I've owned my 2006 4.2 XK for just coming up to 12 months, so thought I'd look back at what I'd done and write it up in case it was useful / interesting to others.

After persuading my wife that I didn't need a saloon and that these XKs were smart money (wine was also involved.. another glass dear?) I found what I was looking for - a one owner car with full dealer service history and 97,000 miles. I traded my current car against it so in the end only a few £100 changed hands, but the car was advertised for £7,900 or thereabouts. I can’t emphasise the need to shop around enough - I also went to look at another (more expensive) car which, it turned out, had no paperwork or and one service receipt from the last couple of years, and during the test drive a warning light came on. It’s possible that car was looked after diligently by the several previous owners and the warning light was a red herring, but these really aren’t cars you want to be taking a risk on. (That dealer also said it was priced to reflect the lack of paperwork, which it really, really wasn’t!!)

My seller was a bit of an Essex wide-boy in the manner of Boycey or Arthur Daley (An American equivalent might be Danny Devito in Matilda?) - he did say that “the fans aren’t very powerful, but trust me, it's perfect and you won’t need to do anything else to it!” - which wasn’t quite right on either point, but so began the first year of ownership...

Job #1 - HVAC

It became immediately obvious driving home that it wasn’t that the fans weren’t very powerful, they weren’t working at all. Then my dad, who’d travelled with me, started getting a wet foot in the passenger footwell. This is a very common issue on earlier cars, caused by the AC condensate drain getting blocked - the water backs up and overflows through the fan motor itself, which is underneath the glove box - hence the wet feet! If left unchecked, eventually the motor seizes up and shorts the control module / resistor.

I took the fan apart, which was seized and full of water - emptied it, dried it out, lubricated it and put a drill on the drive shaft to spin it around. A repetition of the last two steps eventually got it freed up and working. I also replaced the blower module which was about £15, two bolts and a clip on wiring harness. Result was the fans were now working and the AC was icy cold. Success! Except… the footwell was still getting wet.

The cause was usually Jaguar’s original design (nicknamed the ‘duck bill’) which had two rubber ‘tongues’ designed to stop dirt getting in. These actually got stuck together, so then water couldn’t get out and backed up. Frustratingly, this is right in the middle above the gearbox, where you can’t see it. You can just about get your fingers on it reaching under the bulkhead from the engine bay, but if you’re at all inflexible or have larger arms forget it. Jaguar issued a fix for this from the 2010MY or so onwards - an updated duck bill which now had one rubber tongue rather than two. The real puzzle was my car had previously had this part replaced at the dealer (at over £1,000 in labour alone, as it requires the entire dash to be removed, for a £10 piece of rubber!!). After trying a few common fixes, a combination of spraying a can of AC cleaner into it and using a stick to tap the interior casing seems to have fixed it and it drains normally. As I write this in warm weather, I haven’t noticed any wet footwells yet .

Job #2 - Driver mirror glass

The car had one of those fancy auto-dimming mirrors filled with the electrochromatic ink (or whatever it’s called!) - this had failed due to age so half of the mirror looked like inky water. A replacement was cheap enough on eBay - about £20. I opted for the non-dimming version, so just tucked the wires away behind it.

Job #3 - Headlight polish

Again, another common age related issue - the headlights had gone a little yellow with age. So I spent an hour sanding and polishing them. They aren’t perfect, but they are much improved (and not yellow!) - used sandpaper and polish I already had so no cost.

Job #4 - Bulb replacements

One of my brake lights went, so I decided to just replace the entire rear cluster bulbs - easy to do and an opportunity to remove the clusters for cleaning. They have a drain ‘chute’ down one side for rainwater etc. which on cars this age will be full of crud.

On the same tack, I replaced the interior bulbs with LEDs - this creates a huge visual upgrade and makes the car feel much more modern. I also couldn’t believe just how hot the original halogen bulbs got! The cost for the rear cluster bulbs and LED interior lights was about £35 in total.

Job #5 - Service

The annual service was straightforward - 7 litres of oil and a new filter. I also decided to change the air filter, which is mounted in the NSF wheel arch (The retaining bolts for the arch cover were of course all seized solid), pollen filter, spark plugs and swap the coolant. Total cost for all the fluids etc was about £250 and I did it myself.

Job #6 - Gearbox and Differential Oil

It depends on what you read, YMMV etc, but the ‘sealed for life’ gearbox from ZF actually has a 60,000 mile or so interval for oil changes. Some people reckon changing the oil causes more problems than it prevents. All I can tell you is, I had this changed at just under 100,000 and 18/19 years old at a Jag specialist, who did say the oil was deteriorating, and I’ve had no problems subsequently. There was also a long running MOT advisory for a leaky differential, so that had the pinion seal replaced before the new fluid. Cost for both at an indy specialist was £770.

Job #7 - NSR wishbone

Just one of those things, I started getting the squeaky clown shoe sound where a bush had deteriorated to the point of letting metal touch metal, so a replacement was fitted. Cost about £400 with labour.

Job #8 - Brake and PAS fluid

In my quest to replace or refresh as much fluid as I could, the brake fluid was changed (the existing fluid was 4 or 5 years old) - which actually did make a difference to the stopping power, and the PAS fluid was swapped - I used a syringe to suck this out and replace, about 500ml at a time, then starting the engine to turn the wheels etc and repeating. The dirty brown horrid colour eventually becomes a much clearer red. Brake fluid cost about £36 at a garage, and the PAS fluid / syringe probably about the same.

Job #9 - Coil pack replacement

Another ‘one of those things’ - for a month or so I had a strange symptom where the car would get confused and hesitated around 1500rpm about whether to kick down or not from 6th to 5th - usually changing down to 4th or 3rd, resulting in all the noise and a big jump in revs. If I used the manual paddles this could be avoided. I was getting ready for a hefty bill and a gearbox rebuild at a ZF centre (thankfully, there’s one in Cannock not too far away from me) - however, the car finally spat out a reduced performance error code, which pointed me to the coil pack on cylinder 7, and I could now hear a very definite misfire. After replacing the coil pack, not only has the misfire gone, but the gearbox issue too - seems they’re quite sensitive and the coil pack was probably on its way out before it totally failed. Coil pack cost about £45 from a motor factor - much cheaper on eBay but I needed it quickly.

Job #10 - Wheel and tyres

Not specifically a Jag related thing, but unfortunately I picked up a screw in one of my rear tyres, so got them changed. The tyres were about 5 years old with plenty of tread, but were cracking quite a bit on the outer edge. About 3 weeks later I went to drive away and noticed one of the front tyres was flat. I thought this was a slow puncture so got them changed as well - only for the garage to call me and say the reason it had gone flat was because the alloy was cracked. The OSF alloy had been buckled from the very early days of the car (Imagine that ‘discussion’ in the kitchen when someone admitted to clouting the kerb in their brand new £60k+ car…) and obviously also welded - the crack had reappeared through the weld repair.

I know nothing about wheel welding but I suspect repairing a pre-existing repair will never be as good, so I got a Chinese copy alloy of the 20” Senta for £200 on ebay. A genuine new replacement is close to £1,000 from Jaguar but there are plenty of used options depending on how much refurb you want to commit to. I also had a 4 wheel alignment completed which showed that while the passenger side was ok, the Drivers side were both over the stated toe-out and thrust angle. I assume it had been done before at some point but in the mountain of receipts there was never one for wheel alignment. Total cost for 4 tyres, alignment and a new alloy - about £600.

Job #11 - Drive belt / tensioner / idler pulley replacement

The car had reached the 10 year service interval well before the 100,000 mile interval. So although the Jaguar paperwork stated “10 year service carried out”, it wasn’t clear if the belt etc. had been changed at that point. As I reached 100,000 miles and the car approached 20 years, either way this was due for changing. I debated doing this myself, but ultimately took it into the local specialist - which turned out to be a good thing, as the tensioner had corroded onto its mounting bracket and it took them a while to remove! Cost £486 with labour.

Job #12 - Passenger Impact Sensors

Another common XK issue. The monitoring for deploying the under-bonnet airbags is carried out by two sensors mounted to the front bumper, which fail apparently quite quickly. The first warning sign is a “Check Pedestrian System” message in warm weather, which I was getting. Access to change them, for me, was just possible by slightly closing the bonnet from the fully open position and reaching into the gap between the radiator and the bumper. This required me to lie across the top of the engine and also scrape my arms up against the edges of the bare metal. The alternatives involve removing the bumper trim, so worth the hassle for me. One 8mm bolt and a wiring harness.
Unfortunately the sensors are expensive for what they are and seem to fail in pairs - but there isn’t an alternative or workaround short of disabling the system, and I’m not sure what the insurance liabilities of that would be. Cost to replace both - £300.

Job #13 - Parcel shelf

After trying to get the original fittings to stay in place and not fall out when I opened the boot, I gave in and bought a set of replacement clips designed to correct this issue. About £30 for two small bits of plastic, but they have solved the problem.

Job #14 - Headlining

The headlining was slightly saggy when I bought the car - another common age related thing as the foam backing to the cloth deteriorates and eventually separates. After a spell of warm weather I got into the car and found it was now touching my head - the entire middle section had given up the ghost. I did look at getting a replacement - Jag Headlinings will do a new board and material for about £200. However I thought I’d try myself first.
Removal is quite straightforward - the visors are held in with a hex screw and a phillips screw on either side, and a wiring clip for the mirror light. The dome light simply pulls out and again has a clip to remove the wiring.

There are two luggage hooks in the rear C pillars which are also phillips screws. I broke one just by touching it, so be wary of 20 year old plastics. Then you just gently pull the B pillar trim away from the A pillar, and detach it from the C pillar trim. I found the A and C trim could remain in situ with a few of the clips pulled free, the B pillar has to come off though. The headlining itself I found went (just) through the passenger door aperture with the door fully open, the window down and the passenger seat reclined fully.

Result having pulled the fabric back, cleaned the board and reglued it with a piece of foam underlay added is an ‘OK’ job - I know where to look for the bits where it isn’t perfect, but crucially it’s now flat, smooth and doesn’t touch my head. If I ever get annoyed enough at the imperfections I can get a Jag Headlinings replacement. Cost = £0, as I already had the glue, foam and other bits on the shelf.

Result

In the past year I have spent approx £3,400 on the car. That might sound a lot as an annual running cost, however, most of this is taken up by long term or one off items or preventative maintenance - the Gearbox / Differential oil and drive belt swap take up £1,200 alone, with a further £600 for the replacement alloy and tyres. Smaller amounts, like just over £100 on the spark plugs, also aren’t annual requirements.

I also do work myself where possible which saves on the labour costs - I realise not everyone wants to do that. In theory - and there’s always the possibility of a failed sensor or a leaky hose etc - in the next year of ownership, I have approximately £100 to spend on the service (just oil and filter this time), I’d also like to replace the discs and pads all around (approximately £250) both of which I’ll do myself. The MOT might throw something up, but otherwise there are now no other maintenance deadlines looming.

In terms of optional costs I could easily live without, I’ve got a saved eBay search for an XKR back box (just to beef the exhaust note up a little) - I’ll probably jump on the first one under £500. I’m also toying with the idea of fitting one of the tesla style screens to get some of the modern functionality I miss in the existing infotainment unit. Those prices seem to vary massively on sites like Aliexpress so I’m not sure if the £150-200 ones are a risk or not!

Again, in theory now a much cheaper few years ahead now with the preventative work done. For the odd wishbone, software module or whatever going pop - I think if I budget about £1,000 a year to keep it running - less than £100 a month - I won’t be too far off and might even be in credit…!

Living with it

Outside of the mechanical work, what is it like to live with? Existing owners will know all this already but for the curious browser who’s thinking of buying, here’s my review…

Good points:

• The drivetrain is brilliant and also reliable. Look for a car with regular servicing and problems, it seems, are rare even up to 150,000 miles. In my case the car had one careful owner who did no more than 6,000 miles a year, so it really hasn’t been abused - that also gives me more confidence in its longevity. I personally find the naturally aspirated 4.2 engine more than enough - very relaxed and unstressed for normal driving, quiet at cruising, but with all the noise and performance you want when you put your foot down. I’m intending to swap the back box for an XKR quad-pipe for a bit more noise.
• It is a great car to drive. Secure at speed, confidence in the corners, nimble, nippy, agile, etc. But for all that, a very comfortable seat, high quality soft carpets and headlining etc on the inside that can also be relaxing to drive around town, not racing around the B roads.
  
• Even at 20 years old, it still turns heads as a design - the bodywork curves, legend has it, were inspired by Kate Winslet (no, really!). I personally prefer the design to the F Type.
• For a performance car of a similar vintage - BMW 6 Series, Mercedes SL etc - it is better looking and better to drive. I don’t think you can get a better car for the money when you start comparing against alternatives.
• My insurance was actually cheaper than on my previous XF diesel saloon. YMMV but I’ll count that as a positive!
  

Realistic points:

• Tax is expensive, at ~£700 a year because of the emissions. It’s just something you have to live with - at least there’s no luxury car supplement! If that puts you off, there’s always the pre-2001 XK8s - but different car, different problems.
• Economy, I know the built in display isn’t totally reliable but I’m averaging 25mpg, with ~30mpg when doing 50-60mph commuting to work on country roads. But let’s face it, nobody buys one of these for the mileage they’re expecting to get out of every fill up.
• The infotainment on any XK is dated now, though the later models from 2010 - 2014 will be better. In the early cars some of the connectivity was an extra, so as with my previous owners who didn’t add it on, there’s no bluetooth or USB music streaming. My modern smartphone does connect and make / receive calls, but the information on the screen is garbled (my contact names appear as gibberish through the screen, but their numbers are correct!). There are several options for upgrading, including fitting a Tesla style large screen or being clever with the existing unit to add bluetooth or even android auto (see other threads on the forum).
• The rear seats, as everyone knows, are useless - this really is a 2 seater in disguise. Our other car is a ‘mum van’ so that does all of the heavy lifting in terms of kiddy transport, tip runs etc. Having said that, the rear seats in the XK do have ISOFIX points, which I did make use of on one emergency occasion with our son. I had to have the passenger seat folded forward to accommodate the seat, but other than that, it was fine. More useful than you’d think!
• Other storage is also limited - the boot is bigger than you think, but the door pockets are tiny - so it’s the glovebox or the centre console really. I don’t think there was a built in OEM solution for sunglasses storage, annoyingly, but a faux-leather clip on thingy to the sun visors are only a few quid. Again, it’s a weekend trip not a family holiday car so this is no surprise…
  

All in all, do I regret my decision and the bottle of wine it cost me a year ago? Not a bit. Would I do it again? Absolutely!

 

A hint on the headlights since you polished them.......
The inside projector lens gets quite filthy. They can be cleaned using a long swab, like a giant's Q-tip thing. The light transmission will improve noticeably.

 

Mine is a registered 2006 model.... purchased with 65 k on the clock ( UK )
Over 4 years I've had all the same issues as yourself,and a few suspension items replaced.
She is now at 85 k.....it's a great car