I now have two XJ6s...

[Chris V]

Well, after all the trials and tribulations with the black '86 XJ6 we got from my father in law, we went out and looked for what was originally supposed be a parts car. What we drove home was considerably more than that, and now the old black XJ6 is going to be the parts car for our "new" cream '86 XJ6.



This car is in much better physical condition than the black one with no undercarriage rust, and only a dime sized rust bubble in the original paint on the rear fenderwell just at the bottom of the rear pass. door. There are a couple small dents, but nothing important. It hasn't had a stakedown kit (which we had just installed in the black car!) so one will be installed to make sure it lives a long happy life.



When we went to look at it (saw it on Ebay in New Hope, PA, with a "Buy It Now" price of $1800) the guys at the dealership said it wouldn't start without a jump, and wouldn't stay running without the jumper box connected. Said there was something wrong with the charging system.. Hmm. Price was dropping. It did run smooth when the box was on it, but instantly died when the battery jump box was disconnected. Sounds familiar, though, and I quickly got under it, and pulled the little brown wire at the back of the alternator off and put it back on, wiggled it a round a bit. Started it again, and this time, when the jump box was removed, it stayed idling perfectly. In fact, it never had a hiccup from that moment, through the test drive, and all the way home to Baltimore, and the charging system works fine.

It needs the carrier bearing on the driveshaft, so I'm going to swap out the one off the black car, which is in good shape.

The A/C doesn't work (neither does the black car's, NOR the AC in the other '86 XJ6 on the dealer's lot...) Other than that, however, it drove great coming home, getting 20 mpg on cruise control, riding excellent, and all in all behaving quite well.



Best part. Total price, on the road... $1300.00. It's making me relike Jags... After spending so much time working on the black one, I knew pretty much what to look out for when we went looking at this one. There are a lot of things I can accept in a $1300 car, and this one does have a couple little problems (like lack of A/C and the small dents). But I was surprised at what good condition it is in overall. I'm ordering the stakedown kit for it today, so that it won't have happen what happened to the black one (a valve tappet guide rose up hitting the camshaft) and I'll start swapping all the new and nearly new parts I bought for the black one over shortly, too.

[csieminski]

Well that car looks really great--I'm amazed how good the paint looks, at least in the pictures. For $1300, seems like a steal! I'm really more of a BMW/German car fan and want to get an early '90's 5- or 7-Series pretty soon (I had an '86 528e, same year as your Jag). I've always been enamored with Jaguars though, but I'm scared by the reliability issues. I want to get a '95 because I love that new body style, but could probably only afford a '94 or earlier.

You seem to have a lot of experience with Jags; do you know anything about the reliability of the '88-'94 generation? I've put up with BMW reliability (not that bad, actually) and expensive parts, but I figure Jaguars are even more finicky and expensive.