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Retro-fitting Bluetooth phone on the later model S-Types is a bit of a nightmare. Conventional wisdom has it that the BTUM socket, under the arm-rest storage bin will have eight wires if Bluetooth enabled or five wires otherwise has shown itself to be less than accurate recently. I've found several cars that have eight wires but they go to the wrong terminals in the BUTM connector and when traced back seem to bear no correlation at all to the available wiring diagrams. It can be done, but involves either running extra wiring from the boot to the BTUM socket or completely re-wiring a BTUM socket into the phone wiring in the boot. However, there is a much easier way and it relies on the combined Bluetooth / phone module fitted to very few of the last ever S-Types and also later X-Type models. The photograph illustrates the module you need and also shows the microphone (internal one shown here but external and arguably better one is available) and the Bluetooth aerial, complete with Fakra Z type connector which fits the module's aerial connector perfectly and can be had from fleabay for roughly a fiver. Ball park prices on fleabay, for example, would suggest that the components required to do the retro-fit the old way would cost £200. The newer combined module plus the aerial can be had for under £100 so, half the cost and a much easier fit. In addition, the later module allows the touchscreen to display signal strength and phone service supplier as well as allowing up to six different phones to be paired, unlike the earlier setup which allows only one pairing at a time. installation of the module is on the back of the Kaiser panel in the boot, which is directly behind the DVD, CDC, AMP stack. The module is a little smaller than the original so can either be bolted in to place with one bolt, or you could drill the Kaiser panel to secure it with four bolts. In my view, a sufficiently tightened single bolt will do the job. Then all that is required is to plug in the connector which will already be in the loom, make a D2B (fibre optic loop) connection, and plug in the aerial. The aerial is not for the phone's connection to the outside world, it merely serves for the Bluetooth wireless link and as such, it will work perfectly well if located under the parcel shelf or just behind the rear seats. There is no requirement to get it into the arm-rest storage cavity. It can be completely concealed. Initial pairing is the same procedure as for the earlier setup, except that it seems to pair a lot more quickly, gives you a real-time signal strength, directly from the phone, and also tells you the phone service provider. Well, that's the basics. It took Steve Foxton and I something in the region of thirty minutes to install his Bluetooth setup, start to finish, today. Albeit that the microphone was already installed for Jaguar Voice, but even allowing time for the microphone to be fitted it should be doable in less than an hour I'd say. This has to be one of the simplest retro-fits yet, and it works brilliantly.

Hi Guys, Thanks for the membership. I have been given a 2001 XJ8 (possibly Executive) 4.0. The good news is that I got given the car for nothing but the bad is that it hasn't turned a wheel in anger in 4 years. I'm trying to suss out what the car is worth in good useable condition before I commit to spending the £3-£4k it's going to cost in mechanical work and bodywork. Any advice would be much appreciated. Cheers Bob

Just bought 2018 XE R-Sport 18k hoping for some friendly chat and I will help when I can