1994 Jaguar XJ40 3.2

Summary:

Sheer luxury, depreciation is a wonderful thing!

Faults:

The air conditioning system was not working when I bought the car, due to a leak in the front condenser. They are prone to being hit with stones as there is little protection through the front grille. At £300 they are not a cheap item to replace and re-gas. I got this amount deducted from the price prior to buying the car.

Next was a problem with misting-up on the inside of the car? Water was leaking into the passenger side foot-well via the blind grommets high up in the bulkhead. The source of the water was found to be a well blocked drain to the wiper motor assembly, the area under the windscreen trim was awash with water. A common fault so I am informed, rectified by cutting the end off the "duck-billed" drain hose.

A replacement remote central locking and security key-fob was expensive at £100, only available from the main dealer. An essential to activate the built-in alarm system and driver conveniences.

Mysterious fault on the Jaguar in-car entertainment system, mine kept requesting the security code for the unit each time I started the engine? No wiring faults were found and the problem went away when a CD changer was fitted to the pre-wired boot??

General Comments:

At £2300 this car was an absolute bargain, although still a big risk for a 1st time Jag owner. The bodywork is immaculate and I had a friend check over the mechanical side. If you haven't experienced a ride in one of these cars it's difficult to be objective on your test drive. They are almost silent when sat inside, and the ride should be of the smooth, glitch-free magic carpet variety! The previous owner had obviously lost patience with the minor irritations mentioned above, all of which were solvable.

I use mine as a weekend car and with limited mileage insurance, they are not as expensive to run as people always assume. At nearly £30,000 when new just 8 years back, you still feel like a millionaire behind the wheel.

Reliability is not an issue with the late model XJ40's, thanks to Ford's input. Regular annual servicing must be maintained, neglect at your peril and the big cat will bite back!

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 15th December, 2002

14th Apr 2004, 15:20

The security code error is likely to be a loose battery terminal, or battery lead, I've had it happen twice on various cars when garages have kindly left a battery clip untightened. Check it ASAP as if it resets the code and you don't have it to enter, you're looking at a new stereo.

19th Jul 2005, 12:23

I find reading your review of the Jaguar XJ40 really interesting as you appear to have experienced the exact same problems I did when I purchased mine 3 months ago. When I first drove the car back from the show room, straight away I noticed the car appeared to be steaming up far too easily. I rather naively put this down to the garage giving the carpets a shampoo and it was possibly still wet. I was kidding myself as it soon became clear water was gushing under the passenger side footwell. Anyway, I had bigger fish to fry at the time as in the first week of ownership the car broke down 3 times on me. Just wouldn't start to the total bemusement of the AA. Anyway, it eventually turned out the electrics were faulty and had somehow stopped the fuel pump from functioning. Whether this was related the the leak I doubt, but hey.. I'm no expert. It cost me near £190 to have the blockage in the air con sorted out - the garage where I got the car from refused to pay up stating rubbish like it wasn't under guarantee because the job I'd had done was cosmetic. Great review!

1994 Jaguar XJ40 4.0S 4.0 straight 6

Summary:

Dream with a catch

Faults:

When I bought the car then aerial had broken off so I had to fit a new one @ a cost of £20

Took it to tyre specialist couple of times to have tracking and balancing checked.

Needed 2 new tyres on the front after 140k. costs £200.

At 140k miles got problems with acceleration. Took it to the garage for a service, where they also found exhaust manifolds, front and rear suspension bushes & wheel bearings needed replacing, as well as the lambda probe. This hasn't fixed problems however and car's still in repair. Costs so far: £587!

General Comments:

Couldn't believe I could buy a car like this for so little money. Only paid £3000 for it. I was worried at first about things being wrong with it, but all I could find was a slight pulling to the left and trembling of the steering. This despite the dealer promising me beforehand they'd have the balancing and tracking done. Took it to tyre specialist to have it checked again, but due to missing locking wheel nut wasn't able to do so untill weeks later. They found both tracking and balancing were well off, both front and back.

Apart from that nothing went wrong until some weeks ago when it suddenly started to shudder under heavy acceleration. This got worse and worse until it wouldn't even run stationary any longer without shuddering. This than caused it to completely seize. After giving it a couple of minutes it would run again okay, but only for about half 10 minutes, after which the same problem occurred.

I took it to the garage where they spend a week servicing it and correcting several problems they found. The problem still hasn't been fixed however so I'm stuck with a courtesy car for now.

As long as it drives it's a great car to own. It looks great, it's fast nd very comfortable. The performance isn't as shocking as I had expected, but it's of course a very heavy car. It still beats the performance of my old 2.9 by miles!

The interior is fabulous and I love the sunroof. Only problem is the cracked leather on the drivers side.

The stereo is great, especially now I've had a CD-changer fitted, although I haven't really been able to enjoy that. All in all it's a lot of money for the bucks, but you'd better be prepared to spend some more on it if you want to buy one because with a Jag there's always something you can spend money on.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 20th May, 2002

22nd May 2002, 09:08

Oops, make that value for the bucks. The car's finally been fixed now, at an additional cost of £290 for a new fuel-pump and some other bits and pieces, making the total bill a whopping £900!!

But that's the kind of bill one can expect, the price to pay for driving a luxury car like this. Compared to the original value of the car (£50.000) it isn't actually all that much of course, and they obviously didn't design these cars with the somewhat less wealthy owners 10 years later in mind..

31st May 2002, 18:59

Hi, just like to say I have owned one of these magnificent beasts and cannot wait until I can again afford to run another. Maybe I was lucky, but I had no troubles with mine except the digital dash failed under warranty and the air con neeeded re gassing. Otherwise an excellent example, looked after by the people that supplied it. Mine was a 3.6 Sovereign auto, town use gave 18 to 22 mpg and on a run 27 to 30, performance was amazing for a car weighing near to 2 tons as was the roadholding and handling. Oh yes other minor troubles were the thermostat (can happen on any car) and the hole in the heater hose, the one that runs under the inlet manifold. Easy to fix if you perch on the the drivers side inner wing and work upside down! All in all, would I have another? You try and stop me!!!

23rd Nov 2006, 19:15

Hello, after owning more than 300+ autos at age 48 I would have to rate the 94 jaguar xj12 somewhere in the top ten.

Combine the handling, performance, luxury and fuel economy

I think it's one of the best used car values on the market.

Great automobile!