An amusing article about buying used luxury cars..

https://jalopnik.com/5-things-no-one...-ca-1582610274

 

Its elementary logic. A $80k car still cost more than $80k to repair/replace part by part, even if you bought it for $500.
They would never sell a new car again if any used car was as good as new 10 years later.
A used car is only a bargain for those who know how to get work done on them reasonably...
If they did not then a used car will be waaay more expensive than a new car.
The more exotic the car is the more experienced in car repair a person has to be.

In a way depreciation is a way of paying you in advance for future repairs.
You are not going to own a $80k car for $3k. There is no such free lunch.
Those who think there is are the ones surprised.

 

I had a free lunch just yesterday!

 

A neighbour has a 2015 Lexus something or other (XF sized) hybrid. During 2018, I have seen it leave the street four times on a transporter.

Our current "unreliable" suoercharged Jag V8s however, have not only never failed to get us where we wanted to go, sometimes over 1,000 miles without stopping except for fuel and calls of nature, without ever missing a beat, but in more than 200,000 miles, have required nothing beyond consumables, a door latch, and a water pump.

 

Don't fall for Lexus' "relentless pursuit of perfection" marketing hype like I did - it's total BS. Truth is that my LS460 was the most unreliable car I ever owned.

I bought my 2007 LS460 brand new in 12/2007 with most options, $72K MSRP, got a good deal at the end of the model year (or so I thought ). Beautiful car, but...
1. Dashboard rattling. R&R dashboard, replaced clips at base of windshield with slightly thicker ones under warranty.
2. Excessive wind noise. Replaced F&R, R&L single-pane glass with double-pane glass under warranty. Better, but still noisy when windy outside. Tried to fix 3 times, finally gave up and lived with that minor annoyance.
3. Defective engine valve recall. 48 valves replaced under warranty. Less than 15K miles when done.
4. Defective fuel rail safety recall, fire hazard. Aluminum rail replaced with stainless steel rail under warranty.
5. Driver's side view mirror stopped folding. Out of warranty cost to replace $950. No thanks.
6. Airbag warning light, intermittent at 35K miles. Safety hazard because when light comes on the airbags are disabled. Dealer diagnosed bad wiring harness under dash, initially refused to cover under warranty because 4 years and 9 months old but relented because I had also previously bought a new RX350 for my wife from them. Dealer said they'd pay for the parts ($2,400) if I'd pay for the labor. Charged me for 18 hours labor at discounted rate of $90/hr., $1,620 that I paid with my AmEx. Shortly thereafter, I got the TSB on that "non-recall" that called for repair time of 7 hours. I informed the General Manager that unless I received their refund check for over billing me 11 hours ($990) within 24 hours they would leave me no choice but to dispute that charge with AmEx and pursue my legal remedies. They FedEx'd their check to me the next day. Shortly thereafter, I traded that POS460 for my CPO 2013 XJ SC and am glad I did. No Takata airbags for me. And no more unscrupulous, dishonest Lexus dealer for me, ever again.

I probably forgot to mention a few other problems. The airbag defect and dishonest dealer (from whom I bought 3 Lexus vehicles) was the last straw. Toyota and Lexus will never get another penny from me.

Packard's old ads got it right when they said "Ask the man who owns one."

 

Over years I owned multiple Mercedes, BMW, Honda, multiple Subaru, Infiniti and now Jaguar cars. Out of these, none were trouble free. However, degree of problems varied.

My BMW (before Bangle years) narrowly predated Nikasil engine issues, but it always had problems with idle, AC, front suspension, and various electrical components. In a decade I owned that car, I replaced windshield wiper motor 4 times, repaired various stepper motors on heating/cooling box more than a dozen times, and had to rebuild AC system every other year. I would define that car as very clearly unreliable, but it never stranded me, just inconvenienced me a lot. So I kept it for a long time, by the time I gave it up it had over 400,000km (my road warrior years) all on original block and transmission that was rebuilt only once. I calculated that it cost me about $250/mo in repairs and just put that money aside into a separate account. I would still be driving that car if not for rust that despite my efforts to mitigate made it look unpresentable.

My Subaru cars are mixed bag. Forester I had keep having headgasket failures. It could have easily cooked the engine if I weren't vigilant about it. Impreza I have now would have third engine overhaul under warranty. First one was rings that was fixed by replacing shortblock, shortly they will be doing engine-out valve springs recall. While these issues are unforgivably bad engine engineering on Subaru's part, in all other aspects Subaru was extremely reliable.

Infiniti FX35 I had, by no means reliable car or brand, was almost trouble free. Dash shrinkage had them put in a new dash, but that was about it. However, I know this is not typical Infiniti ownership. I would have kept it forever, but it was totaled. I did not buy another one, as I knew my car was an outlier.

My Honda wasn't trouble free either. Fuse box melting, pedal assembly, bad welds that caused clicks going over bumps. First three years while under warranty it was abysmally bad. After that, only oil changes.

---

You can have good experiences with unreliable brand and bad experiences with reliable brand. Buying a Jaguar, used or otherwise, does not necessary means you are singing up for trouble, but you should be prepared for the eventuality that your car isn't going to beat the odds.

 

Equally unfortunately, regulations have a lot to do with that - Ian Callum reckons the rear of the car is now the only area where they really have design freedom.

 

Mechanically, all cars have become exponentially more reliable now. And more than they need to be.
Mankind has become lazier, dumber and more demanding. You wont believe how many cars get towed for a flat battery.

But cars have become disposable. My friends Lincoln Navigator in showroom condition, blew all its airbags without reason. Ford discontinued the airbag ecu, cant use a used one. They sent him a huge check for the car and told him to keep it.

 

By North American standards of not even knowing where the battery is, that would be one of the least reliable luxury cars ever made.
Luxury is defined as freedom from battery inconveniences. Jaguar makes particularly bad batteries. And brakes, they have never had to change brakes in their Toyota.

 

 

It is strange to think about this in terms of Jaguar vs. non-Jaguar issue. Any issue with OEM part is a Jaguar issue, as they designed or sourced the part. For example, if Jaguar puts square wheels on a car, would you also blame wheel manufacturer?

 

I'm not sure I understand that (as sentences apparently in English).

If an owner pays to have a luxury car maintained by a dealer (at quite large cost) I suppose they don't need to know much at all, other than how to pay etc.

A dealer looking after the car would change the battery and do whatever's needed with the brakes. Makes it irrelevant really as to what Jaguar fitted so long as the dealer does whatever is needed.

I'm struggling to see the relevance to the rest of the thread but maybe it's because I can't really understand what you wrote...

 

 

 

Its part of efficient manufacturing, the shape you want would require a greater 3d volume of the die system that makes the rear quarter panel.

The X150 was an exercise in cutting the cost of manufacturing a car with aluminum.

Picture a plane passing through the panel in a position such that from a straight piece of metal the final shape is created. The smaller the volume, the closer to that plane, the less intensive the work of the machine to make it. The stroke needed will be shorter, the time spent will be less.

Each of the body panels of the car works to minimize the volume of manufacturing.

 

It was a bit cryptic and entirely tongue in cheek...

Start over.
Those proficient with car repair would never consider consumables reliability issues.
Those with means would think nothing of letting the dealer sort it out.

Now what's changed is that we live in an age where peeling boiled eggs is considered and inconvenience. (They are now sold peeled, believe it or not)
And dealers are charging heart-stopping astronomical prices for trivial things.
Add those two facts up and one can see we are moving in opposite directions which leaves the public more dissatisfied than they should be and unfairly calling a car unreliable.

This example explains it best. In USA would you believe JLR was sued for failing batteries, in a $5million class action lawsuit no less.
All allegations were disproven by JLR. But you can see what lead the plaintiffs to that point.
1. They did not understand how batteries work.
2. The dealer was not about to teach them- they rather repeatedly replace batteries at $400 a shot
3. Consumers with spry lawyers conjured up or genuinely believed that there must be an engineering flaw with JLR
This is what made them lose the case- they were unable to cite what that engineering flaw might be.

Just like we have seen folks here speak of inferior British engineering and not be able to cite what that is.
For instance if I claim the discontinued Honda S2000 has inferior engineering, (which is no reflection upon the great engineers of Japan) I can unambiguously state that the 1liter of oil consumption per month is bad engineering because it erroneously assumes 100% of the public will be that diligent.

 

I have been reading this post with interest since I first posted in another thread about having my car towed to a dealer for a battery issue. This thread popped up within a couple of days and it has been most enlightening. First I don't know anyone who does not like reliability in the products that they purchase. Right from the start many people who responded mixed up their metaphors and examples of their positions. There were only a couple of post that actually tried to bring in empirical facts that would support their arguments. Most were testimonies about their own experiences, which were great but not always relevant. So I went looking for evidence that specifically talked about automotive reliability and Jaguars in particular as compared to their competition. As I stated in a previous thread here, marketing is a way to combat the negative and build the positive reputation that a brand might be building. Porsche is always talking about their racing heritage (past as well as present). People kind of expect that maintenance might be more costly on sports/race cars and that the people that own them tend to go faster and stress out the parts/components on them. Americans love their Corvettes because they are a high-performance bargain when compared to the Euros. You get similar performance at 1/2 the price. Jaguar is battling all that and more. they are trying to prove they are a UK luxury brand and a high-po brand at the same time. When a manufacturer sets up a factory in another country it is because they can do it cheaper by building there, not because their engineering is better or different. There are lots of well done products that were improved upon by someone else's reengineering, you know the better mouse trap. The reason you build your factory some where else could be labor, tariff, taxes, etc, so let's not confuse that issue. Also we are talking about production sports cars, not race cars. Now being a production car might mean that for homologation as few as 500 units might be made each year. It is much harder to make 500k that have the same amount of defects as a %. These are all measurable things and there are some businesses that examine and study them. If one car brand breaks down more than another it is said to be less reliable. The rep for being labeled unreliable can last much longer and be harder to fix than the actual reliability it self. Here is a link that I found which compares apples to apple in reliability: https://www.osv.ltd.uk/manufacturers-reliability/. Also don't forget to open each brand up where it explains how they go their findings. They talk about three or four different reliability studies.

Depreciation is another animal altogether and reliability might be a component of that.

 

Basically you want your XKR to be at the top of the food chain, and you want Jags to be seen as reliable,
you want British Industry to be the best, and the jokes in regards to British blunders to be halted immediately. Your XKR is going to be as desireable or more later in life. If you want it to retain monetary value due to its brilliant design, reasonable handling, power output, and simply because its the car you chose. You’re not alone. I too want these things. But wanting is not enough. You own a car made by a marque that has suffered a bit from its bad reputation, accept it, and focus on your 5.0 being a lesson to those who doubted your choices. When I bought a Lotus everyone thought it was dumb. Whenever I showed up with it, everyone thought it was smart. So dont be sad about the bad rep. Its why British stuff is expensive, and a statement of luxury here in the US. The idea of it needing expensive repairs only helps it have a dark mysterious aura about it that only the wealthy or stupid are able to jump into head first. Its you and me against the world baby! Plus the other 254 forum members who have single handedly made JLR a multimillion dollar business.

 

 

Thanks for clarifying. (Things - such as the law suit - are worse than I feared.)