Jaguar XF - High Mileage?

[tedman]

Got my company car going back in September and I will be switching to a car allowance. With the car market at the moment, I don’t want to spend too much and end up with horrid depreciation. I also don’t want new due to lead times and I’ve just cancelled a factory order because of this. Want something to keep me busy for a while until the market improves.

I’ve been looking around for higher mileage cars, preferably “executive” style, autobox and some decent performance. Looking around £5000.

Came across a lot of XF 3.0 Diesels that fit my criteria. Anything to look out for on 100k+ mileage? I do around 10-15k miles a year and not huge amounts of long trips.

Really don’t want a money pit!

[blueacid]

tedman said:

Got my company car going back in September and I will be switching to a car allowance. With the car market at the moment, I don’t want to spend too much and end up with horrid depreciation. I also don’t want new due to lead times and I’ve just cancelled a factory order because of this. Want something to keep me busy for a while until the market improves.

I’ve been looking around for higher mileage cars, preferably “executive” style, autobox and some decent performance. Looking around £5000.

Came across a lot of XF 3.0 Diesels that fit my criteria. Anything to look out for on 100k+ mileage? I do around 10-15k miles a year and not huge amounts of long trips.

Really don’t want a money pit!

With "Not huge amounts of long trips", does this mean you'll be doing a lot of urban mileage and start/stop? If so, I'd caution against any diesel - that kind of driving is really not ideal for the DPF; far better to get the petrol.

I've got a 2009 XF-S 3.0d and through covid it's grumbled a couple of times about the DPF - 20 minutes on the motorway with the cruise set to 60 is enough for it to regenerate itself. Anecdotally, and from all the reading around forums I did before buying, it seems that the Jag XF DPF is basically fine, so long as you give the car a good run out every tank or so of diesel.

However, there are a couple of common faults on the XF - some are dear, some aren't so bad. The ones that I'm aware of are:
1. Make sure to get the autobox fluid changed; pretty sure this is common to almost all autos (even the ones marketed as "sealed for life") - they'll work fine up until they start crashing into gears, shuddering, or taking ages to engage drive. Old transmission fluid slaughters them; get it changed!
2. Chocolate intake manifolds. These are made of some kind of plastic-polymer fancy material which becomes brittle over the course of all the heat cycles that it gets from being bolted to the engine. The part is around £250 per bank, but it's around 4 hours labour to get to it. Each side of the vee. They go anywhere from around 80k-130k, so if you find a car on 110k with no evidence of this being done, haggle!
3. (one that got me) Central locking actuators. Sometimes these fail, meaning that a door will not lock. This causes two issues: Firstly the obvious security concern of an unlocked door. Secondly, if the door is unlocked, this prevents the car from fully going to sleep, so it'll drain its battery within a day or two of being 'locked' (but not). If you find that one of these is failing, you can of course manually lock the door from inside the car before getting out and hitting the central locking; it's a faff but it does at least see you through until you can arrange a replacement part.

That's all that I can think of right now as regards common faults. Now, for the good stuff:
If you get the Portfolio S trim, you get a surprisingly well-equipped car. Put it in sport & dynamic mode, the dampers firm up and the gearbox stops gently sliding into the next gear, but shifts with a bit more furvor; it's got a surprising lick of speed! Whereas in normal Drive mode, it's got all of that lovely wafting ability.
The cooled seats on the higher trim levels are superb in hot weather, they really help prevent getting a sweaty back/arse.
The B&W stereo is pretty damn good; bring a CD or a 3.5mm aux cable for your phone on the test drive. On my 2009 car the bluetooth will only do phone calls, you're stuck with a 3.5mm aux for music. The facelift (2012-ish, you can tell these apart because the headlights look more angry shark than surprised kitten) might well fix that.
If you're on a longish motorway run at 70, it'll do high-40s, maybe even low-50s MPG. Which, out of a car that size is pretty good going I think! Around the city, low to mid 20s is what you can expect; start-stop traffic really guzzles diesel.

Hope that this helps!

[Sortie 10]

On the point of part exchanging my 2013 63 Sportbrake 3.0d Premium Luxury with 93000 for no real reason other I just fancy a change (4wd & extra ground clearance is desirable though for trips to the French Jura) I think they are good looking, very competent, versatile, have a good turn of speed.
Deal was cracked on Saturday & am due to collect the Discovery Sport in 10 days. Dealer is in Hampshire (local-ish to OP) happy to name them if the OP or anyone else wants to get in touch. FSH but only one key.
Possibly a chronic case of post lockdown man maths - will miss my best ever daily.

[ZX10R NIN]

At your price point I'd say the E Class is a better bet overall:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202104271...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202105192...

[tedman]

Thanks for advice everyone. Got some thinking to do!

I was looking at the W204 C-class, but the engine line up stinks (except for AMG of course).

Somewhat tempted to just get a PHEV on company car scheme and have something new I don’t need to worry about 😬