So, having been working from home since March and the company I work for informing us that we'll be continuing to do so for at least the next 12 months, I decided I could no longer justify paying £250 a month for a car on HP which spent more of its life on the drive than on the road. After selling the car for £1,000 more than I owed on the finance, I decided to see if I could go back to my old habits of finding a bargain banger.

After trawling Facebook Marketplace for a few days I bought a 2004 BMW X3 for £1,000 on the nose, which I immediately hated, so, back on Facebook I went where I spotted an advert for a 2005 Jaguar XJ6 3.0 Sovereign with about a month's MOT and 180,000 miles up for £1,995. At the bottom of the advert though was the magic term "Swap or PX welcome", so after a quick message and a socially distanced meet up to inspect each others cars where after a small test drive he immediately proclaimed he'd be happy to swap, smelling something fishy, but disliking the X3 so much, I was now the proud owner of a bargain basement Jag for (effectively) a grand.

I put it in for an MOT almost immediately where it proceeded to predictably fail, although only on a corroded brake pipe and a knackered rear calliper. So £160 (and 2 bloody weeks) later it had a fresh ticket and I was ready to do my best Arthur Daily impression.

I've done just shy of 800 miles in it so far and touch wood (and there's a rather large amount of it to touch) it's been spot on. Being a Sovereign it has the Alpine sound system, sat nav, xenons, heated front and rear seats, electric everything and was specced with the larger 19" wheels. It also came with both keys and a stack of history, including a folder with dozens of invoices for everything from screen wash to a gearbox and diff service in 2018.

Condition wise it really is nice, the wheels are good, there is almost no aluminium corrosion (just a small amount where the rear window meets the lower scuttle) and everything works. The steering wheel was dyed black as I'm assuming the original beige had worn away, but other than that it wears its 180,000 miles well.

As with any car that's a bit too cheap, I'm still waiting for something to go bang, but so far it's really gone over my expectations.

Currently my plans are to give it a full service next week, I've ordered a mesh grill to replace the slats and weather permitting I'm going to go over it with a machine polisher tomorrow.

 

Welcome to the forums Steve,

Your post was automatically locked for moderation because it has all the features of a FOR SALE advertisement! I've unlocked it now.

Graham

 

Looks very nice and you will love it!

 

Great find for you, congratulations

 

Looks like a nice example. Good to know they can hit that kind of mileage and still run nice.
Good luck with it.

 

Very cool! Sovereign is a nice package as well. I got a great deal on an 05 xj8 with similar mileage. 177,000 right now. My main issues have been my air suspension, and servicing all the fluids including transmission. I want to put BC Racing coilovers on it.
hows your engine and transmission? Also how’s the internal electronics? Mine are good but a couple issues are when I go into reverse the mirrors tilt down but switching back to drive they don’t tilt back up. Driver door panel switch for one of the windows only makes it go down not up. A bulb is burned out behind the green lit area for radio station. anything you got to work on for yours?

Have a good day!

 

Provided it is maintained correctly, you should see 250k miles fairly easily. These cars were built to last, but there are a number of maintenance issues that will crop up, like suspension bushes. Also check your fuel tank securing straps as these are notoriousl prone to rust. I believe somebody is doing stainless steel ones on the aftermarket. Inevitably you're going to have to replace things like wheel bearings, and probably the air suspension compressor.