My car has some of the worst window seals along the tops of the doors that I've ever seen. Such a shame that the aluminium corrodes so badly and also that replacements are so difficult and expensive to come by.
I know that there are options available to replace them with non-OEM seals, however, I wanted to see if I could find my own solution. The original Jaguar seals have three characteristics that are difficult to match: firstly, the seal extends upwards from the aluminium beading, secondly the beading itself is an unusual shape, and thirdly they're reasonably long.
By chance, after I'd helped my next door neighbour replace a door on hie Vauxhall Insignia, I had a passenger side seal spare from the old door. This fitted the XK8 door in terms of length, however the seal was the wrong shape and the beading didn't match either. It did give me a starting point though. I spent a happy couple of hours in the scrap yard yesterday, and came up with this as my next solution - it's also from a Vauxhall, and after a little adjustment and cutting, it fits reasonably well, although it does need to be moved back by a few mm. I've got some dark grey exterior grade vinyl on its way and hope that it will be a good match with the original Dorchester Grey.
The door seal was free and a roll of vinyl, enough to do about 100 seals, was about £17 so this could end up being a very cost effective solution to this problem!
