£700 s type jaguar
Discussion
So I've had to come home to the uk from Australia for approximately a year and needed a car for the family. I set myself a budget of £1000 for a big family car and started looking.
It had to have the following
-space for our 9 month old and all the baby stuff that accompanies her (baby seat, pram etc)
-automatic (wife doesn't drive manual)
-comfortable cruiser which I'd be happy to drive a fair distance in as we are planning a few road trips this year and this will be the car to do them.
Having previously owned a few BMWs and been very happy with them I started hunting for an e39 or e46. I was however on a time constraint and had to buy a car within a couple of days and from somewhere fairly local. All the cars that I seen at the time were rusty or ropey for the money I wanted to spend. This brought me to look elsewhere. After a visit to a local auction I walked away the proud owner of this 2004 s type. It seemed to fit the bill and was a clean rust free example. Came direct from a jaguar dealer and showed all the signs of being looked after its whole life. Cost me £770 including the buyers indemnity.
I realise I'm being brave with this one as these cars are famed for gearbox issues but so far so good. I think the later 6 speed boxes may be a bit better than the earlier ones but who know.
It's truly incredible how much luxury that can be had for so little money.
It's a 2004
Done 138k
MOT march
It has the following:
Electric heated memory seats
Electric steering column adjust
Bluetooth/6 cd stacker
Leather everything
Cruise control
Audio controls on steering wheel
The only thing which I have addressed so far that's been bothering my colour blind wife is the headlights which were a little poor at night. Replaced with some 5000k hids and now performing well. Gladly the beam pattern is good and we are not blinding oncoming traffic.
There are a few other little things that need looked at like an abs fault and the exhausts are not symmetrical which is bothering me. Seems to be a common thing with these and I'm hoping there is a quick fix for it.
The drive is great. It simply wafts over everything and the gearbox is is as lazy as the suspension. It all makes for a very relaxed drive. Fuel consumption on the other hand is not so great. I'm averaging 26mpg but I knew what to expect with it.
I plan to give the car a good going over after Xmas when I get a good weather day to do it and will do a full write up then.
C&c welcome.
It had to have the following
-space for our 9 month old and all the baby stuff that accompanies her (baby seat, pram etc)
-automatic (wife doesn't drive manual)
-comfortable cruiser which I'd be happy to drive a fair distance in as we are planning a few road trips this year and this will be the car to do them.
Having previously owned a few BMWs and been very happy with them I started hunting for an e39 or e46. I was however on a time constraint and had to buy a car within a couple of days and from somewhere fairly local. All the cars that I seen at the time were rusty or ropey for the money I wanted to spend. This brought me to look elsewhere. After a visit to a local auction I walked away the proud owner of this 2004 s type. It seemed to fit the bill and was a clean rust free example. Came direct from a jaguar dealer and showed all the signs of being looked after its whole life. Cost me £770 including the buyers indemnity.
I realise I'm being brave with this one as these cars are famed for gearbox issues but so far so good. I think the later 6 speed boxes may be a bit better than the earlier ones but who know.
It's truly incredible how much luxury that can be had for so little money.
It's a 2004
Done 138k
MOT march
It has the following:
Electric heated memory seats
Electric steering column adjust
Bluetooth/6 cd stacker
Leather everything
Cruise control
Audio controls on steering wheel
The only thing which I have addressed so far that's been bothering my colour blind wife is the headlights which were a little poor at night. Replaced with some 5000k hids and now performing well. Gladly the beam pattern is good and we are not blinding oncoming traffic.
There are a few other little things that need looked at like an abs fault and the exhausts are not symmetrical which is bothering me. Seems to be a common thing with these and I'm hoping there is a quick fix for it.
The drive is great. It simply wafts over everything and the gearbox is is as lazy as the suspension. It all makes for a very relaxed drive. Fuel consumption on the other hand is not so great. I'm averaging 26mpg but I knew what to expect with it.
I plan to give the car a good going over after Xmas when I get a good weather day to do it and will do a full write up then.
C&c welcome.
Facelift S-Types are great cars - the early cars had rear axle and gearbox issues, which were largely fixed on the first facelift (ie. original body with new interior). Think these are better looking than the 2nd facelift, too.
Someone locally has bought one as a weekend car (he seems to dabble a bit - he's had an MGB GT and Lotus M100 over the past couple of years) - but it's spoiled with loads of stick-on plastic 'chome'. Just about everywhere you can think of, he's stuck it.
Someone locally has bought one as a weekend car (he seems to dabble a bit - he's had an MGB GT and Lotus M100 over the past couple of years) - but it's spoiled with loads of stick-on plastic 'chome'. Just about everywhere you can think of, he's stuck it.
i don't know why people do that. I can't think of a single application where stick in chrome makes a car look better. Hate to see a nice old car ruined with £50 of eBay's finest bling.
I know very little about these cars so nice to hear the facleifts are a marked improvement over the earlier cars. I took it a good blast today on some nice back roads. Put a good hundreds miles of mildly sporty driving on it and was pleased with its efforts. Not as composed as an e39 but not too bad. I presume the gearbox is one that learns your driving characteristics as when I first started driving it, the car presumed I wanted to summer no more than 2000 rpm before changing up a cog, it is slowly learning that I don't drive with quite so much mechanical sympathy as the presumably aged gent who owned it previously. Sport button helps too. Cruises very well at 90mph on sweepers and stops/accelerates well too.
I know very little about these cars so nice to hear the facleifts are a marked improvement over the earlier cars. I took it a good blast today on some nice back roads. Put a good hundreds miles of mildly sporty driving on it and was pleased with its efforts. Not as composed as an e39 but not too bad. I presume the gearbox is one that learns your driving characteristics as when I first started driving it, the car presumed I wanted to summer no more than 2000 rpm before changing up a cog, it is slowly learning that I don't drive with quite so much mechanical sympathy as the presumably aged gent who owned it previously. Sport button helps too. Cruises very well at 90mph on sweepers and stops/accelerates well too.
A lot of car for that money indeed, and it looks nice in green.
I bought the R version with the supercharged 4.2 V8 a few years ago and still love it.
It might be worth checking what year your sat nav maps are as they can be a bit outdated. It'll either have the 2004 maps on it, or you can buy/download (or email me for a link) the 'latest' maps which are the 2012 version. Unfortunately no more updates since 2012 but i've driven across Europe in it and it was fine 90% on the time.
I bought the R version with the supercharged 4.2 V8 a few years ago and still love it.
It might be worth checking what year your sat nav maps are as they can be a bit outdated. It'll either have the 2004 maps on it, or you can buy/download (or email me for a link) the 'latest' maps which are the 2012 version. Unfortunately no more updates since 2012 but i've driven across Europe in it and it was fine 90% on the time.
So no real update yet other than iv'e given the old girl a clean and stopped to take a few pics today so I thought id share them. Iv'e also removed the rear exhaust heat shields as they had rusted off and were rattling around . I'm having some troubles with the gearbox (surprise surprise) Seems to work well in 99% of situations but sometimes at low rpm at constant speed it sort of wants to speed up and slow down. difficult to explain. It's also a little jerky when cold. Maybe start with an oil change to see if that cures it...fingers crossed.
Apart from that i'm really enjoying the car. It's a big old barge at the best of times and feels heavy to the hands. But it cruises at seven tenths very well. In sport mode the gearbox feels much more willing to rev and changes the character of the car quite a bit. It has a nice flow through the turns and the balance of the chassis shines through under steam. I'm very surprised at how tight it feels after 138xxx miles and 12 years. I didn't expect that the car would be as sporting to drive as it is.
Anyways, a few pictures.
Apart from that i'm really enjoying the car. It's a big old barge at the best of times and feels heavy to the hands. But it cruises at seven tenths very well. In sport mode the gearbox feels much more willing to rev and changes the character of the car quite a bit. It has a nice flow through the turns and the balance of the chassis shines through under steam. I'm very surprised at how tight it feels after 138xxx miles and 12 years. I didn't expect that the car would be as sporting to drive as it is.
Anyways, a few pictures.
I think he is basing it on a number of cars he has seen where despite getting the lights to aim down there is still some glare present. I know with my M3 on factory HIDs the beam cutoff on HIDs is very defined:
I'll see if I can get a shot of my pattern later on. But there is zero scatter from them.
Either way the car is looking lovely. They are ageing well IMO.
I'll see if I can get a shot of my pattern later on. But there is zero scatter from them.
Either way the car is looking lovely. They are ageing well IMO.
Campbells said:
So no real update yet other than iv'e given the old girl a clean and stopped to take a few pics today so I thought id share them. Iv'e also removed the rear exhaust heat shields as they had rusted off and were rattling around . I'm having some troubles with the gearbox (surprise surprise) Seems to work well in 99% of situations but sometimes at low rpm at constant speed it sort of wants to speed up and slow down. difficult to explain. It's also a little jerky when cold. Maybe start with an oil change to see if that cures it...fingers crossed.
Apart from that i'm really enjoying the car. It's a big old barge at the best of times and feels heavy to the hands. But it cruises at seven tenths very well. In sport mode the gearbox feels much more willing to rev and changes the character of the car quite a bit. It has a nice flow through the turns and the balance of the chassis shines through under steam. I'm very surprised at how tight it feels after 138xxx miles and 12 years. I didn't expect that the car would be as sporting to drive as it is.
Anyways, a few pictures.
Nice house. Its about 3 miles from me.Apart from that i'm really enjoying the car. It's a big old barge at the best of times and feels heavy to the hands. But it cruises at seven tenths very well. In sport mode the gearbox feels much more willing to rev and changes the character of the car quite a bit. It has a nice flow through the turns and the balance of the chassis shines through under steam. I'm very surprised at how tight it feels after 138xxx miles and 12 years. I didn't expect that the car would be as sporting to drive as it is.
Anyways, a few pictures.
Is it yours ?
Prizam said:
PLEASE sort out the headlights. There is absolutely no beam pattern showing and what looks like a dodgy HID kit installed.
Im in agreement, those will glare the sh... out of on coming cars and pedestrians, you can see even from the picture that they have a beam pattern that wants to cover the entire planet, please, bin the illegal hids and fit decent bulbs instead.RRLover said:
Campbells said:
So no real update yet other than iv'e given the old girl a clean and stopped to take a few pics today so I thought id share them. Iv'e also removed the rear exhaust heat shields as they had rusted off and were rattling around . I'm having some troubles with the gearbox (surprise surprise) Seems to work well in 99% of situations but sometimes at low rpm at constant speed it sort of wants to speed up and slow down. difficult to explain. It's also a little jerky when cold. Maybe start with an oil change to see if that cures it...fingers crossed.
Apart from that i'm really enjoying the car. It's a big old barge at the best of times and feels heavy to the hands. But it cruises at seven tenths very well. In sport mode the gearbox feels much more willing to rev and changes the character of the car quite a bit. It has a nice flow through the turns and the balance of the chassis shines through under steam. I'm very surprised at how tight it feels after 138xxx miles and 12 years. I didn't expect that the car would be as sporting to drive as it is.
Anyways, a few pictures.
Nice house. Its about 3 miles from me.Apart from that i'm really enjoying the car. It's a big old barge at the best of times and feels heavy to the hands. But it cruises at seven tenths very well. In sport mode the gearbox feels much more willing to rev and changes the character of the car quite a bit. It has a nice flow through the turns and the balance of the chassis shines through under steam. I'm very surprised at how tight it feels after 138xxx miles and 12 years. I didn't expect that the car would be as sporting to drive as it is.
Anyways, a few pictures.
Is it yours ?
With regards to the HIDs, I have fitted them to probably in excess of 50 cars over the years and found that some cars are better than others. I generally find that projector type headlights suit them well and give a perfect line as displayed above in the BMW. Reflector style headlights are a bit or miss. Some cars it turns out terribly and the spread is wild. Other cars it's not too bad. In this case it has turned out not bad imo. I'm off to London in the morning for new year but I'll try to get a pic of it against a wall to demonstrate. I have to say I've driven the car a lot at night on dark roads and have never had anyone flash me to date. With regards to them being illegal, of course they are. However so are many things like de cat pipes. Imo if it's not causing anyone any trouble then I don't have an issue with it.
Gearbox issue sounds like it could be the torque converter lockup clutch, I had the same issue with my 2.7d. Revs would drop then rise, drop then rise, accompanied by a little noise. It only happened at lower engine speeds where rather than locking the clutch up completely the gearbox has a controlled level of slip.
If you care enough about the car a fluid and filter change with the correct ZF fluid might extend it's life, just don't let any "specialists" try and tell you that any other fluid is suitable because it's not. One Jaguar specialist wanted to put Dex III and an additive in mine.
If it needs a new TC I believe it's a £500 ish job. I liked mine to drive, but the diesel engine spoiled it and it was very troublesome as the miles stacked up. The attention to detail and depth of quality really wasn't there, going to a Volvo was an absolute revelation after all the rusted fixings and dying components in my (6 year old) S-Type. It cost more per mile to run than my 1995 XJ12 because of the repair bills.
If you care enough about the car a fluid and filter change with the correct ZF fluid might extend it's life, just don't let any "specialists" try and tell you that any other fluid is suitable because it's not. One Jaguar specialist wanted to put Dex III and an additive in mine.
If it needs a new TC I believe it's a £500 ish job. I liked mine to drive, but the diesel engine spoiled it and it was very troublesome as the miles stacked up. The attention to detail and depth of quality really wasn't there, going to a Volvo was an absolute revelation after all the rusted fixings and dying components in my (6 year old) S-Type. It cost more per mile to run than my 1995 XJ12 because of the repair bills.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff