jaguar xk8

[rich.]

thanks for the responses chaps! yours is lovely luxo.. how much would he have to pay for a tidy one with resonable milage & history??

[Luxobarge]

thanks for the responses chaps! yours is lovely luxo.. how much would he have to pay for a tidy one with resonable milage & history??

Difficult to say to be honest Rich, I'm not looking to sell so I haven't been tracking prices. I'd have thought a good one would go for £6-8k, but you really need to just have a look at XK8s on Autotrader for a few weeks and see the kind of prices they're advertised for over a period of time, it may be a lot less than that!

Ideally you want one like mine, that's been kept in a garage as a second car, and only gets used for certain types of journeys - I use mine for any kind of long journey, but as I only do such journeys once or twice a month (and sometimes a lot less!) it's really not a "daily" car - I use the Volvo T5 for that!

Cheers

[zipgun]

Original Range Rover, 2 tons , 205 16s for donkeys years.. Looking at my dads Meriva t'other day , piddly 1300 diesel, lightweight car, on...205 sommat 16s too, also probably mega bucks. Do it really need the same contact patch??? And the rubber spec has got to be much better than 40 years ago.

[TerryG]

205X16 until 1994 when they went to 235 without changing the rims (same on the disco). I have put 205s back on mine as 235s make the steering feel heavier. My 2000 2.0 focus has 195s and the 2005 one 225s. I'm sure that manufacturers just fit wide tyres on "normal" cars for people to show off with. I suspect the XK8 needs serious rubber as it has lots of torque so would shred narrow rubber pretty quickly.

[jimmyybob]

One word 'nikasil' you can (i think) check to see if your engine has it. Huge and costly problems when it was first used.

[Luxobarge]

One word 'nikasil' you can (i think) check to see if your engine has it. Huge and costly problems when it was first used.

Indeed - many engines were replaced because of this, and by now the chances are that any nikasil bore problems have been sorted. Also depends on the age of the vehicle, after I think September 2001 they all came with steel bores from the factory anyway. In fact a lot of the problems were solved from Sept 2001 onwards, that's why I chose a car manufactured just after this date....

Nikasil bores degraded due to the high sulphur content of european fuel at the time. Our fuel is now much better, so if you get a nikasil car that runs well and burns no oil, chances are it will continue to do so with no problems. Better to have a steel bore car though, if the engine has been changed then it will have a tag attached low down on the nearside.

Another major problem was timing chain tensioners which were made of plastic and split with amusing consequences. Again, most will have been solved/changed by now, and any post-2001 car will have metal tensioners from the factory.

There are a number of other similar "known problems" but those two are the key ones.

Cheers!

[zipgun]

I've seen upgraded thermostat housing towers made of Aluminium on ebay, i guess the originals were plastic.. good price for the upgrade though http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JAGUAR-XK8-XJ ... _884wt_721