Good morning!

I'm interested in this 2015 F-TYPE R that Lincoln Central Florida has in stock in Orlando, FL. From what I can see from the listing, it appears that the car is a good example having only two owners (second owner being effectively the only owner at almost 7 years) and having no accidents. I would be traveling from Virginia to look at the car and wanted to see if anyone has a recommendation for a local Jag/F-TYPE pre-purchase inspection. I wouldn't be against taking the car to the nearest Jag dealer, but I generally like to support independent shops if there is a quality shop nearby and often find they have as much or more mechanical expertise than dealers. That, and they often seem to offer a better value. I would additionally be happy to talk about things I should specifically ask the mechanic to check during the PPI as well as questions that I should ask the dealer. I have gone ahead and preemptively asked the dealer for the following:

1. Monroney Sticker if available
2. Brand of oil used in oil change performed when the vehicle was received by Lincoln Central Florida
3. Age of the battery
4. Photos of the undercarriage (I understand Tata supplied steel components in the rear have a tendency to rust, and this car was in Illinois its entire life)

Here is the Carfax for the car (also linked in the Cars.com listing of course).

As an additional tidbit, there is a local F-TYPE that appears to be very similar to the one in Florida (here is this one's Carfax). As far as I can tell, the equipment is almost identical (please let me know if you see any differences!) This is the car that I test drove and realized that I needed one in my life, but this vehicle has 5 previous owners in addition to a rear end collision. Between that and the price premium over the car in Florida, I am thinking the car in Florida would be a better purchase, and I don't mind making the trip down there to get it.

Thanks again for any thoughts, conversation, and PPI recommendations!

Cheers,
Moose

 

Here's my experience:

We bought a 2015 F-Type R this last spring from a local Aston Martin dealer. As part of pre-purchase, they took it to the local Jag dealer for a PPI. It came back clean, we bought the car, and after getting it home, I checked it out myself. First thing I noticed after opening the hood were marks on both the engine cover and hood. In short, an engine mount was broken and Jag missed it.

The reason for the story is that a PPI is not the same as the more rigorous inspection for CPO cars, and they can miss things. Also, there's the potential for something more insidious: them overlooking something on purpose, having calculated that you'll bring your defective car to them and they can charge you to fix it. Whether or not this actually happens, I can't say, but since business is all about the money, it's hard not to wonder. Now if on the other hand, you take the same car to an independent Jag shop, their motivation is to find everything wrong with it, in the hopes that you'll bring it to them after the sale.

After finding the broken mount, I made a laundry list of everything I wanted changed (Y-pipe, etc) and took it to the independent shop, my poke-in-the-eye for the Jag dealer... "you missed it, you don't get to fix it."

 

Thanks for sharing your experience! I would definitely be getting the PPI done independently and look for a thorough inspection. I paid $430 for the inspection I had done on the Cayman S I was previously looking at which included a borescope and compression test. I made sure to get those last 2 items done on the P car because they are known to have the bore scoring issue on that motor (which sadly the one I was looking at did), but I'm not sure I would need to necessarily go quite that far on the Jag. None the less, I definitely prefer the "find everything wrong with it" angle since of course I'd be making a trip down there to get it. I like to think I've got a decent idea of what actually needs addressing vs what they say "you should do". That, and a quality PPI includes photos of anything they visually inspect that has a problem.

Out of curiosity, the laundry list you had - were those maintenance/repair items you had or more like upgrades? If its not too big of a laundry list and something that isn't overly specific to your F-TYPE I'd be interested in seeing what you did. Here's what I'm roughly thinking I'll need to get done:

1. Brake fluid change (I don't see a record of it being changed in the last 3 years)
2. differential oil (I'm considering adding a diff cooler since I hear they are known for overheating particularly with track use but even with aggressive street driving in some cases)
3. Transmission oil change (probably closer to a year of ownership instead of immediately based on what I've seen about recommended service interval on the ZF 8 speed)
4. Battery, or at least have funds prepared for a battery replacement unless it was recently changed.

 

Would not recommend PPI inspection services like LemonSquad. If you can find a high-end performance shop would likely get a better result. My Jag dealer has no capacity for inspections.

 

Yea, the last place I got a PPI from was a performance shop, so I can agree with experience that a performance specialty shop typically seems better than a dealer or quick stop kinda place.

 

Having just taking possession of a car that was a complete unknown to me, I wanted to "reset the clock" on various things so that I knew better the condition of the car. None of these parts were upgrades. From memory:

• Y-pipe, which requires removing the supercharger, and that labor is very expensive. Because of that, everything that tends to fail under there due to heat should be replaced at the same time. It would suck not replacing a $5 part only to have it fail later, requiring another $1200-2000 fee to get at it.
• Supercharger snout, which obviously means that the supercharger oil is now new
• Inspect spark plugs
• Change all fluids: Coolant, brake, engine, transmission, and differential. While these are usually always kept topped off by owners and shops, it's likely that some portion of those fluids may be up to seven years old.
• Both engine mounts (one was broken, so the other would be weakened by excessive flexing)
• Tire alignment
• Inspect brakes and tire wear

This wasn't cheap, but I looked at it as establishing a known baseline. For example, now I know when to change the fluids going forward, when before it was an unknown. It also wasn't cheap because I had a shop do the work. Even if I had the room, I wouldn't do it myself because we'd just brought home an expensive car, and having it all torn apart in the garage would not sit well with the wife...

For some things, it's a squishy line on when they're nice to replace and when they must be replaced. It's a combination of what those parts cost and how hard/expensive it is to get at them.

 

The Jaguar Doctor in Winter Park is who you need to have it taken too. Andy is legit. Former JLR tech and engineer, running his own shop for a long time now. Really knows his stuff. Orlando Jaguar Repair | Jaguar Maintenance | Jaguar Diagnosis (thejaguardoctor.com)

Tell him Scott with F-Type Revolution sent you over. He and I met not too long ago. Not sure what he would charge and turn around, but good local contact to have.

 

Thanks for posting that info! Yea I plan on going through the fluids myself as they come due. Diff and brake fluid immediately, while transmissions and coolant will probably be coming up soon. I need to look into the coolant a bit more to determine when I should change that out, but I'll probably be tempted to change it sooner than later since I will likely track the car and would rather have fresh fluid in it for severe usage like that. I am concerned that the Lincoln dealer put whatever 0W-20 they had on hand instead of Jaguar approved oil. If that's the case, I might see just try and work the price down with that in mind and change it out when I get it home with Liquid Moly Special Tec LR oil since that appears to be one of the only proper oils to buy outside of the dealer for these. Honestly I'd be tempted to put some oil additive into it to do a bit of cleaning in the crankcase (like Seafoam) for the drive back to VA from FL since I'd be changing the oil so soon after it was just filled.

I have seen some people talk about the Y pipe on these. I saw there are aluminum aftermarket parts now in addition to Jag's improved OEM design. I'd probably wait until there is sign of failure before digging into that cost since it could be fine for years - I suppose I'll see what the PPI says. I did search for some Jag specific shops in Orlando and found 3 places that appear to have good reviews and would likely be solid places to get a PPI done. Anyone have experience with any of these?

The Jaguar Doctor
JSI European Specialists
Euro Motors Orlando

 

As mentioned above. Jaguar Doctor is great and who I’d recommend. JSI And Euro are both good but don’t specialize in Jags at the level the Jag Doctors do. I know them all.

 

Thanks for the recommendation! Yea I had submitted that post but it got flagged for moderator review so that's why it came up after your post. I'm going to give him a call today to see when he could fit in a PPI - hopefully it wouldn't be too far out!

 

Sadly it turns out Andy is going on vacation for ~2.5 weeks so The Jaguar Doctor wouldn't be able to look at it I might just go ahead with the car since it does have almost every record completed by a Jag dealer.

 

only other suggestion. Take it to Lakeland Jaguar. Ask for Brandon in the service dept.

 

The dealer I'm looking to buy the car from (Central Florida Lincoln) said they allowed mechanics to come to their location, but their dealership network (AMSI) doesn't allow for cars to be taken to independent shops for inspections because of issues that have happened in the past. That's what the salesperson told me anyway. I am going to have a Facetime call with the salesperson to go over the car more closely, and if we get to an agreement, I'll have the ability to walk away once I see the car in person if something spooks me. So I guess we'll see!