I was contacted by a younger work friend whose girlfriend’s Dad has passed and wanted to know if I wanted check it out to see if I was interested in buying it. He has a 80’s something Jaguar XJS. Only info I was given was that it’s a manual with 120k miles. No idea on motor...my guess is the I6. Any pros or cons with this car? What do I need to look out for? Funny thing is, they wanted me to move the car for them since neither can drive a manual. LOL. I know there is someone on here that owns some but the name escapes me at the moment.
Robbie
UltimaDork
3/9/19 9:01 a.m.
Manual would be rare and i6 only, unless someone has swapped something into a v12.
Frenchyd is who you are looking for.
Try to find out what year it is. If it's new enough to have the later AJ6 engine instead of the older XK engine, the I6 is a pretty solid engine (although not super powerful). A later 80s XJS will be significantly more reliable than an older one, especially without some of the (fixable) V12 quirks to deal with.
If it's actually an 80s car it'll have the 1st gen Jag IRS with the inboard brakes. The XJS didn't get the second gen IRS with outboard brakes until the facelift in 91 (XJ6 got it in 88 with the XJ40 chassis).
Talked to the daughter. The title says 1985. She said the car runs but won’t move anymore.
At least it has a title.
85 is new enough that it'll be a 3.6 liter AJ6 engine. Not sure how the electronics are at that point in the 80s though.
In reply to Sine_Qua_Non :
Well only a few JaguarXJS came with a Manual almost all of them are in England. The factory 4 speed manual was only made in 1975& most were sold in 1976.
Later about 1991 or so the inline 6 got a 5 speed manual option. Two were privately shipped to America.
Some owners paid to swap the automatic for a manual but the parts and labor can cost about $10,000. Some of those didn’t get very far because some bell housings were improperly machined resulting in the transmission being shoved hard into the crankshaft which ruined the engine.
1975-1980 there aren’t a lot of those around. Early days of the fuel injection system and getting parts for them is difficult. In addition some years production was down to around 1,000 cars for global sales! Because of that unless the car is well documented and runs nicely with no rust and decent paint you have maybe $1000 , I’ve bought them for about 1/2 of that in non running shape.
1981-1990 is the so called HE. Basically it was modified to meet California’s pollution laws ( at least 1/4 of total Jaguar Production winds up in California) it does get better gas mileage. And slightly more powerful. Condition and records are everything. Nice running shape one of these will sell between $3500-10,000 depending on condition with the convertible selling towards the high end.
1991-1996 is redesigned. Well trim is changed the basic shape remains. The good part is the Factory made some convertibles. The engine (6.0) got 1/4 longer stroke and made another 25 horsepower. After 1992 Quality started improving dramatically with the infusion of Ford’s money.
Right condition right mileage right color prices can easily exceed $10,000 with the V12 commanding a premium and the convertible at the highest. Here you will find a lot of flippers asking silly prices well above market but lacking the total restoration that would command those premiums.
The new 4 valve all aluminum 4.0 DOHC in line 6 made nearly the same horsepower as the V12 but saved almost 400 pounds.
@Frenchyd, it’s an 1985. Anyway to tell if it’s orginal or that it got converted from auto to manual.
Would the car have a manufacture plate in it somewhere?
Stick shift Jaguar XJS? Stop asking silly questions and buy it already!
1988RedT2 said:
Stick shift Jaguar XJS? Stop asking silly questions and buy it already!
I would but they don’t have a price in mind and they are currently referencing eBay market prices.
Sine_Qua_Non said:
Buy the car already. Wait a minute. Aren’t you in the Greenville area. hehehehehe.
FWIW, The Driven Man in Cookeville TN (link ) would be happy to sell someone a 5- or 6-speed conversion for their Jaguar, and the shifter on the website looks a lot like that, uh, heavy-duty one in the photo.
Sine_Qua_Non said:
1988RedT2 said:
Stick shift Jaguar XJS? Stop asking silly questions and buy it already!
I would but they don’t have a price in mind and they are currently referencing eBay market prices.
Thats usually something i dont like to hear because most people jump to the conclusion that they are sitting on a gold mine.
Having said that id probably buy a stick with the i6 cheap almost always
Come up with a price you want to pay for a TOTALLY unknown project car and throw it down.
Worst they can say is no. Then if they’re asking unreasonable money due to EBay inflation and consequently its still for sale next year, buy it for less than your current offer.
rslifkin said:
Try to find out what year it is. If it's new enough to have the later AJ6 engine instead of the older XK engine, the I6 is a pretty solid engine (although not super powerful). A later 80s XJS will be significantly more reliable than an older one, especially without some of the (fixable) V12 quirks to deal with.
If it's actually an 80s car it'll have the 1st gen Jag IRS with the inboard brakes. The XJS didn't get the second gen IRS with outboard brakes until the facelift in 91 (XJ6 got it in 88 with the XJ40 chassis).
The factory never put the XK engine in the XJS it was the V12 until they put the AJ6 engine in it.
Sine_Qua_Non said:
@Frenchyd, it’s an 1985. Anyway to tell if it’s orginal or that it got converted from auto to manual.
Would the car have a manufacture plate in it somewhere?
It’s a conversion. The parts alone run over $7000 add labor and you are up near $10,000.
If it won’t move and it’s the clutch it’s still going to cost north of $2500 to have somebody remove and replace the clutch. Not an easy task at all.
Sine_Qua_Non said:
1988RedT2 said:
Stick shift Jaguar XJS? Stop asking silly questions and buy it already!
I would but they don’t have a price in mind and they are currently referencing eBay market prices.
This regularly happens to the Jaguar market. One that is really worth a premium sells and sets the mark for every flipper wanna be.
This from the wiki:
Between 1983 and 1987 the six-cylinder-engined cars were only available with a five-speed manual transmission (Getrag 265)
Edit: This page includes a VIN decoder, which should settle the issue regarding conversion or factory"
http://www.jag-lovers.org/books/xj-s/01-TheXJS.html
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I may be wrong but to the best of my recollection no 3.6 engines were imported by the factory to the US and only 4.0 were imported with automatics. The sole exception were the two imported privately.
frenchyd said:
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I may be wrong but to the best of my recollection no 3.6 engines were imported by the factory to the US and only 4.0 were imported with automatics. The sole exception were the two imported privately.
Hmm, by that logic could this car be a V12 manual conversion? Otherwise someone would have had to swap the I6 in along with the trans (provided it's not an import).
Is it possible that it could be a 350 Chevy engine with a T5 transmission? I know there are a lot of Jags with small block Chevy engines.
In reply to rslifkin :
Yes that is most likely that they switched the automatic for a manual transmission. Extremely unlikely they would have removed the V12 to replace it with the six.
