First, I want to thank everyone that replied to my thread on buying an x350 as a daily driver, it was immensely helpful and I appreciate all of the helpful people on this forum.

I've owned a few x308 XJRs, but this is my first x350. I always overlooked them because I thought the 308 was a better looking car, but when my daily driver was totaled a month or so ago I needed to find a new car and figured why not a Jag. I was initially going to get another x308 but then realized the 350 might be better for daily duty and as soon as I drove one I knew it was the right choice. These cars are absolutely fantastic.

The car is a one owner, 41k mike XJ8L in Liquid Silver Metallic with Black Leather interior. Car does not have a scratch or ding on it, absolutely immaculate condition. Drives great as well, what a pleasure.

Here are a few pictures, I'll be sure to post better when I pick the car up later this week. Thanks again everyone.

 

Absolutely gorgeous!! Congrats on your new ride! Love it.. and so will you

 

Thank you! Appreciate it.

 

Looks lovely and very very low mileage, I am sure you will enjoy it

 

Beautiful ride! Many miles ahead to enjoy with a perennial smile.

 

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. Its a beautiful car and mre importantly drives just as good (if not better) than it looks. As soon as I drove my first x350 I was hooked, what an awesome car for the money.

Picking up the car Saturday and straight away it only needs a few small things; hood struts, wiper blades, and an alignment. May also need 2 tires but I'll look closer when I get it. They are all matching Continentals, but two are nearly brand new (2020 date codes) and the others are older, can't remember the dates at this point.

My question is, what preventative maintenance should I do? Other than oil change, air filter, fuel filter, and cabin filter is there anything that should need attention at 40k miles? I'll definitely take a good look at the brakes and flush the fluid soon, but other than that can't really think of much it would need. Just curious if anyone has any recommendations. This will be a daily driver and goal is to make it as reliable as possible.

 

Nice car. I share the same paint color I wouldn't base maintenance solely on mileage but consider the age as well. I would check the maintenance records if available to see if it is running the original sparkplugs, if the trans fluid has been changed, diff oil, power steering fluid, antifreeze etc. Would also be a good time to check all suspension bushings, belts and hoses before winter and make sure the suspension does not have any slow leaks. Slow leaks turn into big leaks the colder it gets.

 

Picked up the car this morning and love it! It was a nice 60 miles drive home and the car performed flawlessly. It was about 20 miles on 55-60mph road and 40 miles on 70-80 mph road and returned an average of 32.4 mpg according to the car, wow! I never rely on the computer so will get accurate numbers when I fill up, but if its anything close to that I will be very pleased.

Car is extremely comfortable and I can see myself driving this for a long time. As much as I truly love my X308 XJR, this is a much more usable car and excited to commute in class for the foreseeable future.

Spent the afternoon deep cleaning the interior and polishing the window trim, will get to the paint soon enough. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

 

Interior all cleaned up, came out very nice. Will hopefully get some time to do the exterior within the next week or so. Paint is in good shape so will probably just clay, lightly polish, and seal it for the winter.

 

A beauty. It sure makes me miss my '06 VDP. I'm following your ownership vicariously. Cheers.

 

Thanks Eliot! Happy to have you follow along. I just dropped the car off for an alignment and tire balance. Wheel was slightly off and its something I do on any car I buy just to make sure everythings good. I do a lot of highway driving and having a bad alignment or wheel balance is not something I can tolerate.

Other than that the car is ready to go it seems. Previous owner had an oil change, battery, and state inspection done last week, and also replaced the famous coolant overflow bottle so that's goo peace of mind. Also happy to report that after sitting for 48 hours there was no sag in the suspension. Hopefully no trouble with that for the foreseeable future.

Trying to source a spare grille so I can have it matched to the body color. I think it will look nicer than the chrome. Will keep the mesh of course. Also debating center cap colors. I had a set of red from my XJR and they looked nice, think green would look OK as well. Nothing wrong with the caps on the car, but a little color will break up the silver car/silver wheels a bit.

 

Have been driving the car to work all week, put about 400 miles on it so far. Drives great on the highway save for a slight vibration when hitting the brakes and just under 70mph. Rear tires are only a year old, but fronts are older. Have good tread, but going to replace them to match the new rears. Ordered new pads, rotors, and fluid today so I can get the braking system to like new conditon. New wipers, hood struts, and cabin filter were installed when I got home today and no issues. Also decided to clean the engine bay a bit. Wish I took a before picture, its quite a transformation.

Also added some red Jaguar center caps that I had lying around. I love them, really breaks up the monotone silver look.

Only 2 issues with the car; 1) Rear sun shade does not work. I can hear the motor click but it doesnt come up. Had my wife hit the switch while I pulled but didn't work. Will mess with it more over the weekend. 2) Rear driver window auto-up function did not work for some reason. Took advice on the forum and did a reset on that window and it works perfectly now! I love easy fixes.

Wife and daughter will be out Saturday afternoon so I plan to give the Jag its first wash, clay bar, polish, and sealer treatment. Can't wait to see how it comes out.

 

I had the sunshade issue on my late, lamented '06 VDP. I inserted broad, strong putty knives at either corner, maybe one in the center and levered it up as the motor was activated. If I recall, the arms that push the shade up are attached at either end and rotate outward from the center to lift the shade. The shade itself is a really handy item to have, and I think there are manual ones in either back door.

Once up, I think I used spray silicone or some other lubricant as best I could got make the track atop the shade slippery and get some onto the pivot points. I found that one way to keep the mechanism from sticking is to regularly exercise it, sort of like our joints as we age!

 

Thanks for the advice Eliot, I will give that a shot. I did try to pull up as my wife hit the button but maybe I wasn't pulling hard enough. The edges came up a good bit but the center would not budge. I definitely want the feature as the sun glare from the rear on my way home from work have bothered me for years.

Not sure if my car has the rear window shades, I didn't notice them but I'll take another look. Mine is not a VDP, so maybe only those received the side shades?

Discovered another issue this morning - I went to fill the car with fuel and the pump would click off every 2-3 seconds. Took me about 10 minutes just to get 10 gallons in the car and I gave up. This happened the other morning as well, but was happening with 2 other cars at the pumps so figured it was a flow rate issues with the station. This morning was another station so thinking there's an issue with the car, either EVAP or vent related. Off to search for the issue on the forum, hopefully its a know and fixable issue. With the weather turning cold I'd rather not take 20 minutes to fill the car.

Overall I am in love with the car. Such presence to it, ride is beautiful, and interior is a very nice place to be.

 

Got the sunshade to work! Just pulled it up a bit harder and now it works perfectly. The rest of the car, not so perfect...

Installed new rotors/pads all around today which fixed the brake shudder. Swapped tires front to rear in hopes it would help with the vibration but it did not, just chaged it a bit. Also threw off the alignment which is odd. While I was under there I looked over the suspension and wow, what a fantastic piece of crap this car is. Yes, I know age plays a factor, but with only 41k miles every single tie rod boot, ball joint boot, sway bar link, and control arm bushing is pretty much shot. Pretty sure I'm going to move on, have no interest in replacing all of those parts just to have them fail within another couple years. I'm actually impressed with how well it rides given the suspension needs a total rebuild.

My other issue (filling with fuel) is most likely the charcoal canister vent or canister itself, and its uinbelievable to me that you need to remove the rear subframe just to service this part that you can't even buy new anymore.

So unfortunately my x350 ownership will be a brief one.

 

we all told you the car would need suspension work..all the translucent ball joint boots were phased out a long time ago they were known bad parts

 

Glad to hear the shade came to its senses. Sorry to hear the underside is in poor condition and you'll have to go through the hassle of getting rid of it. Weird thing about the charcoal canister retrieval. The Brits do have a way of doing bizarre engineering.

 

So are replacment parts better than originals? I have no problem doing the work and have rebuilt many suspensions before, was just shocked to see how bad it was at lower mileage. If replacements will actually hold up maybe I'll give it a shot. My issue is driving 25-30k a year would rather not have to get into this every other year or so. What aftermarket brands are decent as far as replacements go?

The fuel issue is really a bummer. I guess if I'm doing suspension I could drop the rear frame at the same time. Wish I could get a new part, would be shame to do all that work and have a used part fail shortly after.

 

Took the wheels off this morning to swap back into the original locations and take a good look at the suspension. The ride to work today was much, much better with only a hint of steering wheel shake at 65-70, other than that the car is totally smooth. Odd that when the new tires were up front it was awful, but I'll take it.

As far as the suspension, got the big pry bar out and evaluated everything a bit closer. The only parts that seem to need replacement are the rear lateral/toe links, rear sway bar end links, and front tie rods. The boots on the front upper ball joints are gone but the joints are not loose. Lower ball joints look good with no play. Control arm bushings don't have any play either. With that said, what typically causes the steering wheel shake? Seems it would be either tie rods or the front forwrd control arms from my research.

Current plan is to replace the tie rods, front forward banana arms, rear lateral links, rear sway bar end links, and put 2 new tires up front to match the rear. Will obviously get the car re-aligned and see how it goes.

After the car drove better today I realized it would be foolish to sell, was just a bit stressed the other day. Have a lot going on with 6 cars, a 2 year old, busy work schedule, and other hobbies. Think I was a bit paranoid with making the Jag my only daily transportation, but decided to repair my old driver and get a recontructed title so it can be a backup. Without the stress of relying on the Jag 100% it will be much better and won't cost me anything to have the "backup" sitting around.

I do love the car and it runs/drives fantastic with just that little bit of shake between 65-70 that I'm sure I can get rid of. Once that's gone it will be the perfect long distance commuter.

 

1) whew. 2) a 2 year old, work, hobbies and 6 cars? stress? Avoid coffee. Drive Jag.