Just went to see a 2004 Jaguar XJR with only 74,000 miles on the odometer. It certainly doesn't look or drive like a 10-year-old car; except for a few minor scratches on the bumper and throbby brakes (which the seller admitted needed new rotors), the car drives like a dream--no thumps or bumps when turning, no hesitation at startup or when running, clean oil and tranny fluid, no rust in the radiator that I can spot, a clean interior that's loaded with just about every possible 2004 XJR option--so what am I missing here?

Before I drop $300 to have a Jaguar mechanic do a thorough mechanical inspection, I'm wondering why this pussycat is selling for only $9,000. Is a brake rotor replacement horribly expensive? The vehicle has a clean Carfax and only two owners... so what am I missing? Or have I found a unicorn?

 

Get it checked out and if your mechanic agrees BUY IT before it's gone! That is a unicorn.

 

Roughly speaking, what should I expect to pay for rotor replacement on a 2004 XJR?

 

It depends on which rotors and where they are sourced

I paid more for shipping on the rotors than the rotors themselves but They were shipped from the US to OZ
I also went for slotted ones they were more expensive
I also had a set of drilled/slotted that I ended up selling before fitting
In both cases the shipping doubled the price but hat was still cheaper than OEM rotors from the dealer

Check out R1 for rotors
I recommend going red stuff for the pads although R1 have the standrd and ceramic pads I stick with the EBC redstuff

Check out R1 here R1Concepts - OEM, Drilled & Slotted Brake Rotors - Brake Pads - Brake Calipers

The best rotors are the R1 Premium ones

PS dont forget a new set of handbrake pads

Cheers
34by151

 

Figure roughly 300 for front axle and 600 for rear axle...

One can always spend more or spend less depending on parts/labor and quality of each and if you are a DIY.

Here's info on my most recent change https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...eplace-112035/

thanks-
mag

 

Just curious, how did you determine the tranny fluid was clean?

Have the same car. Best car I have ever owned, period.

 

If there's nothing wrong upon inspection - get it ASAP, it's a great deal.
One month ago i've bought a clean 2004 XJR with 65000miles, new air suspension and minor problems (thermostat and so on) for a 17000$ (yeah, it Russia). It is the best car ever. Damn, the interion still smells like new

 

Whoops, sorry, I saw a lot of cars yesterday and I was remembering the tranny fluid dipstick from a different make of car.

Well, I guess the next step will be to have the mechanical inspection performed. Thank you for the feedback!

 

Post some pictures when you buy it!

 

The price is about right for a car of this age, as most buyers of 10 year old cars tend to be scared of complex upmarket cars like this. Many of these cars have been taken beyond 200k miles, so they can run the marathon.
However, they do need careful and diligent maintenance, and this can only be economically delivered by a independent Jaguar shop or yourself. If you do it yourself, you would need and electronic diagnostic package to read the fault codes

 

Thank you Fraser. I've been reading the OBD-II thread and there's a lot of information in there... is there a model generally considered to be the best for X350 XJRs?

Good point about independent mechanics--I think I need to start a separate discussion thread on that subject.

 

All cars sent to the US have the V8 engine, with some supercharged. These obviously have a lot of performance, but there is more to go wrong. At 10 years old, the condition of the car is the most important issue, not so much which has more goodies.

 

There's less expensive parts to go wrong. No VVT, no plastic thermostat housing and so on. The SC cars are much more reliable, than regular V8 NA.

 

I am doubting your last statement.
Not only there are more mechanical components on the SC car (just the SC, to start with), but also components will be submitted to higher loads.
Could you please better qualify that statement?

 

On a NA engines
The VVT units are prone to break/give a noise, while they are quite expensive. Actuall a failing VVT will lead to incorrect timing and it will cause catalitic converter failure (quite expensive thing. On the other hand, there's no aftermarket converters for a NA vehicles, while there's at least Nameless Perfomance for a SC Jags).
The plastic thermostat housing is prone to break, which may cause a severe overheating.
More plastic in the cooling system, it'll lead to various leaks.

On a SC engines:
The compressor itself is quite reliable
No VVT on earlier cars
Metal thermostat housing
Engine itself is much more reliable, since the cooling system have larger capacity (and 2 additional pumps) and there are oil jets for pistons cooling.
Transmission can handle much more, than 395hp of this engine.
The only problem with a SC Jags is a famous valley hose, which is hard to replace, but once it's done it'll last forever.
Generally speaking, while i was working in JLR there were almost no problems with SC Jags and there was decent amount of problems with NA Jags.

 

Quick question: Where is the OBD-II port on a 2004 XJR?

 

Hi scooternva,

On ours it is behind the bottom edge of the driver's side knee bolster near the transmission tunnel. It is oriented parallel to the centerline of the vehicle and is accessed through a rectangular hole in the black fleece-covered underpanel.

P.S. I assume it is just the opposite on RHD cars, but I don't know for certain.

Cheers,

Don

 

Thanks! My Actron CP9580A OBD-II scanner arrived today (thanks Amazon!) and I'm heading over to the seller tomorrow to plug 'er in and see what comes up. Here's hoping my unicorn doesn't have engine cancer.

 

Hi scooternva,

Have you confirmed that the Actron CP9580A scanner will read the Jaguar-specific fault codes?

My Innova 3130b will read the generic OBD-II codes from our '04 XJR, but it will not read any of the Jaguar-specific codes. To read those, I had to set up JLR SDD software on a laptop used in conjunction with the Drew Technologies Mongoose pass-through cable (lots of info on this forum).

Cheers,

Don

 

Hmm, I relied on this discussion thread which said that the CP9580A had been recommended for the 2004 XJR. In fact, the Actron CP9580A is the only OBD-II scanner that is specifically mentioned to work with the 2004 XJR. Are you saying that this information is faulty and that the CP9580A won't work? I'm going to be super-pissed if that's the case.

EDIT: OK, browsed around looking for information on IDS/SDD. I can see that this will probably be something I will want to have if I actually buy the XJR, but is it needed for evaluating a car for purchase? My thought process here was to use the CP9580A to ensure that there were no codes being thrown, and if not, to pay a mechanic to throughly inspect the car.