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Finally, never buy a Jag without having it checked out by an official Jaguar mechanic. The firm conclusion that I've come to, after buying way too many cars and authoring the exhaustive british-cars used-cars-buyers-checklist, is that the most important thing is to pay the bucks to have a real Jaguar mechanic spend an hour carefully checking the car out. Your Jaguar mechanic will know to look for things that a regular mechanic simply won't be aware of. "I've seen "nice" cars at the upper level in price with bondo for bodies, seats recovered with vinyl, chopped carpets and headliners, inane modifications (vinyl roofs, chevy V8's, fender flares and mag wheels, positive to negative ground conversions to install massive stereo systems), massively jury-rigged electrical systems, wrong radiators, heads, badges, sheet metal, all of which could be cost-prohibitive to restore. Since they've always been relatively inexpensive, its easy to find cars that have been given only enough maintenance to get by - seals, gaskets, grommets, bushings, pressure connections worn nearly to the point of failure but not quite, electrical systems jury-rigged in lots of strange places doing lots of strange things (like choke switches bypassing the auxilliary starting carb), wire wheel splines worn to virtually nothing, rear suspension attachment rust and component failure leading to the famous MK2 rear-end squat, auto trannys kept from leaking by fluid the consistency of molasses (change it and it will be on the floor the next day), missing or broken pieces by the gross that were not worth the effort to keep up (clutch master cylinder filler cap, wheel spats, owners manual and literature, tool kits, spare wire wheel, fuse box cover, oil bath air cleaner, radiator shroud, battery tie-down), rust (potentially everywhere, from corrosion in the thermostat housing to heater pipe failure to the body itself). And of course the kicker to all this is that parts can be difficult or impossible to find, expensive when they are found, reproductions, when available, may be cheaper than NOS, but poorly made and ill fitting, and the list goes on and on. But oh my god do I love them! Lovely to look at, lovely to drive, fun to own (if you get a good one!)." (patrick fitzhorn patrick@longs.lance.colostate.edu) Have your mechanic _really_ drive it and check the performance, gearbox, drivetrain, handling and body sway. Have them do a compression test. Have them put it on a lift and check for leaks (steering, engine, trans), accident repairs, rust or previous owner kludges. If any trouble is found, you can either adjust the price accordingly or pass on the car. If it checks out OK, you've just bought yourself some peace of mind. Either way, it's a win. On to: After you buy Back to Saloon Lovers |
                           
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