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I've wanted one for about 20 years now. I know the advice here is to buy the best and cleanest example you can find...try and get a 4.2... Well, I broke every rule and instead grabbed a 2000 XK8 4.0 for scrap money on the bet I could rehabilitate it. It runs. it drives, kind of...dash is lit up like a Christmas tree. The windshield pillar and header lights and trim is in the trunk. The top is manual only for now with evidence of the dreaded Green Shower. Aftermarket stereo and shall we say some non-stock wiring and either distress or straight up distemper, not sure which. Time will tell. I've been doing research and collecting information for a long time, It's time to get hands on. Wish me luck all. Hope I can save it from the scrap pile. Winter is closing in here in the Midwest. Interior is all there, but needs attention. Body is ok other than a good dent in the right front fender. It does start, run and lot drive. I will have to chase some paper on it, but I rolled the dice because it was cheap. I'm sure I could part it out for what I paid. Hell, I found some XKR bonnet vents in the trunk when I got it off the trailer and went through it. In doing my research, it started life in Missouri and was rebuilt after an accident in 2007. I'm still doing detective work. I'll need all the help I can get.
You can have a new 4.0 XKR/8 purchase and still have a reliable car. I’m proof of that. My 2002 XKR now sits at 201,000 + miles. Nearly 100,000 of that is under my 8 year ownership.
the trick is have a detailed repair and maintenance history, with all the known issues already dealt with.
If that’s not in the cards, don’t drive the car without verifying that, at the very least, the cam chain tensioners have been changed. They can fail at any time. I would only trust visual proof to determine that tensioners have been updated. My car is a late 2002, and still had the old style plastic tensioners in place. They were finally updated under previous ownership after a catastrophic tensioner failure.
[QUOTE=zray;2881707]You can have a new 4.0 XKR/8 purchase and still have a reliable car. I’m proof of that. My 2002 XKR now sits at 201,000 + miles. Nearly 100,000 of that is under my 8 year ownership.
the trick is have a detailed repair and maintenance history, with all the known issues already dealt with.
If that’s not in the cards, don’t drive the car without verifying that, at the very least, the cam chain tensioners have been changed. They can fail at any time. I would only trust visual proof to determine that tensioners have been updated. My car is a late 2002, and still had the old style plastic tensioners in place. They were finally updated under previous ownership after a catastrophic tensioner failure.
Absolutely, first on the list. Car only has 89k but I'm operating under assumption nothing has been done.
I know the advice here is to buy the best and cleanest example you can find...try and get a 4.2...
I think you will find that is "internet expert" wisdom, which ignores the fact that every year Jaguar introduced improvements to the car and (contrary to Facebook belief) didn't just make one giant leap forward with the 4.2. Even the much maligned ZF 5 speed gearbox had improvements throughout its life, so the later version that you have, is better than the ones the cars originally shipped with. Irrespective of the flaws these cars had 25+ years ago, the ones still running will have had many of them fixed anyway by now, or they would be in the scrap yard.
A couple of big advantages you have with the 4.0 car is a cheap fuel pump, rather than the more complex/expensive/hard to get parts for fuel system in the 4.2 car and (increasingly important as the electronics age) a VCATS label in the boot, rather than a VID block in each module. Oh, and this quote from Jaguar TSB 1-186 from 2004 always gives me a chuckle (4.2 owners look away now):-
If resolution 1 fails, the VID block will have to be rebuilt. To do this, the VID block will
need to be read using the ‘Vehicle Identification Block Read’ application available via
the special applications menu on WDS. The data should be saved to a floppy disc and
sent back via email to Technical Helpline for editing.
Anyway, the most important thing is that you like the car you bought. Nothing else really matters as everything can be fixed if you need to (and you don't even need a floppy disc drive to do it).
You're a better man than I if you can wait and shop around like that. I'm a sucker for a pretty face (and I've got the divorces to prove it). I hung on to the Jag though.
Finally got an XK8!
