https://bringatrailer.com/listing/20...r-convertible/

no affiliation

 

These cars don't rust in warm dry climates. Shame I live in the UK.

 

my 2002 XKR lived in New Jersey, Connecticut, Montana, and lastly Iowa before I got ahold of it 5 and a half years ago. Now it’s spending most of the time in Oklahoma with numerous cross country jaunts . Lots of bad weather, including ice storms, snow, hail, and of course, torrential thunderstorms.


I do have some surface rust on the exhaust manifolds, but nowhere else. Even the mufflers are the originals, and still rust free.

Being a daily driver I have to expose the car to whatever nature and the highway departments throw at it. I do give the entire car a good rinsing off after bad weather, with special attention given to the undercarriage. A lesson I learned when living on the beach. Salt air would quickly rust out cars that were not frequently rinsed off, especially underneath.

so far so good. 181,000 total miles. It looks like the body will outlast the electronics….

Z

 

In the UK every car I have seen is rusting, silly, wheel arches mostly and the floorpans. But most of the year it's damp and muddy and for a couple of months the roads are salty. It doesn't help that Jaguar did a poor design with the rear wheel arches where there are vents that like to collect water and debris inside the rear wings. Whenever I get the rust fixed on my car I'm going to request that they weld those vents shut. Mine is getting up to 80k miles and is probably in much worse conditin that you're with 180k miles.I daily drive mine as well .

 

that’s just depressing.


Z

 

I was meant to say sills not silly but it is silly as well.

 

There's definitely bad weather in parts of the US too... but I don't see the same kind of corrosion problems here...I'm sure it's all part of the British agenda to make cars and motoring as unpleasant and expensive an experience as possible and keep the peasants on public transport!

 

In Norway we have salty roads in some areas and damp conditions in others. But it looks like we are much more into rust proofing than most other countries. Maybe the reason is that cars are so expensive that we have to make them last as long as possible? My 2000 XKR came from California in 2020 and has close to zero rust. It is not a daily driver, it is in storage for the winter and I do not use it in rain either. So hopefully it will last forever...............
That 2003 looks very tempting, but the shipping cost ruins it for me.

 

I had the same issue in my 2005 XK8 at 87,000 miles: very high pucker factor resulted when making sweeping turns at high speeds due the wallow. Turned out to be worn inner and outer tie rods. Changing out the tie rods on both sides and then getting a front end alignment totally eliminated the issue and restored my confidence.

Simple to check: with the car in park and at least one wheel scotched, jack each front wheel (at a time) off the ground and see if there is horizontal play while flexing each wheel (holding at the "3" and "9" o'clock positions). Have a friend rock the wheel(s) back and forth while you watch underneath for moving parts...