drafting a listing.

i'm thinking craigslist, facebook marketplace and potentially a cars.com/autotrader, etc.

 

Yea, weather has been bad all week here in PA. Looks like a nice weekend though so that's good. I've had good luck with cars.com & Craigslist in the past couple of years. I always list on Marketplace as well, but as you know you'll get a lot more nonsense on there.

 

Well...not selling it. After buying a modern super high performance sedan to replace it, i realize the newer car leaves me cold. The jag has more character by a mile, so even with a total lack of space, im going to keep it.

 

I feel the same about modern cars...I go back and forth between older & newer "toys" and always seem to go backwards after leaping forwards. There is no character in new vehicles, no matter how fast they get. Don't even get me started on electric performance vehicles, they're fun for about 5 minutes and that's the end of that.

 

Just curious, what's the new car you tried out?

 

I don't know but BAT has become THE place to sell cars like yours. Now be aware that you will need many pictures and you will get detailed technical questions from the bidders. If your caught out on anything like lying or NOT responding to questions your will get slammed! So it's an active procedure to keep the auction going. BAT prefers (Like all auction sites) for you to list it at no reserve. Not required but putting a reserve price on it may reduce the number of bidders.
BAT Selling Site

Facebook is the land of morons so expect that. Craig's list too is just the lowest common denominator with tons of scammers and low ball artists.
It's hard for me to use either place as they are just slime pits.

Be sure and search BAT for XJR's BEFORE placing your ad. This will give you some idea of what to expect price wise. You did not give full car details or I would have looked at what they have been selling for on BAT.
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Its a 2021 BMW M5 Competition.

Nice car, fast as hell, but doesn't have any character or feel in any way special. Just a fast five series.

 

Hi Jag enthusiasts,
I am also selling my two long-time Jaguars. 2000 XK8, 54000 miles, and 2005 X Type Estate Wagon, 110,000 miles
Each is a two owner car, and owned by me for over 10 years. I have owned Jaguar cars for 55 years (yes) and am headed for the barn myself.
The Jags are in Menifee CA and will be valued possessions by new owners. They have been serviced by the dealer and come with complete
service files. All major service bulletins have been completed. Carefully driven, one driver, no traumas, no damage. Your interest is appreciated and I will
respond to communications. The cars are listed locally, but feels like deserving of an enthusiast buyer with a real interest in Jaguars.
Martin Menifee, CA

 

i mean, perhaps get your own thread for that?

 

I know how you feel. I did replace my XJ8 now seven years ago with an XF. I like the XF's interior more and its got lots more power, but modern design started to drag on me within a few months of ownership. First time I went to pick up my sister at the airport, I struggled to get her rolling suitcase into the trunk of the XF. Its really huge and cavernous, but like most caverns, you have to be rather trim spelunker to squeeze through the entrance. And everything that you put in there slides forward to the bulkhead. I have claustrophobia pretty bad and just getting things out of the XF's trunk is an unpleasant ordeal as I have to practically crawl inside to reach items at the bulkhead. The trunk on the XJ8 is smaller, but opens completely and is very easily accessible by comparison. The XF could not be operated in reverse at all without a backup camera. I know because the trunk lid wiring harness wore out and I just wouldn't drive it at all till the part came in and I could replace it. Even parking head-in is easier on the XJ8. On the XF, from the driver's perspective, the front of the car ends at the windshield wipers. I came to depend heavily on the parking sensors to keep me from bumping into parking garage walls or cars in front of me. By contrast, with the XJ8, I can see the corners of both fenders and the leaper in the dead center. I know where the front of the XJ8 is. And the greenhouse on the XJ8 provides probably 350 degrees of visibility compared to the XF which is probably more like 275. And sure, the XF will handle much better, but better handling doesn't help avoid accidents unless there is an experienced F1 driver at the wheel. Us amateurs, lets face it, never practice accident avoidance and wouldn't know what to do with better handling. I used to do autocross two weekends a month for several years when I was much younger and thought I was a skilled driver until I spun out in my Supra trying to avoid a freeway accident just like all the other morons around me. All I had learned doing autocross was to walk the course, plan my path through the cones and try to execute the plan. All that high performance driving didn't help me one bit to avoid a freeway accident. The newer car may be more capable, but its of no use unless the driver is trained and practices using his stiff suspension and low-profile tires. We do though know that the XJ8 is several orders of magnitude more comfortable than any modern car, especially on these thinly asphalted cattle trails that Texas has the audacity to put up toll cameras and charge us to drive on. I did buy the XJ8 specifically for the ride quality initially after having back surgery. It was supposed to be just temporary, cheap luxury ride till I healed up, but Wow!, What a wonderful car I had bought for a mere $6,200. It became my daily driver for the next six years.

But the kicker is that up until the pandemic, almost every time I stopped to fill the XJ8 with gas, someone at an adjacent pump would say "Nice Car" or ask "What year is it?" or just give a thumbs up or a complimentary nod. At least once a week, another driver would give a thumbs up or a wave in passing. The XJ8 literally got three to four times as much notice as my Corvette. The XF's compliment count stands at four total in seven years and I think all of those just liked that it is Caviar, an unusual color, and not black, white, silver or grey. The XJ8 was getting noticed despite that it is painted in appliance white. Overall, people became less outgoing after the pandemic, but the XJ8 still gives even my Lotus and my Supra a run for their money on the compliment counts per mile.

I've had to get help at Jaguar dealers while traveling before and with most of them now shut down, including my two closest, and with the XF getting to the age where the Xj8 started getting unreliable, I decided it was time for another upgrade. I hadn't bought a brand new vehicle since my pickup truck in 2007, and my last two dailies having been sedans, this summer I switched it up again and bought a loaded 2024 Mustang. I figured there's a Ford dealer in just about every small town across America so I could get repairs quickly just about anywhere. I've enjoyed some of the new technology. Its nice to be able to remote start it and have it cooled off or warmed up by the time I walk from my office. The adaptive cruise and lane keeping are a nice feature on a long trip. Its compliment count is at one in five months, but I understand there's millions of Mustangs out there so I'm not expecting it to earn much.

But like you, I still can't bring myself to sell the old XJ8. I never named my cars, but my brother christened her "Annibelle" after the old Model A in the Midas Muffler commercials from the 70s. An elderly man kept coming back for a new "lifetime warranty" free muffler replacement. Someone would suggest he should get a newer car and the old man would reply "Oh, I could never sell Annibelle." Well, I couldn't. She's still here. The Mustang put me over the limit on inside storage space and as the least valuable car in the fleet, Annibelle had to go outside. She's got a car cover, but I still worried about her so I built her a carport.

It really makes no sense to keep her. She's not appreciating in value like my vintage sports cars and just costing me money. I'm paying for insurance and yes, she occasionally needs repairs, sometimes expensive repairs like last summer's transmission rebuild or the time a mouse got into the left fender and surgically clipped 17 wires right at the junction (why Jaguar engineers would use multiples of the same color/stripe wiring for different things in the same harness - that was maddening). I must be a lunatic for holding onto her, but every time I take her out to dinner (well I eat, she just drinks), I think to myself, this is last sedan design that they got right. All the regulations that came about for safety and fuel mileage have just ruined modern automobile design and for mere marginal returns, a tenth of a mile per gallon or a foot and a half of reduced braking. Maybe someday, a well-respected automotive journalist/influencer wiill recognize the XJ8 as the pinnacle of the sedan, write an article and she'll be worth something. She was ridiculed in her day for being too old-fashioned, but in hindsight, sedan sales did tank right after the X308. Maybe eventually it will be recognized that holding out so long before sacrificing perfection was the last smart thing Jaguar ever did. Hopefully Annibelle and I will both still be around to enjoy the accolades together, but its unlikely. Financial necessity, common sense or Vulcan logic are likely to take over eventually.

The XF is still here too, but every time I see what paltry little money they go for on BaT, even lower mileage ones than mine, I'm tempted to just part it out on Ebay. If a mint Fiji Blue Conquest comes available tho, it'll have to go.

 

quadhammer,

Very sorry for the post.
Both jags are listed in the Marketplace.
I am sympathetic to your feelings about selling your XJR. I feel the same way about my cars.
Meant only to convey similar challenges about losing my cars.
Apologies for any inconvenience my post may have caused,
Sincerely,
Martin