Hi everyone,

New member here, but have been reading for quite a while on this forum. I'm looking to buy an XJR X308 and need some advice.
The car I am looking at is an XJR X308 from 1998 with 210.000 km on the clock in (hopefully) good condition. It has had 7 previous owners, but all service done is documented and you can decuce that all owners have been looking after it. Plastic tensioners have been replaced in the first year, factory callback for throttlebody, diff and transmission replacement to name a few. Good quality parts were used, even interior detailing work done, bonnet tool kit in excellent condition, etc. It passed it's MOT 3 weeks ago.
I notice that in other countries these cars can be picked up for little to no money, but I have the feeling that prices in the Netherlands are usually higher. For a little context: This car is on sale for 9000 euros and prices in the Netherlands range from 5000 (heavily used with minimal documentation and close to 300k km on it) to 20000 (mint condition with around 140k km).
The thing that has me worried a bit is the rust and was hoping that more experienced people can give their opinion on the severety and if I should be worried for more unseen corrosion. Part of the underbody has a black coating which looks like some form of under-seal treatment, but this can hide other rust shortcomings. Maybe someone knows if the visible rustspots indicate corrosion in certain other places?

There are 2 area's that I can see are affected by corrosion:

1. Behind the front bumper in front of the radiator on the bar that is part of the front subframe (I think). I could only photograph this part, but it is corroded over the entire length.


2. Underneath the sil around the front left jacking point is a squarish hole of approxmatly 5cm and 1.5cm wide. Further in front of that is a soon-to-be hole at the corner of the wheel arch, sorry for the picture not capturing it whole. Such a soon-to-be hole is also present on the front right, also at the corner of the wheel arch and the sil.



The rest of the underside looks as such, which I think is acceptable:


I think you can expect rust on a 24 year old car and I have seen much worse on this forum, but I am unsure if this is something to worry about and how fast this can deterioate further.
Is this a good find or will it cost thousands to get this fixed? Anyone got some advice? Much Appreciated!

 

Your bottom pic is just surface rust from sitting and should be easily taken care of. Amazingly she looks dry, no oil leaks or stains visible.
The rocker panel and front tie in frame on the other hand are of concern.

Now, anything heron is speculation...we can only go with what you show us. But I won't blow sunshine up your tail, I live the aspect of expect the worse, but hope for the best.

The rockers look fixable, but looks can be deceiving once you start the work. It could be built up rust coming from inside out, ,,,the worst and meaning a complete panel replacement generally.
That front tie in frame is borderline saveable and would appear to have to have all the attachment removed to have it replaced, perhaps removed, media blasted (see what's left if savable) and reinstalled. This possibly could mean removing the engine as well.

Now, the next question is, is this work your going to do or have someone do? If your doing it, it could turn into one of those projects that sit in the garage for years, barring your ambition.
If your going to pay someone, then your going to need quotes, not just one, but at least 3. One person may see something the other may not.

Personally, not seeing it myself, I would anticipate a frame off restoration, the most assured way to kill that rust cancer. You have no clue what's under the frame mounts (another item to be replaced) or other covered areas where salt can gather. I also would say this to be the quickest, get it done right, way for your own, and families, safety. You almost assuredly would run into finding things you weren't expecting doing it bit by bit. Then that money pit mentality ensues.
Another thing to take into context is she's an R model. Your dealing with a lot o torque, so I'll forewarn you to keep this in mind.

Now, something you haven't covered, the wiring. With that much rust and corrosion, your exposed wiring (especially ground points), is almost assuredly brittle and has chaffing. So with her being 24, even with non-harsh winter conditions, there would be pause to take.

I don't see this as a home project (unless you own a shop)...and you'll be buying something it may take awhile before you actually drive her. Perhaps you get lucky and its not as bad as I have painted it, you need those quotes to give you better eye sight to this project.
I also recommend looking in the How To section at the top of this forum. There's an older link of other things to look for when buying one of these gals. Plus there are many other helpful posts to consider...from jurid coupling and center bearing replacement, to catalytic converters.

 

@Highhorse gave a great opinion. Mine is much shorter - pay more for a better car with no rust. There's usually a lot more hiding where you can't see. If you can fix this yourself great it could be worth it but if not it will cost a lot more time and aggravation than just buying a better car. It will cost thousands to repair that properly and then it's no longer original so it will be worth less when you need to sell (unless you do a complete frame off resto with repaint which would cost even more putting you further underwater).

I live in an area of the US where rust is common and I've been there done that. I no longer buy rusty cars, never works out in the end. My 87 Buick Grand National was rusty when I bought it back in 2003 and being young I figured, "What's the big deal, it's just a little rust?" After a 3 year restoration and thousands spent years ago to get it right it's worth much less than I have into it.

 

Thank you both for your comments! I think it is good to get the rose-tinted glasses slapped off and get a reality check.
I was able to talk to a jaguar specialist as well and didn't even have to show him the pictures before he said the same things you mention. His advice was also to look for a car without rust and that you should actually only even consider it if you want to do it yourself as a project and know what you get yourself into.
Difficult to turn my back on this specific car, because I fell in love with all the rest of it, but rationally it's for the best. So I'm going to look further, but they are scarce...

 

I can totally understand where your head is at. Especially if there are not a lot of them available where you are. I can promise after the euphoria of getting the car you want wears off, you'd be disappointed once you realized it actually wasn't a good car and it's going to cost you thousands to fix properly or take a loss on selling.

I went through the same thing when I bought my 03 XJR. I ended up overlooking a lot of things because there weren't many for sale at the time and it was cheap. The car didn't have any rust but I had to do a ton of work to the car to get it right. It worked out financially becasue I was able to do everything myself and ended up learning a lot, but I still wouldn't mess with one that was rusty. Getting into rust repair/restoration can deflate the experience quickly.

Good luck in your search, the right car will come along and you'll love it.

 

I am replying to my own post because I have still been looking for an XJR in the past months and I saw this exact car pop up twice more between my first post and now and want to warn any interested buyers who happen to come across this thread or google the licence plate: SR-PZ-39. VIN/Chassis Number: SAJJPALF4CR822905
This car is now up for online auction so I want to warn and inform any interested buyers of the things they cannot see in the pictures!

So this is the third time this car is being offered in 2022, with the listing I talked about in February being the first one at 9000 euros. The second seller asked around 8000 euros for it and since I haven't come across the right car yet and this one being 1000 euros cheaper than the first time I saw it, I was still drawn to it (something about rose-tinted glasses ), but I figuered I would arrange a pre-purchase inspection by a reputable jaguar garage no matter what. So I contacted a Jaguar specialist in the area of the seller to ask if they have any experience with the X308 model, what a pre-purchase inspection entailed and if they could analyse the rust I had seen on it earlier in the year. I told him about what the car looked liked and the shortcomings I had seen, and upon hearing that he asked for the licence plate. I think quite a coincidence, but as he suspected, he knows the exact car I was talking about because he had worked on it for a while up to as short ago as early 2022. And the first thing he said after that was: "stay away from this one." He told me what he thought of that car, which threw me off this particular one for good and I'll give a summary for any interested buyers:

He told me he remembered that exact car because he was unpleasantly surprised about how very dirty (rust wise) the car was when he lifted it up. He gave me the indication (that he gave the owner in early 2022) of how much work was needed in rust treatment: 12.000 euros, but the owner only did 2000 worth of it. The specialist also told me that even if 12.000 were spent on it, it would all be in vain because the rust had seeped into every part of the chassis. At the minimum it needs continuous rust treatment in the years to come in order to contain it reasonably.

This is all apart from the other problems it continued to have, mechanical and electrical. He called it a troublesome car. You might think that it is well maintained because it was brought to a jaguar specialist and maybe has been to jaguar specialists more often in its life and it has quite a stack of maintenance documents, but the specialist thought that the trained eye couldn't match the documented history with the state of the car. He agreed that the car looks pretty good when you walk up to it in real life, but the looks are unfortunately deceiving.

He said he wouldn't even buy it for half of the 8000 euro asking price, before correcting himself and said he wouldn't buy it at all. Maybe for parts, but the price is ridiculous. As pretty much every XJR on sale right now. He told me that sellers think they have an amazing car to sell, don't know about all the work these specific cars need and the cost of it all, so they ask ridiculous prices. Which is a shame, because the cars stand still for months (or more!) waiting for a buyer while deteriorating. Eventually they get stored outside the showrooms and the rust can do its worst. Pretty much every XJR needs some work done on it when you buy them, and you should keep 2-3 thousand euros in mind for that. It's the main reason why this particular specialist doesn't sell these cars anymore: they could either sell a XJR at a reasonable price when it probably still needs work and a buyer will return unsatisfied because they think they bought a trouble free car OR the specialist fixes as much as he can to deliver a good car, but then the cost of that cannot be translated into a price where buyers will buy it and the specialist won't lose money.

Maybe I have forgotten things because I talked to the specialist a few months ago, but as I stated before, i saw this car pop up in an online auction so I wanted to give other jaguar enthusiast a heads-up as quickly as possible.

 

Just took a look at the current listing. Unfortunately as you say that car is currently scrap metal. Maybe decent for parts but that's about it. With all of that rust and high mileage that car wouldn't be worth more than $2k over here in the States. Smart to stay away from that one. Good luck in your search.

 

Yes, Salt Corrosion does serious damage. Luckily, here in the warm climate they do not dump salt on the roads.
See what salt corrosion can do: Watch 30s from 0:50...

 

Rust never sleeps and even when you think it's dead it can resurrect itself.
It is an insidious fact of life that when iron, moisture and oxygen are present,
rust will happen on unprotected surfaces.

In my experience, the rust you see is normally only half of the rust that is there.

 

Yes, exactly Randy. That small amount of rust you see means there is a lot more that you can't see.

 

it’s a great day to not live in the EU or anywhere with actual inspections

 

xalty, I cannot see, where you live... US? You do not have inspections in the US?
The inspections are kind of even more ridiculous here in Australia than in Germany, because in Australia it is every year, in Germany only every 2 years (if they have not changed that in the last 20 years...) It's kind of obvious, why they do that every year in Australia: Extra money for the government. Because every year - apart from the yearly fees of all kind, you also have to pay the government every year AU$68 (for a normal car) registration fee - this is to reimburse the poor fellows behind the desk for their tremendous trouble to lighten my purse for AU$486 for "road tax" EVERY YEAR - and that is on top of an equally high other payment, which I call a "potential to injure other people in traffic tax". Obviously, if they would not force the people to do that nonsense every year, but every two years, this would be less AU$68 for the government every second year, plus the people would save another equal amount for a rego-check in a garage every second year. ...Madness everywhere....

 

The most nastiest rust is what is living under the undercoating so that you can not see it at all untill it is all too late. Unfortunately this is the case with these cars. That "plastic" undercoating film is just that. Visible rust spot here and no rust in sight there unless you grind or cut the coating off.

 

For the record, this car was eventually sold/granted for 4200 euros.

 

About what the engine and tranny are worth.

 

I also come from an area where jags are rare and so they sell for more than other places, and even then the good ones sell quick as soon as they hit a reasonable price. So I might not back away from a little frame rust. Life can be short so drive one when you can. Besides I think if you are looking at 1998-2008 jags you probably aren't looking for daily drivers or a car that you intend to own for 10 years. If it looks good and runs good, then buy it, drive it until it won't pass inspection and then part it out. In the end you might not have paid too much more than if you bought and drove a nissan for 3 years. Not only that but the most expensive repairs on the 308 are the transmission, and the timing chain, you said those were both done - Around me you can get a frame welded (fish plated) for $300 -$400, actually cheaper than a brake job. The price you stated was very high even for my area but if that is all that is available ?? If you are looking for a jag to own and drive for 10+ years I would look for less than 100k for the mileage

 

Rust can be controlled, IF you know it's there and can get to it. The biggest problem with
rust on these cars is, ....you can't always detect where the rust is and/or how extensive the
rust has compromised the parts in question. It is safe to say that in most cases, if you can
see rust in a given area, there is much more of it that you can not see.