Ok never owned a jag. Think about buying a 2001 to 2005 model in the next 4 to 5 months. I want a coupe. I love the looks of the XKR but worry about maintence issues. What are your guys thoughts on a older say 2002 XKR vs a 2004 XK8 with lower miles. What to be under 20k for price. What should I look out for? Common issues

 

How fast do you want to go?

How high is up?

There is a guy on this forum with one of each and swears they are like night and day, he rarely drives the plain 8 any more.

Coupes make up less than a third of all cars sold....so they take longer to find because of their rarity.

Look for nothing earlier than a 2002...2003-4 is better, 4.2 engine, 6 sp ZF transmission, Brembo brakes standard after 2003 on the XKR.

Earlier cars had a slew of problems that were addressed after 2002 cars.

You should have no trouble finding a car in that price range if you are willing to travel.

Look south in the dry states away from coastal areas as rust is an endemic problem with them otherwise., Arizona, Texas, Southern California, etc.

There is a list of things to look for in the FAQ in this Forum that you will find at the top of the page for this forum.

Good luck, enjoy and as always send us photos,

cheers,

jj

 

I would be comfortable with the 2002 XKR with the Mercedes transmission, but if you go 2003 and up, either the R or normal breather 8, you'll get the newer engine design, an extra gear and a little better gas mileage as a result. HID auto-leveling headlamps and a better SRS system too in the MY change. I have the 8, and its plenty fast for me, but its all about what type of vehicles you've had in the past that really makes the difference here. I came from a 4-cylinder Isuzu, 6-cylinder Jeep, then the xk8...so my progression was pretty substantial in comparison.

 

Hi, Superswole, and welcome to the club. I have a 2002 4.2 XKR convertible, and just love it - bought it last summer. The engine is really robust but of course, like any car, trouble can always strike I don't think you'll find the running costs much different, either: similar fuel consumption and just about all of the components are the same for both models. In each case it would be wise to budget for tyres, brakes, pads and normal servicing, ideally from a jag indie for knowledge and value.

I had mine converted to LPG, which makes it have the equivalent running cost of about 38mpg on gas (down to a miserable 32 mpg when I'm having fun!) If you buy an R you won't have any regrets - I can't think of a single person who went with the R and regretted it. Can you say the same for every XK8 owner?

The drive is very tractable, even in slow town traffic, and can even be sedate, but there's a real thrill when you open it up. I'm betting that, as soon as you get one, you'll do what I did: get a supercharger pulley upgrade and start planning your remap, for those extra bhp! Best of luck, David

 

Jamjax is right, these can be hard to find. Coupe was #1 on my list, followed by being an R, and when I found an XKR coupe locally after about 3 years of browsing local ads I jumped on it. I believe for the 02 year they only produced something like 1500 xkrs that were coupes. Awesome car, couldn't be happier!

Like others said go 02 or newer. The XKR has a big punch over the standard 8. I don't think the R's necessarily have any more issues than the standard 8's, for one, I also wanted the R because of the beefier transmission.

Good luck!

 

Go for the latest and most powerful car you can afford. Nobody needs an XKR, but then nobody needs a Jaguar, either

 

I did a lot of research before buying mine (03 XK8 Convertible), here's a few of the main points which I considered:

1. there were supposedly ~700 improvements made in the '03 model year compared to earlier models (both XK8 and XKR).
2. one of those improvements is more durable timing chain tensioners, which can become a significant concern. You can upgrade an earlier model to the later tensioners, if you feel like tearing apart the engine of an expensive car as soon as you take ownership of it or worrying about it until you do so. I didn't want that sort of project.
3. gas mileage differences between the XK8 & XKR are negligible.
4. maintenance costs can be a bit more significant IMO. brakes for an XKR (at least 2003+) are much much much more expensive than they are for an XK8. The very cheapest that I could find a set of replacement pads & rotors for an XKR was around $900, that does not include labor. Someone here posted that their dealer wanted $3k for a brake job. Prices for the XK8 are somewhat less silly.
5. XK8's take normal shocks. XKR's use some kind of computerized suspension system, take a different type of computerized "shock" or whatever the equivalent is called for that system, and, like the brakes, cost a small fortune to replace. Availability might also be a problem; I had a car once before which took an electronically controlled shock, and when I needed to replace them, I found that they were no longer being produced. I'd expect to encounter similar difficulties with these eventually, and supposedly - I may be wrong - replacing the XKR shocks with standard shocks results in an error code.

 

R, no question obviously, its a heavy car so can use some power.

Just to complement OhioXK post
2 tensioners where already upgraded a year earlier for the 4.0 car.
4 Only 2003+ have the big brake as standard iirc, not the 4.0 cars for which it was an option. These brakes are however recommendable, I found them much better then the smaller ones.
5 If they are worn, you can also have them re-valved to make them new again, much cheaper then buying new...