Ever since I got the Jag, I've had a very stupid idea in my head: a long road trip, a circuit of the USA.

If certain things line up, I (along with a buddy) will be doing it this summer. In the current draft of the itinerary, the trip is approximately 9300 miles.

The car is a daily driver right now, but will need a lot of work to be worthy of the trip. Some of it I won't have time to do myself since I still have classes and will have to send it off to my mechanic (who will likely think I'm an idiot - and he'd be right). I'm starting this thread in the hopes that it will keep me honest in my preparation and that any benevolent souls might drop some words of wisdom along the way.

Yes, I plan to bring lots of tools and a fine assortment of spare parts.

 

My wife and I did a road trip 2 years ago. Left St, John's Nfld , drove all over eastern Canada and the US , went as far west as FT. Eerie Ont. and Ft. Wayne Indiana in the US .....about 5700miles in one month. Used no oil , no coolant , had a perfect trip. On long runs at 70mph on the highways I got better mpg than my Hyundai Elantra . You should have a great trip

 

Reminds me of a trip like that I did when I was much younger. Wow, get ready for life long memories my friend. We stopped at as many National Parks as possible.
Took Route 80 out west (may be time for you to look into a Golden Eagle pass - 1 price lifetime entry free at all National Parks), visited Yellowstone (no words do it justice), continued to mt Rushmore (boring - skip it), continued west and went north to Crater Lake National Park(one of the most beautiful places in the world. Imagine the bluest sky you've ever seen - Crater Lake is much much blue(er) than that!), South through Sequoia National Park (day trip, glad I saw it but. . .).

We then decided to take Death Valley National Park to Lake Tahoe. Boy was that dumb. Imagine boring scenery for the trip, you can't turn the air conditioner on for fear of overheating, opening the window is akin to sitting there while someone blows a hot hair dryer on high in your face. . ..

Returned eastward leg after going through Utah, Zion National Park (by now you've taken a thousand photos. You'll take 10,000 more in this Park alone), Bryce National Park (no words. You've just gotta see it. It can be a day trip, but well worth it). As I recall Grand Canyon National Park north rim is just hours from there. Here's where you may think to yourself "yeah, a Canyon, big deal". Wrong!! Believe me you cannot picture the size of it. Mind bogglingly beautiful.

Yes I know there's zero room for camping gear in your ride. I think we were driving a 1970s Bonneville:-). But almost any of these beauties is worth a day trip on the way (except Death Valley or Mt Rushmore), but be careful- you'll want to come back for more!

BTW on the 1 in a million chance you've never heard of it, check out Trip Ticks from AAA. You tell them where you want to drive, what you want to see, and they print out a small booklet f maps with your route outlined. It even included speed trap warnings: SPEED LIMIT HEAVILY ENFORCED!

Whether you're a photographer or not, bring a camera, trust me. You're gonna see sights that will blow your mind.

John

 

Barry - I was actually looking back on your thread about that before I posted! Man you got some great gas mileage. Unfortunately, with the 5-speed ZF, I can't get mileage close to that. But I hope to be trouble free. Did you have any issues driving on 19" wheels? I'm wondering if I should run the 20" montreals with summer tires (much better for pictures and grip) or the 17" revolvers with all-seasons (worse all around, but easier to deal with if I get a flat, and less likely to get damaged). Regardless, it was trips like yours (and Rev Sam's) that planted the seed, I think.

John - Man, you've got me excited for this trip. Thanks for the warning about Death Valley. One of my friends was like "Oh you could go to Death Valley" and I was like "it's gonna be way, way too hot for the car and for me". We do plan to bring about as much camping gear as we can fit. We'll have to get creative for sure. But I'm sure we'll make it work. We're gonna have to camp a bunch, or else we'll be flat broke in no time. And, I actually had not heard of Trip Ticks (I guess they call it TripTiks now?), so that is a very, very helpful tip!

 

Well, if you are driving through Florida's southeast coast (Boca Raton) then shoot me a pm to meet for a beer!

 

Ah man, I don't think we're gonna get closer to Florida than New Orleans. I would have loved to see (and hear) your car...

I'll post a tentative itinerary at some point here, I think.

 

Good for you.

That's exactly what a Jaguar is for.

Graham

 

One last thought regarding camping. Don't let the camp ground full sign deter you. I never met a single camper who wasn't happy to share their spot for a night. Lead with a beer:-)
John

 

I did the same sort of trip (NY-->CA-->NY) with about 30 stops in between, after graduating. I only had one stop for repairs (my mom's old Oldsmobile) in S. Dakota (brakes) and swapped out the serpentine belt at the same time.
Try to plot out a few places to hit as goalposts (as others have said, try to hit as many national parks as possible), but make sure you stop for weird things like roadside stuff, hikes, and cool random sights. Gonna be tight quarters in the jag, but y​​ou're going to have a blast!

 

^^^^^^^ this !!!


I’ve driven many cars that were nowhere’s as comfortable as an XK on very long trips. It’s a great experience, especially if you plan to get off the interstate highways and actually see some of America that the I-highways diminish.


one of my greatest road trips was done with zero preparation and it has turned out to be a highlight of my life. Don’t over prep. You will never be able to anticipate all the ups and downs, so just experience them and deal with what the road gives you. That is the essence of adventure.

My example:

In the mid 1970's a pal and I flew down to Santiago Chile. We were going to hitchhike up the Pan American highway as far as goes (Panama), then fly back home. We got sidetracked for a while when we went to go further down south to Valparaíso, but after a week we had made it back to Santiago and were on our way north.

We hadn't gone more than 50 miles before we were cooling our heels outside a petrol station waiting for another good ride. The guy that ran the station started talking to us and eventually showed us a clapped out HiPo Mustang (K code) coupe he had. I don't remember if it was a '65 or '66. This thing was beat to hell. The hood and the doors were held shut with loops of baling wire, every body panel was a different color, & had evidence of a serious collision, damage that was just repaired by beating it back into the approximate shape it was originally. No paint or bondo was used to repair any of the damages. The roof looked like some family of goats used it for mountain climbing exercise, it had little dual dents all over it which looked like hoof prints to me.



The only good thing about the car was the engine. It sounded strong, and the clutch didn't slip. The steering was still pretty good as were the shocks, I think they were newish. So like fools we bought the thing for the equivalent of $400 +/-.

What a blast that was to drive. My pal scored some dried magic mushrooms, so he was no help driving. I appointed him trip navigator and he did pretty well at that, only getting us lost not more than 4 times daily.

The Pan American Highway goes all the way up the Andes from Chile to Colombia. It deadended before Panama back then, think that’s called the Darien Gap, there’s a ferry service there I believe, but we sold the car before we got to the north part of Colombia.

in the 1970's the Pan-Am Highway was more of a idea than a real highway. It's still described that way today. There were gaps in the paved parts for no reason that I could tell, maybe they just ran out of money in places. The gravel and dirt parts were numerous and long as well. But the car drifted great on gravel (as most of you might guess), and we thought life couldn't get any better.

Amazingly we had no mechanical breakdowns, even though the car was 10+ years old, and had been thrashed to inch of its life before we got a hold of it. We did have about 30 flat tires. The car ran GREAT regardless of the elevation. Power was down a little at the elevations over 6,000 feet, but we were continually focused on not sliding off a cliff on one side of the road, or driving into the mountain on the other side. So what did we care about a little power loss ? There were numerous regions over 9,000-10,000 feet elevation. So many times we were well over 10,000 feet above sea level. We did adjust the idle mixture and idle speed on occasion but that's it. We didn't have any spare parts like carburetor jets anyway. Just pliers, a couple of screwdrivers, and tire changing tools.

One rainy night I ran over a farmers burro, and brother, was that farmer mad, justifiably so. Our Spanish sucked, and the guy put about 20 machete slices in the fenders and trunk while he chased me around the car swinging that thing. Ford sheet metal is no match for a good machete. Finally we got it across that we'd pay him for 2 burros, and he calmed way down.

Except for that incident, the people we met along the way were wonderful to us. We hardly bought a single meal. People we never saw before would take us into their homes, sometimes very basic even primitive accommodations, and yet fix us a meal that a king would enjoy. Everyone wanted to know about us and why we were crazy enough to be driving the length of South America. I think they were pretty sure we were going to get ourselves killed, because they all kept telling us "vaya con dios" over and over.

Aside from the memories, I still have a few souvenirs; a rough emerald still in the matrix it was formed in, probably about 80 carets in weight. I got that in the Muzo mining area of Colombia. Also a photo I took of Machu Picchu in Peru. We did detour quite a bit, all told the trip was well over 4,000 miles.

It never occurred to us to photograph the car (it was a pretty sad sight), or much of anything else like people do constantly these days, we were focused on the here and now, not posterity

Anyway, road trips of all kinds should be experienced as often as possible. No one can anticipate what is around the next bend in the road, so go ahead and find out for yourself.


Z

 

I have the 19" Apollo wheels and love them. Never had any issues. Assuming the final drive ratio is the same , I would think that you should get similar mpg on a long run with cruise engaged.

This never fails to amuse me
I head out of town and the trip computer shows a range of under 400km. I get on the highway and increase speed to 110kph. As I am driving the trip computer shows my range increasing as I cover distance. It has gone up up to 675km before starting to drop back again as I use fuel I understand why it happens but it's still great

 

zray....what a story. I hope I can tell one as good at the end of this. I swear, your legend only increases.

and Barry, thanks for chiming in. Not sure on the final drive, I just know I've never gotten mpgs that good...maybe driver error on my part. And good to know on the Apollos. I've done multiple trips to and from Philly on the 20" montreals without issue, and those roads can be....bad. So maybe I'll run them on the road trip.

My co-pilot and I are in the meantime exploring ways to fund the trip. One of my friend's parents has a lemon of an Audi A4 that needs some work, and his mechanic is taking him for a ride ($1000 for an oil pan gasket!). Maybe I'll tutor a bit too. My initial calculations have us spending around $2500 each, and I'm a grad student and he's a teacher.

 

If it runs ok, has good tires and brakes, and none of the red lights are flashing on the dash, just go. Take it easy along the way and enjoy the views. in the event it needs service along the way, throw up the flag and the forum can probably alert you to a reliable local mechanic. Part of the adventure.

 

Good to know that (after solving the problems) that Jag's can go the distance. Sounds like fun. Right now, I'm just trying to make mine drivable!

 

We bought ours in Texas just before a planned vacation in California... couldn't find a shipper who would meet our schedule, so we flew down from Montana and took a road trip across the southwest to Santa Barbara and up the coast through Oregon from there. Cut over to Spokane, where we had it serviced at the Jag dealer, and then down into Montana. About 4000 miles...no real issues.

We did all hotel stays, no camping. With the top up, so that you can pile items high in that minuscule rear "seat" and also place some items behind it, you'd be surprised how much luggage you can stuff into an XK8... I had one bag, the other half had, well....it was a very full XK8. Of course, the downside is that we had to empty it all into the hotel room every time we wanted to cruise a segment of road top down, which meant that those cruises were limited to local round-trips. There's nothing like the pacific coast highway top down, however.

My random bits of advice, which may not apply to your situation, and just for what it's worth:

Wear sunscreen for the open-top cruises. Thirty years from now, you'll be very glad you did. If your XK8 is worthy of preservation, you may wish to use a seat cover to protect the leather.

Whatever you've budgeted, make sure that if necessary, you can access an equal amount above that.

If your cell phone is one of the recent models with a great camera built in, you probably won't need a camera per se - but you will take lots of pictures! The selfies will be great, but the pics that you will remember years from now will be of the incredible landscapes, not those of yourself.

The two-lanes we took in Texas suck - not much recent investment in infrastructure, apparently. Had to pay for an alignment after Texas. Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Southeastern California were under-maintained, but not that bad. If you go through Texas, however, stick to the interstates. We were on 19s with Michelins, and experienced no tire issues despite the Texas roads... the tires held up, but the alignment didn't.

If you hit the Rockies, especially the pacific northwest Rockies, in any month but July and August, be prepared for the possibility of snow (OK, so it does snow in Montana in July and August, also, but it's very rare). All season tires may be a good call.

If you've never been to the West, map out your distances with care. Things can be a lot farther apart than what you're used to... give yourself enough time to enjoy the trip. For a sense of scale, place the northwest corner of Montana on Chicago, and the southeast corner would be in Chesapeake Bay. Yellowstone (partly in Montana) and Glacier (all in Montana) parks are a 10 hour drive apart, even though our speed limits are generally 70mph on 2-lane and 80 on interstate. That doesn't count time driving inside those parks...Yellowstone is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

And finally, take the trip! yes, there may be brief moments during the trip that you regret that decision, but that will pass; for the rest of your life you'll never regret it.

 

Ok my vision for driving my Jag convertible (from Sacramento) was short trips. Napa (wine). Drive down PCH starting in the Bay Area. Given the many problems I've read about, didn't even consider a serious road trip. We've been to all the western states but in a bullet proof Honda Pilot. Serious distance in a Jag? Really? Galen, notice you've got a 2005. Spokane dealer service was routine? Anyone else that's done something like this, what year did you drive? Have my 2000 but so far, no real miles. Tensioners issue for one. Oh man, looking at 2006 convertible tmrw........

 

As with any car, it'll probably be fine if you've taken good care of it and are proactive about stuff that might come up. Back before covid hit, I daily drove the jag - which means, I used it for my work commute, which was about 3-4 hours per day. It was fine. But I've had all the preventative maintenance done, and I try to stay vigilant about the car's health (as I do with my family's cars). For what it's worth, I often get oil analyses done just to make sure there aren't any imminent issues (such as rod bearings) cropping up. To me it's cheap peace of mind.

I know Reverend Sam took an epic trip in his 2004 a while back. I think that was 10,000 miles or something? Obviously Barry's done his. Other people I'm sure have done long trips in their X100s. It's what I enjoy doing the most in this car, and as grand tourers, one could argue it's what they're explicitly built for.

 

There's nothing better than a road trip. My first car was a 1957 XK-140 roadster that I bought in pieces for $250. With zero mechanical experience and very little knowledge, I did a valve job, repaired the wiring, rebuilt the carbs, etc. The factory shop manual in those days was an extraordinary book. It taught this novice so much that I put the car together and drove it for the next 8 years with practically no additional work needed. It was a glorious trip up hwy. 1 from L.A. to San Fransciso, another to Kings Canyon, and many out to the desert for rockhounding and pure pleasure.
Just do the logical maintenance work and look the car over thoroughly for any obvious issues. If you have the money, take it to a reputable independent Jaguar mechanic (no generics) and have him or her look it over, as well.. Do what is needed, then take off and have an adventure. I've never really been let down by any of my Jaguars in the last 54 years, and that is because I just try to be conscientious and never abuse them or any other vehicles.
I could tell you some fun road-trip stories, but this post is way too long already.
Best of fun on your trip!

 

I disagree - your post is not too long and you should absolutely tell your road trip stories. (btw, we will be passing through tucson, hopefully I'll get a run in at Mt. Lemmon)

 

Well, you sure have the right car for such an odyssey! We bought our 2006 convertible while we lived in Boise, ID., because we were driving regularly between Sonoma CA and Boise, and because anywhere you want to go from Boise will put you on hundreds of miles of fast, well-maintained desert highway (sometime try the stretch between Winnemucca NV and Boise -- set the cruise control to 85 or 90, keep an eye out for the very polite and cordial Nevada patrol, and enjoy the desert vistas). I had never really had a true feel for the idea of a "Grand Touring" care, but out there, it clicked into place. Fast, comfortable and safe up US 95 --- you leave Winnemucca and drive about 40 miles to the top of Blue Mountain Pass, around 4,000 feet. For the next 300 or so miles, you drive straight north as far as the eye can see, and when you get to that point, you look ahead as far as you can see and drive to that point, again and again. It sounds boring, but it's not -- it's stone beautiful. Then, a little while after you cross the border into Oregon, US 95 makes a 90 degree right turn. Now, instead of traveling through the basin-and-range country along the long axes of the valleys, you start driving up to the top of the ridges, then down, often crossing a stream . The road kinks up here, and there are a lot of curves where you're pushing it at 65 mph. There are a lot of trucks, and enough opportunity to pass them that you can carry a hellacious pace. After you cross the Owyhee River (named for an unfortunate party of Hawaiian trappers who disappeared out there in the 19th century) the road really knots up and climbs, until you suddenly face the entire Snake River Valley in southwestern Idaho -- a vista worth stopping and looking at. You're also looking at the only stretch of bad road, as US 95 descends in a hurry about 3,000 feet to the valley floor. There are heaves in the pavement that can launch a car, but the Jag just flies on.

You can climb out of the Jaguar after such a 6 or 7 hour stretch and not feel like you've been pounded, because you haven't. The only downside to the car is that there's not a lot of room for snacks and drinks -- the cup holders are crap, pure 1997 Taurus, but you can make do. We really envy what you are doing, and it will cement your love for the car firmly into place.