Sell it?

[HerefordMark]

OK here it is. If you read Classic Car Mart, or surf the PH website, you will know I have been trying to sell my black XJRS. Having endured all sorts of muppets calling/emailing for no reason, I am almost reduced to giving it away. I keep telling myself I must be mad - race bred V12, easy to look after, stunning performance even now. But the voices won't go away!

What do you think - sell or keep? Or buy what???

Help!!

HM

[cya266x]

HM,

What about letting a broker do the selling for you. I know they will want commission but it sounds like you are well fed up with the whole thing. They can talk to the "muppets", they are paid for it. And, you may get more for it that way.

I'm not a broker. Just wish you good luck.

[GlennH]

Hi Mark,

As a fellow XJR-S owner I can sympathise. I feel like selling mine every time I get another huge garage bill, but change my mind on the drive home from the garage I comfort myself that the car gets a little better after each repair and that it is a fantastic car for relatively little money. I think you might regret parting with the beast. You'd miss the sound and power of that wonderful V12. I doubt you'd get anything as stylish or exciting for the same money. Take it for a long drive on some fast A-roads, if you don't come back with a big grin on your face I'd be very surprised, but it would indicate it may be time to sell.

If you really do decide it has to go, try offering it here or advertising in the JEC magazine. At least you won't be plagued by muppets

An alternative is to put it on e-bay (it is how I bought mine) you might not get top money for it, but at least the whole process would be over in a week.

As to what to replace it with, only one answer to that, an XKR, I had the pleasure of driving both a coupe and convertible XKR on a recent Jaguar driving experience. The most stunning cars I have ever driven. The only drawback is the £70K+ price tag...

I hope you keep the XJR-S, they are rare beasts and need enthusiasts to keep the remaining ones on the road.

Regards,
Glenn.

[wolf]

I suggest you keep it (or keep it until i've got the money to buy it off you )

As mentioned earlier, You'd probably regret selling it once its gone, I found this with my XJ12.

XJS's had a production run of just over 112,000 with lets be fair, indifferent build quality up until the facelifts so there is a rarity value in an XJS anyway (well how many do you see every day? be honest), let alone a XJR. However, here might be a flip side, To some, an XJR is nothing but an XJS with a body kit and as such, thats why you may, as you put it, keep getting the muppets.

Good idea mentioned earlier, Go find a nice 'a' road and give the car a real good tonking up it. that alone should be all the reason you need to keep it a little longer.

One last thing, hang the bills!!! my £2000 v12 has consumed a further £3500 but so what, These cars are thouroughbreds and worth it.
Remember the Lamborghini adage,

Q: What do you get if you don't service the Countach at 3000 miles?
A: A breakdown at 3001 miles

Chin up, summers coming, have fun with it.

best wishes

[jimthack180]

You don't say how long you've had the car, or how often you use it. About a year ago I bought my first Jag, an XJ-S 5.3 HE, from a good friend who assured me it had been well looked after. This subsequently proved not to be the case but even so, I have only spent £1800 on repair bills, some of which was for new tyres, having bought the car for £1650. Still only £3450 for such a great car, I wonder what Euro-box you could buy for that money? It is now in exellent condition, I use it every weekend, even in the Winter, and as you must already know, I come home smiling every single trip. Sure, it's very thirsty, but I only do about 9K per year and just the sheer pleasure of that turbine smooth engine must surley be enough to persuade you to keep what is fast becoming a classic and will surely appreciate in value over the years. The other thing is the power it has to turn heads, even today, with all the flash cars there are around.

Perhaps Jags are like marriage - if you got any doubts - Don't do it!!

Jim

[HerefordMark]

Had it 3 years, spent £2K, still needs more! But nearly there - soon it will be pretty good. Tried starting it today but no good - it's punishing me for neglecting it for weeks! Battery is dead (this car eats batteries - do they all do this?) but should get it going tomorrow.

Yes, I'm keeping it...

HM

[wolf]

Glad to hear it,

Re the batteries, There is a natty little gadget you can get that just puts a trickle into the battery whenever the voltage drops below a certain point and costs peanuts to run,

I got fed up with battery failure on mine so treated it to a lithium battery from Halfords and have had no problems since but I do recall a feature on a new battery in the JEC magazine, can't remember much about it though except for the fact its got a red case, if memory serves me correctly, it was highly thought of.

I've found it a good idea to remove the battery though if the vehicle is laid up for any period of time.

One thing to bear in mind though is that an alarm/imobilizer left on for a period of time will eat away at the reserve cranking ability of any battery however i'd always prefer having to recharge a battery rather than look at an empty drive/garage.

Regards

Rich

[poprivet]

To date in the XJS register there are 32 XJR-S's

What we need are more of their owners to share the problems, fixes and parts specific to the XJR-S. Perhaps a seperate section of the forum is needed?

Pop

[wolf]

Good idea Pop

I think it would be a good idea for the forum to be split into generic areas appertaining to all models but also sections dedicated to the various models, ie, pre HE, HE, Cabrio, Convertable, 3.6, 4.0, 6.0, xjrs (do we have any lynx eventers?)

Then maybe we could look at a parts interchangability study?

what do you reckon?

Regards

Rich

[ptjs1]

Pop / Rich,

Tks for your thoughts. I've just put a post in the General Section which also touches on this issue. Have a look at:

http://www.jec-xjs-forum.org.uk/xjsbb2/ ... .php?t=471

Regards,

Paul

[dhdove]

Pop/Rich
Sorry, I don't agree.
How many posts would the Lynx Eventer thread attract that would not fit into the current format........rear hatch problems?
Similarly with other models eg early 5.3 carb manual gearbox thread.....
Whilst the car developed hugely over the years there must be about 80% + that is common to all models.
Still, a debate about where the forum is going must be a good thing I think and shows interest and enthusiasm from members which has to be encouraging
Generally I think getting more XJS owners actually taking part in the forum is the way to go.............tho how to achieve this
Best Wishes
DH Dove
PS This thread is WAAAAAAY off topic

[wolf]

I don't think you're off track at all! I think that this is having the desired effect,

If you read Pauls very clear and concise thread in the general forum, you'll see (and yes paul, I did read to the end) that we can be assured the forum we want but the direction has to come from ourselves. I don't for one minute doubt the complexity of setting up and maintaining a forum.

You're right in your assumption that most of the vehicles are going to have generic commonality and that is why I suggested that should we go down the avenue of specific technical forums, It would be advantageous for us to have looked into the common parts and problems BEFORE separating the specific items for analysis.

For example, Air con is Air con however you wrap it up and i'd wager that the system is going to have the same components and function whether the parts are interchangable or not, after all a condenser is a condenser and a dryer is a dryer! This for example is a possible generic forum thread,

Flip side, imagine your distributer is toast and you find the imortified remnants of a v12 engine at the breakers less heads and induction but with a distributor so you don't know what its from, question, is
"will it Fit" and work? I think Kirby lists a possible 9 parts including pre HE

That would be a specific 5.3 V12 ignition problem!

Remember the forum is as strong and as useful as we, the users make it, I've made a lot of good friends and learned a lot from here, (see the brake forum on 4.0 rear brake disks, it taught me the disk is not always right)

These are just two examples of generic vs specific, I'm sure that we could, should the direction go that way, come up with many more, The knack is to know whats specific and whats generic.

I do agree however, that I wouldn't like the forum breaking up except for the the meetings.

Sorry for waffling on

Regards

Rich