Need to figure out what I have here
 

So I purchased a 2001 XKR convertible a few months ago, for a great price. The seller claimed to be a Rolls Royce/Bentley mechanic (and actually worked at a Bentley shop briefly), and represented to me that he had fixed all of the possible trouble spots on the car; specifically: timing chain tensioners with newest ratcheting type, top latch hoses, plastic water pump/thermostat parts, and much more. The car looked and drove well and he seemed very knowledgible about Jags. The car cleaned up very well, and actually hasn't made any trouble, aside from a very slight oil leak.

After I bought it I paid him for a tonneau cover, which he didn't produce, and then he ghosted on me. Catching up with his former employer (the real Rolls Royce/Bently mechanic) it turns out that he only worked there briefly, tried to buy his business, then left, taking some of his customers with him. He apparently has a long criminal record for fraud in another state. This guy mentioned that he remembered old boy replacing the engine in my car, but didn't know what else he had done to it. I assumed that it had the originl engine.

So now I apparently have a car with no history. It was bought by the PO at an auction in California, apparently with a blown motor. The representations of the PO now look highly suspect. My question is, how do I go about figuring out what I actually have here. I looked for the engine serial number near the thermostat and cannot find it there. How do I check the status of the top hoses? For the record, the car appears to be great, but it's now a bit of an unknown.

The later engines have the engine number behind the left engine mount.

bob

Looks like he bought a dud. Replaced the engine. Made a quick sell. Basically id treat everything he said as a lie.

But its not all bad news. You have bought yourself a lovely motor. Ok you dont know its history but even if you had 100% of it what difference would it make? Id slowly and methodically check the car over. Assume he did nothing and, perhaps, being nicely surprised when you find out the car is ok. If you think about it he did not actually lie? He did change all those things when he changed the engine? Probably not for new and correct parts but he did change them. They dont call them con artists for nothing.

General and obvious maintenance first. Good oil change. Brake fluid, water etc all the fluids on the car then you have a good basic car to start off with.

You did not make a mistake buying the car you just made the mistake of trusting him. Id certainly report him to the police though. You never know they may well know where he lives and pay him a visit for you.

Get a local independent to check the car and engine over for you to put your mind at rest.

Good luck and enjoy the car. :icon_smile:

All’s good for now
 

The good news is that for a few months, the car has been been good. The bad news is that you’ve been “snitched up” by a con.

Still your 2001 XKR seems to be behaving itself. I would say enjoy it. Gremlins will appear and so treat them as they come. Try to dig out what info you can and have a good look around. Let us know what you find.

I have a 1999 XK8 4.0L na engine. Pretty sure the original AJ-V8 motor has been switched out but I suspect a previous owner has deliberately filed down the engine ref. no. probably so he didn’t have to pay to re-register the car. Still can’t find the engine no.

No worries. You have a 18 year old beauty. V8! Powerful, fast, a real head turner and a bargain at the price you paid. Enjoy it! Maybe it’ll grenade, maybe not! Just let it give you a grin!

Well, the fact remains that the car is clean, and absolutely everything works, with no engine lights. So if he replaced the motor, at least he did a credible job. I gather that replacing the plastic parts in the thermostat includes the part that goes over the supercharger snout, and that's clearly aluminum. I got into the trunk this morning and determined that the top latch hoses have been replaced. So, that's a load off and an indication that he didn't lie about everything. The guy actually included a spare throttle body and a spare blower with the car. Additionally, when the throttle cable snapped 2 days after I bought it, he had it flatbedded back and fixed it immediately.

So, the guy isn't necessarily lying about the car. It's just that it's hard to trust him, given his background and recent actions. I'm a criminal defense attorney for a living, so my bullshit detector is pretty highly refined, but this guy had me fooled for a bit. That's the thing about Jags. Dating a model is probably similiar.

All the XKRs have the aluminium thermostat housing from the factory - so if that is what you are referring to nobody changed it.

As has been pointed out above, pay attention to the dashboard warnings when you drive the car, do frequent inspections of all of your fluids, check the engine bay on a regular basis, and check the pavement underneath the car regularly for various types of fluid leaks. Keep a strong battery at all times. Read and study the sticky threads in this forum whenever you have spare time. The more you learn about the car, the better you will be able to care for it and the fewer surprises it will spring on you....

I hope you stay lucky with it....

You appear to have got away without much more than the unpleasant feeling of being duped by a con man.

To make the vehicle less of an unknown:

1. decode the VIN
2. from the engine number, determine the date and time the current engine came off the production line at Bridgwater
3. obtain the original build specification from a Jaguar Dealer - this includes the serial number of the engine and other major components

AND

4. as you have no service history, carry out all the service schedule items to cover anything that has been missed and give a baseline for future servicing.

Graham

Bridgewater!!! Bridgend boyo.

All good advice, guys. I'll have to jack it up and get the engine number. I already decoded the VIN. No surprises there. Other than the replacement engine, I haven't actually uncovered anything that he lied about. So far, so good.