Refently I’ve been hunting for a spare XJ as my series I is still a work in progress and my current daily ‘97 x300 is getting up there in miles (174k miles) and I thought it’d be wise to have a backup. I’ve found two cars that’ve peaked my interest
1) A 2000 x308 XJ8 in pearl seafrost with 80k miles and a freshly rebuilt transmission with an “A drum upgrade”, (I dunno what that means if I’m honest)
2) A 2000 x308 XJR black on black with 82k miles
Both are in real nice shape all alround so that’s not exactly as much as the issue of are these catastrophically worse than an x300? If I understand there were issues with the transmissions, some sort of a cylinder lining, and a tensioner pulley however I was told at some point the ladder two were sorted after the 98/99 years and were not really a problem for the 00-03’s. I understand the potential issues of an “old” luxury saloon and I’m not expecting red-block Volvo reliability by ANY means, just curious how much worse they might be than my x300.
When people complain about European cars’ reliability I say “if you’re afraid of the wolves don’t walk in the woods”. So I guess I’m asking how scary exactly are the wolves?

 

XJ8's get the zf transmissions with the known A drum failure, XJR's get the more reliable Mercedes gearbox. Though it sounds like the seller of the XJ8 has tackled that problem already, and it shouldn't reoccur. The Nikasil lining is basically a non-issue if the car is working now and has good compression, since high-sulfur fuel was phased out over a decade ago. Replacing the timing tensioners and guides preemptively will prevent the issue from happening in the future.

It's hard to say how much better or worse one will be; from what I've heard the two generations are reasonably similar durability-wise, with more variance caused by the owner maintenance, conditions, and luck, than x300 vs x308, but I'll defer to those who have owned both.

 

Oh alright, I didn’t realise that it was the fuel that caused the cylinder lining issue, that’s pretty encouraging actually. Thank you much!

 

can you access the service records of both cars? Both should have later 3rd gen tensioners, new water pumps and cooling parts. Transmission should be a wash (as #2 noted, MB box in the R was better, but the NA unit has been upgraded). So it comes down to price, tires, battery, shocks, brakes and interior condition. I would Walk away from one that has been smoked in.

 

Just to echo the above, it sounds like they're pretty much a wash depending on what you like. Granted, the R will give you a little more go pedal fun, but it also is Black, so unless you like the challenge of keeping it clean and swirl-free, that might be something to consider. I love black, don't get me wrong. But if you're looking for something that doesn't show every speck of dust, dirt, and swirl mark on a daily basis...

 

I'm partial to the XJR's for their added zestfulness (Jeremy Clarkson's term, not mine) and either could have other issues specific to their past owners that might make them a better choice than the other. Aside from the tensioners cooling system hoses seem to come up as regular issues on these older cars and the XJR hides this issue under the supercharger which makes that situation a little harder to deal with. I did test drive an XJ8 before buying our XJR and was very impressed with the cloud like smoothness of the ride. The XJR is a little harsh over bumps, although I did notice when I had 4 full grown Americans inside it seemed more cloud-like...

 

Yes. Nuff Said.

 

OK here's my 2 cents worth, though it's more like £2000 worth.

I was considering an XJR, though IN the end my brother convinced me to get a Daimler Super V8. I got a 2000 model which was Nikasil but after the high sulphur fuel.

Drove very well, was at 111K miles. Anyway, turned out to have a blown head gasket which rapidly got worse. Took it to mechanics for fixing and he called to say compression was rubbish and I should replace the motor. Hence the £2000.

I did quite a bit of reading before I bought. Many people said avoid Nikasil without giving examples of failure in post 2000 cars and many people said Nikasil is a non-issue if the car was new after the fuel issue.

One bit of advice you've got, which is good, is ' The Nikasil lining is basically a non-issue if the car is working now and has good compression'.

Make sure you get a compression test. The mechanic said that the throttle bodies essentially allow fuel down into the cylinders at switch-off, and over 17 years and all sorts of fuel types the Nikasil liners just get corroded, from even just the low sulphur levels in fuel.

So my advice is that if it has good compression, get it. If you don't want to bother with a compression test then get one with a steel-linered engine.

 

The third generation metal tensioners, which is what you want, weren’t installed by the factory until model year 2003. If it’s an earlier car, you should verify the tensioners have been upgraded to metal. If they haven’t, you should have them replaced.

 

I would get the seafoam one those are rare and will be a cool car to take to shows but the xjr is always a good choice

 

Well I ended up going with the Seafrost XJ8, took my x300 to east Chicago to go and get it about a month ago and only was pulled over once driving back to Cincinnati Ohio with no plates. So far so good (knock on wood) and I’ve put nearly 1500 effortless miles on her and finally got down to a good detail yesterday. A week into ownership I took some photos of her, since these were taken I’ve removed the plastic headlight covers that seem to collect mud and dirt more than anything else (has anyone ever seen these plastic headlight covers before, I can’t even find photos of them on google images...).