I've found a 2004 XJ8. The CARFAX shows it having a build date of Nov 2002, a US Customs import entry of April 2003, & had it's first title in the US issued January 2004.

I questioned the dealer & he tells me the decal on the car shows it built when the CARFAX says it was.

Is this possible? Is it common for a 2004 vehicle, which had a significant facelift in 2004 & a whole different engine size than a 2002, to have been built so far back?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by 307883281600350

I've found a 2004 XJ8. The CARFAX shows it having a build date of Nov 2002, a US Customs import entry of April 2003, & had it's first title in the US issued January 2004.

I emailed Jaguar directly with the VIN & they told me it was built in 2003. The CARFAX must belong to another vehicle or the dealer is full of it, or both. I think the car is still for sale.

 

307, a quick check that you can do is to simply look inside the driver's door jam. You will find that the build date is located there too. Normally if someone is trying to pull a fast one, they are going to make a mistake somewhere. That is an easy check.

As for your situation, something is not adding up. It is not uncommon for a major update/facelift to be sold part way through the previous year (ie, a 2004 being sold in/after June 2003). But, to have a car built in Nov 2002 that is a MY 2004 seems awefully fishy to me. I think you are on the right track that the carfax is goofed up somehow, just don't know how. Like anything else, it can be prone to errors and while a Carfax is a good place to start, it is just that, a place to start. I would give the car a good look over and see if you can find say the block number and trace things backwards that way. That will tell you what specific year the block was made. You will also find that cars have the VIN located in various spots on the car (not just on the dash and the build sticker in the driver's door jam). Make sure these match up.

It is not uncommon for the early versions of an updated vehicle to have some oddities to them. A manufacturer will attempt to use up some of the extra parts that they have laying around before truely introducing the full new vehicle. Seen this a few times in my life. This also happens when you have a vehicle built near the end of the year and they have run out of parts and they simply start using the bigger/better part.

Sometimes it is nice having one of these cross-breeds as you can get something unique and get the best of both worlds. Other times, it can make you want to pull your hair out as the part you think you need is not the one you are getting.

 

Agreed.

Coming from a Spare Parts background, and still in it, the actual "build date" is the critical key to getting the correct info/parts/whatever for any car.

Hiccups do, and will always occur, and at the MY change point is the worst. that is why nearly all "genuine" parts look up are Vin specific, coz that give sthe build specs for each car specifically.

 

Yeah, pretty weird....and suspicious. One wonders about some sort of illegal activity in such cases. Hopefully whoever buys the car is as observant as you and insists that the discrepancy be sorted before signing on the dotted line.

There is also the possibilty of a not-so-dubious explanation. It might simply be a keypunch error of some sort.

(My employer bought a car from out of state a couple years ago. He lost the title....which is normally no big deal. However, and I'll keep this short, there was a keypunch error made when the car was first titled. Although it mis-identifies the year and model it went undetected for over 20 years....until now. It's been a real problem getting it straightened out. The matter is still in limbo.)

The other possibilty is the old "USA Vin" versus "ROW Vin" snafu, which has been discussed many times. Mention of "US Customs import...." made me think of this. Is this a USA-market car imported thru normal channels via Jaguar USA? Or a non-USA market car [somehow] imported privately?

*IF* Jaguar was still using two Vin conventions circa 2002-2004, together with a couple other "ifs", we might find an explanation.

(This why why so many on-line "Vin Decoders" cause confusion. A ROW Vin being entered into a USA-programmed Vin decoder, or vice-versa)

On older Jag models both VINS used to actually appear on the car causing all sorts of confusion!

Cheers
DD

 

Vehicle oddities.... Saw that in a Ford that was from a redesign year. Ran into a problem with belt pulleys. Couldn't find a parts store alt with a 7 groove, only 6 & 5 grooves. Couldn't figure it out till I investigated deeper. Engine on the car was correct, all numbers matched & decals with correct build date. Found engine was the earlier version that was first used in Lincoln models one whole year before the new Ford model was introduced. The very early versions had the 7 groove pulleys, all subsequent engines had the 5 & 6.

Running into this with my Jaguar. Apparently, some sort of mid-year changes for accessories? My '02 will take either '01 wiper sizes, or '02's, or a mix of both. Apparently the oil filter changed from a long one to a short one, mid year. Few other oddities.

As for this XJ8 I was interested in... I let it be. I'd asked the dealer to email a pic of the VIN/build date decal & he sent me all kinds of pics of the car EXCEPT the VIN tag. When Jaguar told me it was built in '03, I figured something was wasn't right somewhere.