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What I have found out is the car was imported specially for a client who never followed though with the deal ( wonder why), got divorced they said) , the dealer just wants it sold, listed as a 93 and I have correctly told hem its a 91... sent lots of negative emails about the car and service history etc, been listed for a couple of months, no one wants it and I am taking my time, Offered 28k (19USD) NZ asking price 40k they said 35K , so I went half way 31.5k NZD and said that is my walk away price. So hey agreed. Still expensive but I tend to love what ever I buy and hate to part with them.
So they have it in storage and will make it shine for my viewing on Wednesday, I plan to take a million pictures and go home and post them. Not going to sign the dotted line on viewing, its needs to be mint. I like that word mint... wife was when I married her.. shame age takes it toll, then I look in the mirror and remember how lucky I am. After all I'm spending twice what i wanted to only because she wants a ragtop (her, for ever dream) and I want to get the best example the mortgage can afford! Only a couple of years to go and kids are gone burger and I will have $$$. So why wait and invest.. that is my story line, they will only get more expensive I say. Yes there will be money spent to keep it good, just not too much for the next couple of years (I hope). Saying that I spend lots to keep my classic bikes going, OH and one's for sale anyone want a 86 - GSXR1100? grunt machine. That only leaves me with two bikes, thats the price I will pay for an XJS. Funny thing is I have never driven one, have a work ute. free gas, so its a weekend car 100% and something I will dribble over, now that he wife is old we must improvise and dribble over the curves of the XJS . Also cant remember the last time I have seen an XJS on the road.... not in the last 15yrs that I remember.
The Problem you have is that these Cars are so easy to fall in love with, that its so very easy to let your heart rule your head and then buy the first one you see
And if you think these Cars are expensive now, just wait until something goes wrong where if you're not able or don't want to fix her yourself, then a 'Shop' could empty your Wallet as fast as you can blink
So it could well be a good idea, to go and look at others that either you don't want or are maybe well out of your Price range, with the object of the exercise being to get so used to seeing them that the initial excitement that you must be feeling now will die away (ish!)
Then when the right one turns up you will instinctively know it
Right took car for a drive today, first thought was how low it was, next was the little foot room.
Thought I would start with some engine pictures and work to where it ended up on a host...... Oh and brand new battery fitted today.
Engine looked great, yellow fan but No cracks, I spun the fan and it went about 1/3 - 1/2 a revolution.
Engine
The engine was warm when I got there, they said the car was brought from storage, washed just before I said i would turn up.. cant argue with that.
Some car pictures to follow...... Oh and questions about air con...... blow hot and cold sort of..and more of the story.... oil on the ground!
Some of the car.... no rust I could see anywhere, front
carpet under driver feet was wet after washing, lifted carpet under floor insulation was damp no rust.
Just about to go on the lift... oil on the ground.. why
Here is the oil, looks like engine oil I thought... nice and clean!
The steering made a noise when turning the wheel which i thought was wrong or strange, but not knowing the car or XJS's I had no idea. Mechanic said steering rack... will come out and be fixed! so better today than in a week if i buy it!
Pictures under car on lift to follow soon!
Looks very clean, especially the engine. Those cross-pipe fuel hoses appear to have been replaced, as they're fastened with jubilee clips.
That vintage aircraft place looks interesting.
What kind of number plate is ZK EWF? Seems weird for a personalized plate....
Last edited by Some Day, Some Day; 07-11-2018 at 02:51 AM.
Looks very clean, especially the engine. Those cross-pipe fuel hoses appear to have been replaced, as they're fastened with jubilee clips.
Love the input, thanks... next update.
Drove the car in an 80km/hr motorway 20min + each way, took 30min to get back and it was stop start the whole way, my eye was on the temp gauge.... like a hawk. and this is as hot as it got, I can confirm the oher fan... dont know what to call it fired up and when I moved to fresh air the car dropped to under the mid temp.
next is the talk about air con... not impressed but not sure what to expect, not like my brand new work ute!
Took this picture sitting in traffic.
Here are some picture on the lift, nice thing about it was speaking to the dude who did all the work, rear brakes, front brakes with new rotors and hand brake pads etc. It was purchased for an owner of the jag shop that got bored with it quickly like he does with all his cars. Dude said we did everything to put the car right. Rear and front brakes, suspension bushes, everything. More than would have been needed to get an import tick, what we did not want was a come back from the owner.
OK here is the leak.. is it steering rack?
Air con..... have to be a good Dad and bugger off... bt while I being yelled at because dinner is ready and i have had my 5 beers. Air only came out the centre vent, both hot and sort of cold.
no other vents worked.
Can't help much with the leak, sorry. Though I might want to check power steering fluid. Other, actual experts, will no doubt chime in.
But that speedo is odd. Clearly imported second-hand into Japan, then into NZ. At least that's the only explanation I can find. Will be interesting to see the documentation that comes with the car.
In the middle of winter you shouldn't need to worry too much about overheating. It's when you're in stop-start in midsummer than you start to worry. Or at least I do.
bed time... no documents at all. Nothing.
Car looks good, starts and goes and leaks with obvious work done but no documents of any sort.
Comments, in 5-10 yrs will this be a problem?
And once they've fixed the Oil Leak I think I would buy her without any hesitation, although not before I have had a Test Drive and a good look over just like you have done
Just out of interest what make and size are those Tyres (They look like OEM 15 inch) which are hard to get in the UK
Yikes. You mean there's nothing at all? No paper trail whatsoever? Not sure about in five or ten years, so long as you start a paper trail, but for you right now, paying top dollar? I would be very, very concerned. If you're getting it for a great price, and so there's enough in your budget to fix whatever goes wrong, then it's worth the gamble (perhaps. I took that gamble, as there was bugger-all in my case, but the car was one of the cheapest on the market. Nevertheless, I do think if I were to do this again, I'd look at the paperwork before I so much as opened the bonnet), but this is one of the most expensive in the country, from what is apparently a decent dealer. And there's NO paper trail? In any language? How do they justify that price, then?
Personally, I'd probably walk away. Unless they halved the price, because with mystery leaks and aircon problems* you can be pretty sure there's an army of other issues awaiting you....
*Aircon shouldn't blow hot out the central vent at all, only foot, sides, and windscreen when on defrost. Should blow out central, side, and foot vents (according to KWE, though some on the forum say otherwise) when blowing cold. Lack of air out the side vents could simply mean the tubes have slipped off, though both would be unusual. I suppose you checked to make sure that the vents were open? The small dial that controls how open each side vent is can be easy to miss, I guess. At any rate, you could be looking at a dash-out fix there, running to hundreds of dollars in labour alone.
Edit:
Dude said we did everything to put the car right. Rear and front brakes, suspension bushes, everything.
I agree with 'Someday' as I didn't at first realize that there were no documents or any Service History with the Car and I would also want a list of all the faults they found and work they'd done
Well it does look good, and it does seem to be a Japanese market VIN. There are a number of small things to look at, but that's with every used car of this age. As you have said before it is in the price range for an XJS there in NZ.
Water on the carpet after a wash or rain is normal for an English convertible :-) On mine it runs down the window from where the top meets the front screen. Mine like Somedays car came with just KPH only on the dial so someone has changed the dial for one with both. Wrong way for NZ though. I believe you said that the total trip reads in KM.
That's true--the VIN was Japanese, you're right. The car was Japan-new. So where did that speedo come from? I've just taken a look at all the XJSs for sale on kakaku.com, and only one (possibly two--it was hard to tell) had dual speedo markings, and both were left-hand drive, thus possible second-hand imports. Otherwise, km only is standard (regardless of what side the wheel is on: in Japan you could buy it with either). So, combined with the utter lack of pedigree, I still think something fishy is going on here....
Blimey. I've just search Trade Me and Auto Trader NZ. There is only ONE XJS convertible currently for sale in NZ, and that's the one Duke's looking at. And I thought pickings were slim on the ground over here....
Also, what's going on with the area around the rear number plate? Japan-market ones have the wider rear lights, as their number plates take up less horizontal room. So if this is a Japan-new car, it would have had those innermost light parts removed to accommodate the wider NZ plate. But it looks like there's something around the number plate, almost like a matte black cutout or something. It looks clumsy in the photo, at least.
This is what the Japan-market rear lights look like originally.
That number plate gap is filled on markets with smaller plate by "dummy lights" easy to fit and remove. As for the speedo maybe prepped for a UK sale ...
Yes, I know they're dummies - I'm just wondering how carefully they were removed--or rather, what that black surround thing is that covers most of the space. It looks almost as if it's covering something up.
As for a potential UK import? Could be (looking it up, things are slightly hazy on whether it would actually be required--not needed for a MOT at least), which would then raise the question of when this was done, and how accurately the new system was set (because if the odometer's in mph, then it's clearly not just a new dial face). In other words, if this isn't the speedo unit the car came with, and there's no paper trail, the number could be anything. I agree the car looks in pretty good shape, from what I can see in these pics, but that utter lack of a paper trail is sounding alarm bells.
Has Duke contacted any of the Jaguar clubs in NZ to ask for an expert to go along and have a look (with some small amount of remuneration, of course)? Or perhaps said something in the NZ regional section of these forums?
07-07-2018, 01:35 AM
