Tips on buying XJ S
 

I've had a number of Jaguars over the years including a 1960 E-Type roadster which I completely restored and sold in 1980 and a couple of XJ-6 sedans, both Series I and III. Rebuilt much of them as well.

Now I'm looking at a 1990 XJ-S convertible with 40,000 miles for around $15,000. The price is a bit high but the car looks very nice and both the esterior and interior are my favorite colors.

I never had a 12 cylinder car and from what I read the engine is pretty reliable. Any specific tips anyone can offer if I decide to check out this car? I could always get a PPI but I've never done that before.

Many thanks for the advice. Ralph

Hi Ralph

I would have thought you would have got more feedback by now..... this boards XJS forum is getting rather sparse these days, which is a pity as the other forums (XJ8, XK8, X/S type) are pretty popular.

jag-lovers.org XJS forum has a lot of information on it, but I find it pretty difficult to navigate around and find stuff I'm looking for (you have to be a member to do a useful search, free to register, but its a hassle, etc)

There is a great book which you can download for free here

http://www.jag-lovers.org/xj-s/book/Jaguar.html

I would start there.....

(I bought a 92 V12 Conv in March this year, so I had done some research previously)

In no particular order......

Yes I think the general consensus is that the V12 engine is reliable (yes, I really said that) BUT it has to have been taken care of. They do not tolerate being overheated at all. This tends to lead to a valve(s) dropping out of the head, and after that its game over. You should check the cars cooling system performance by running at idle , with the A/C on and the bonnet closed, in the sun preferably, and watch what happens with the temperature. Mine (in California) on a really hot day will come up to just over half way on the guage, then the electric fan comes on and it holds right at half way. It's quite common for the electric fan to run on for 5 minutes after the car is stopped.

There are various issues with the ignition system. The earlier cars had lucas distributors which tend to have problems with the advance mechanism sticking. The later cars "fixed" this by fitting a Marelli ignition system which removed the advance issues, but introduced some rather exciting risk of fire issues (1 coil can fail, cutting off spark to 1 entire bank of cylinders which then causes tons of unburnt fuel to gather in the catalytic convertor resulting in a bbq). This happened to me 2 months ago and it was not pleasant. I had 1 fire extingusher in the car so I got the fire out pretty easily, but not before my chassis rail and sterring rack boot had caught on fire :-( I now have 2 fire extingushers in the car. In "the book" above you can read some very simple preventive steps you can take on either system to make sure you don't have problems in this area.

The pre-facelift cars (<91) had another fire risk area which was the short fuel hoses that ran between the fuel rail and the injectors. These hoses are in the hottest part of the engine so they perish and crack quickly. Again, a relatively simple DIY job to change and remove any worry in this area. (Later facelifted cars had an improved design where the fuel rail clipped directly to the injector with no need for hoses which could fail)

I would recommend getting a compression test done, as even with a trained ear it's sometimes pretty difficult to tell if a V12 has lost one cylinder. This will involve removing all of the spark plugs, which in itself is a pretty involved task (I think a good mechanic would charge you 3 hours to do it) During this work you can also have a look at the plugs and look for telltale signs of poor maintenance (when I got a compression test done I found 3 different types of spark plugs, 5 of which were cross threaded !!)

Although this is by no means a science, there seems to be less electrical issues with the facelifted cars (after Ford took over)

There is debate about which headlights are the nicest. Some people prefer the euro single lights of the facelift cars, while other prefer the quad US spec lights of the pre-facelift cars. You can swap either way, so you can always have what you want on any car.

The facelifted cars have some form of ODB..... 91 to 94 has error codes for the fuel injection sysem which appear on the trip computer at start up, while the 94 up cars have OBDII

Another debatable point is that cars with very low mileage that are seldom used can actually be more trouble than a higher mileage car thats being driven frequently. I guess if the cars get the same maintenance this could be a mute point, but I do try to drive my XJS at least 1 per week just to keep the cobwebs away, even in the "cold" California winter :-)

Thats the main items I can think of.

For 15k you should be able to get a newer car, probably a facelifted one, and maybe even the 6.0 V12...... Here's one on Auto trader now http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...standard=false

I know you can't judge a car without seeing it, etc, etc but just so you see where you are in the price range. A 1990 car would have to be fantastic/time warp for 15k......

Despite all of the above issues and the things I have had to work on since I got mine, I absolutely love it and every trip is an occasion (either good or bad, depending on whether AAA is involved, but always an occasion!)

Good luck and let us know how you get on