Hi all, I'm about to finally make the plunge and start seriously shopping for an XJS! Glad I found this forum, seems like a lot of great info.

I actually am going to go look at an 87 XJS tomorrow afternoon. This one: clean 1987 jaguar xjs 3 owners 20mpg. From that site (so you don't have to go look if you don't want):

I emailed the guy, and asked when the last time fuel lines, rotor, and distributor and cap were serviced. Good news is that all of that except distributor were done "a few months ago" and he wasn't sure if the previous owner did the full distributor replacement, but would check the records as he apparently kept good track of that. (Which is a good sign.)

Anyway, thought I'd throw it up here to say hey, introduce myself, and see if anyone had immediate reservations about the above. Of course, I'm going to go check the car out in person tomorrow, so at the moment don't know how it sounds, starts, etc., and only have the seller's word for it, but I'm thinking that even with the headliner replacement and (eventual) seat replacements, if the mechanical is in good order, seems like a reasonable deal.

 

Welcome to the forum Valander,

It sounds tempting. I hope it looks as good close up and runs well when you get to see it. With any Jaguar, spend time making sure everything works - there's a lot of electrics that can and do go wrong and repair costs can bring some unpleasant surprises.

If the seller's description didn't mention the dented rear bumper, you can squeeze him on the price.

Good luck.

Graham

 

Well, just got back from viewing the car, and decided to pass on it.

The seats, both front and back, needed at minimum reupholstery work, and the front seats' controls didn't work. The rear bumper was a bit more than slightly bent, and the body underneath it was also out of alignment. The center dash electrical, with the trip computer etc., was non-functional (had power, but nothing worked), and the right front bushing made a pretty loud *clunk* noise if you went over a bump. I did drive it a bit, and the brakes were very spongey (which if he recently worked on as indicated, tells me they weren't done correctly). Engine did seem pretty good other than a minor tick from the passenger side row, but no major vibrations or rumbling, and did start pretty quickly and smoothly.

So, I figured there were electrical problems which would likely run quite a bit more than I wanted to dump right now. Hopefully I didn't overestimate the costs of the electric and interior issues (oh, dash also had a crack in the vinyl top on passenger side). So the search continues...

 

The car is 4k..it isn't going to be perfect.

If the brakes were spongy you can always re-bleed them. "re-done" is very vague. That plastic reservoir usually throws me off but that fluid looks a little dark to be new.

Unless the car is very low mileage or new, the seats are going to be a little worn.

The front right problem sounds like the shock to me, but who knows.

Im not going to go over everything, but these seem like mostly niggles and cosmetics for a classic that runs fine at 4k. Feel free to keep searching until something tickles your fancy, I just dont think you will if you are looking for a 12k car for 4 thousand.

 

Thanks for the reply. I have been mulling it over, and my biggest worry honestly was the central console trip computer. I profess my own ignorance on it and thought it would be a more expensive replacement than it appears to be, and general electrical issues are the main thing that scared me.

As for the seats/interior, I expected they'd likely need replacement or at least reupholstering anyway, and that honestly wasn't one of the "turn offs;" I know it's a 30 year old car, and at 4k absolutely didn't expect "perfect," or even close. I have done some more research on replacement seats and so on, and even if I need to completely replace the driver's seat due to all the controls not working, that still came out about 500 less than I thought it would. That, combined with a replacement trip computer looking to be around a $100 replacement and not $1000 like I (naively) guessed, puts it back into consideration, especially since the seller emailed me just a bit ago and offered to go down to 3300.

What it really boils down to is that I'm still a bit ignorant on the costs of repairs, and I do expect repairs on any XJS that I find, whether that's 3k or 15k; they are older cars. Finding repair cost estimates has proven a touch difficult so far, but I'll keep digging. Main thing is that I don't want to get stuck on a "money pit," where I continually find more and more and more wrong, which honestly is even a scary part of this lower end price range. I'm not set on spending that low, and am perfectly willing to spend more on the right car. It was more of a "wow, this is low enough that I should check it out..." kinda thing.

And, it may still be worth the price, to be honest. I just need to figure out if I will be able to put in the time to do the work on it and have it at a "reasonable" state by the end of summer, or if I need to hold off and find something a bit less labor intensive.

 

There are a lot of better and newer XJSs for sale than that 1. If l was you, l would prefer to spend a bit more on a better car from the beginning that needs less doing to it and more of it works. If things don't work or look right now, it can only get worse $$$

 

Yup, there are other cats out there. Some will likely be in less immediate need of the level of work that one needed. If I had more time or my own shop--not just a garage that I desperately need to clean out--I would have been more willing to go on that one, but that's not the case for me.

Anyway, found another XJS that I'm going to go look at tomorrow: 1986 Jaguar XJS Beautiful Blue V12 Low 70k Miles

Interestingly, this one had been listed previously on there a couple of weeks ago for 15400, and she's now dropped it to 9000. Looks like the driver seat will need a new cover but having just looked around for those, I saw a matching blue one one eBay just yesterday for a pretty reasonable price, so that's not going to be a deal breaker. Mechanical, driving, body condition, those will be the main things.

 

Ok, this is a bit disturbing. I happened across this: 1986 Jaguar XJS Blue 1 Owner 70k V12 SPORTs CAR ONE TIME OFFER | Blue 1986 Jaguar XJS Car for Sale in Seattle WA | 3420820757 | Used Cars on Oodle Marketplace

This is the same car. This ad has a little more info, and note that the price on that one was originally 4300. It didn't move immediately then, so they increased the price by over 10k? Then it still didn't move so they dropped it to 9k? Something feels definitely off about that, and the details on the above:

Unless they did a bunch of work from between when they felt it was worth 4300 (and likely was) on 6/29 and yesterday when it was relisted for 9000.... which seems unlikely.

 

Are you planning on doing any maintenance or repairs yourself, or would you be sending pretty much everything out to a shop to get done? The reason I ask is because these cars generally need some care as they age. The reason people have really nice examples is often because they repaired each issue as it came long - not because the car has never needed repair. When you get the car, eventually things are going to fail... hopefully little things! I think doing some of the repairs yourself is part of owning one of these Jaguars.

 

Used XJSs can be tricky :-)

MANY mechanical problems can be repaired fairly easily and inexpensively by a reasonably experienced DIY mechanic. That's good, because 1) used XJSs typically need a fair bit of sorting out and 2) paying a shop to sort out problems can run into big money very fast and 3) just finding a shop to work on older Jags can be a problem in itself.

SOME mechanical problems (climate control repair, certain engine oil leaks, dropped valve seats, etc) can be a bit too much for a typical DIYer.

If your goal is a really sharp Jag to be proud of bear in mind that cosmetics are always very expensive. New paint, chrome, leather, etc. Extra money spent up-front for a car with good cosmetics is usually a bargain....as it's much less expensive to buy an extra sharp car than to take and average car and bring it up to the same level.

As for prices, well, lots of sellers have an over inflated idea of what a used XJS is worth. The $9000 mentioned should buy the very finest 80s vintage XJS coupe on earth....but even that price MIGHT be a bargain if it's cosmetically perfect and ALL of the typical XJS problems have been sorted. Years ago I bought a "very nice" XJS for $6500 and spent another $7000 turning it into the car I really wanted it to be. Most of that was cosmetics, thus my warning to you :-). Sorting the mechanicals was relatively cheap since i do all the labor.

Well, I'm rambling. Keep looking. Plenty of candidate cars out there. When the "right" XJS comes along, you'll know it.

Cheers
DD

 

Thanks again for the replies.

@FastKat: Yeah, I do want to do most of the work myself. It's been a while since I've done car work, though (used to help my dad with his various vehicles, including a nice little Triumph GT6), so I don't want to get something too intensive right off the bat. I totally expect any 20-30 year old car will need some love. And yeah, the semi-constant tinkering is actually kind of what I'm looking for.

@Doug: I think you hit it on the head with the thought that many have an over-inflated value on these cars (not that some aren't worth it, but most likely aren't). That's generally true, in my experience, for any used car ("But Blue Book says it's work X in perfect condition, and mine really is perfect" when it's in "moderate" condition at best), and I think Jags might suffer from that even more because of the cost of some repairs. One might think that "gee, I sunk 6k in repairs over the last year, so it must be work 12k", when in reality those 6k of repairs might have been a break even or worse.

I think I'll still go out and look at this one, and drive it around a bit and so on, mainly to get a bit more hands-on experience with it. I will probably post with some thoughts after words for the more experienced members to tell me I was an idiot about.

 

With a bit of luck you'll happen across an enthusiast-owned example. The owner will be only too happy to tell you how the fuel hoses have already been replaced, rack bushings replaced with urethane ones, how the climate control has alrady been sorted to wrok properly in all modes, etc, etc :-).

Cheers
DD

 

it being tagged with "Mazaradi" should ring the alarm bells for anyone

 

Yup. I'd love to hear all about the work history on any XJS, because the more the seller knows and tells you about it, the more likely they handled the niggling things and prevented them from becoming big things.

 

Well...

I went and checked the 86 out. There were some various issues, as expected, and she also needs a headliner, new seat covers, and some stuff like that. But the body was straight, only a couple of small dings in the driver's door but not serious at all, and no rust anywhere I looked. Engine was a little less smooth than the one I looked at before, but started right up (after learning about the bodged security system installed after-market), and went for a drive.

Brakes were solid and smooth, I practically didn't need to touch the wheel, suspension was smoother than my current RX8, lol, and next thing I knew, after some directions from the seller, we were on the freeway doing 80 and she just kinda purred along. I kept my eye on the temperature gauge the whole time (and it was a fairly warm day up here, too, so that was good), and it never strayed above N once.

I thought about it pretty hard for a while, then offered 4000 cash (which was slightly lower than the original "OMG must sell right now!" price in some ads for this car), expecting to be talked up to 4500, and willing to go there. The seller asked me, "not rolls of quarters, right?" I smiled, and said, "Benjamins." He said, "yeah, why not, you look like you know more about her than I do, and you're going to take care of her." So we shook hands, did some paperwork, then I promised to give them a call when I got her restored up and ready to go in a show.

So, she's now sitting in my driveway, and I need to (finally) clean out the garage tomorrow, so I can start the work. I plan on taking her up to a British car specialist up the road for a compression check and so on next week, though I'll likely not have them do most of the work, as I want to do it myself, but it would be helpful to have a "list" of things to crib off of.

Here she is:

I feel pretty happy that I got a fair price (in fact, possibly a bit too fair, but we'll see what the compression check says), and I'm really looking forward to giving Selina here some TLC.

 

Congratulations, she looks great!
Here's wishing you many happy miles.

 

Small update because it was just too cool.

Got a call from the seller, who said he'd forgotten his CA dealer plate in the back seat, and he was wondering if he might be able to come pick it up on Sunday, since they'd likely be out on one of their yard sale hunts. I said sure, and he dropped by and we chatted a bit. He and his wife left to go do their yard sale hunting, and I started back on cleaning out the garage. About an hour later, they come back, and I'm wondering what was wrong. He gets out of his truck, and says, "Hey, we found this at a yard sale, and thought you needed it." He hands me a Jaguar Racing jacket, complete with some sponsor patches and so on. It was awesome! I offered to pay him whatever he paid for it, and he said, "Nah, I'll take it as a sign that she was meant to be yours."

Pretty cool.

 

Far out! Sorta does the heart good, eh?


Cheers
DD

 

It really does. I've seen several folks posting in here that when you're looking for your XJS, you'll know when you find "the right one." Kinda think I hit that.

 

Selina huh, already naming your car and such. Wait till you put some sweat and money in it, she'll be Broomhilda in no time