The Voices

Old thread but just out of interest the 'J' rating is not the speed rating ! It is 'J' for Jaguar, as in tyres developed specifically for use on Jaguars. Pirelli in particular developed specific tyres for Jaguar for the level of road noise and comfort required by the manufacturer. This is why dealers are often 'more expensive' for what appears to be the same Pirelli tyre you can buy elsewhere, usually the P6000 (as an example) you buy from Kwik Fit will not have the 'J' rating on the sidewall so will not have exactly the same characteristics as the OEM tyre.

The S-Type I purchased recently is fitted with a Parrot MKi9200 kit which I think is very impressive. It consists of a small colour screen attached to a the dashboard, wireless remote control and a control box hidden behind the dashboard. The control box has its own amplifier so uses the cars existing speakers for telephone calls but also bluetooth, USB or SD card playback. I found this a bit strange at first, the cars own headunit and volume control work for radio and CD (and autochanger if fitted) but when the Parrot kit is in use, the cars volume control is inactive and the Parrot remote controls its own volume. The Parrot amp is quoted at 20 watts and sound quality is adequate for music playback. The handsfree bit handles voice activated dialling and downloads your contact list, incoming calls are clearer than the factory bluetooth on my XE ! I don't know how much these cost as it was already on my car, someone told me £200-£250, so not cheap !

Sorry to arrive late for the party, I hadn't spotted the post. As far as I know any of the DVD based nav discs should be interchangeable, but I have only ever swapped X / S / XJ discs between cars. The last XF's to use a disc were the 2011 pre-facelift cars but the XK carried on with the disc based system until it was discontinued last year. Are you sure that the 'genuine' disc is not damaged / unreadable in any way ? Does your original disc work straight away when you put it back in the drive ? I can check with our parts department to see if the part numbers are the same or see if any of the technicians have any experience if it would help.

Usually gains on non-turbo charged cars are small (in comparison to what you can get out of a turbo'd engine) I would be suprised to see 20 BHP+ even with the panel filter, adding uprated exhaust and sports cat would see some gains as well but an expensive option. Would be cheaper to look at swapping the car for a 3.0, extra 40 bhp out of the box ? My guess would be that the remap would just improve 'driveability' improving throttle response and get rid of any flat spots ?

Thanks for the heads up ref the gearbox. The master tech that did the radiator and rear brakes is on a course this week but will be doing a service when he is back, I have considered gearbox oil change (think there is a filter in the plastic gearbox sump tray as well ?)

Always liked the S-Type for some reason, seemed very 'Jaguar' but with (at the time) a modern slant. I am absolutely loving the car so far even with the few problems I have had. Parts prices are reasonable for the type of car it is, I like like having a laugh at what Jaguar want to charge for the bits and then see how much I can beat the price by ! No wonder so many get broken for spares as they get older, the cost of one main dealer repair writes the car off. Very short sighted in my opinion as offering cheaper parts and labour prices on older models would keep the cars in the dealer network and retain the customers.

Hi Peter, Evans Halshaw are part of the 'Pendragon' group who also have the Stratstone Jaguar and Land Rover dealers. My dealership was 'Stratstone' until we were sold about 2 years ago. All of their cars go onto their website and any enquiries are directed to the local dealer (to avoid people being put off if the advert says the car is 200 miles away) They will need to find out where the car is located, it could be anywhere as they have about 200 (!) dealers in total. What spec is your son looking for, I might have something ! On the subject of the S-type............................ I remain upbeat, I like to mess about with cars as long as my daily transport is not compromised. Sourced a replacement used headlamp today from a chap based near the Trafford centre, he breaks S-Types for parts and has three shipping containers full of bits. Sound guy with 100% feedback on Ebay, £50 seemed reasonable, the lamp unit lenses were in pretty good shape and none of the adjusters were broken. I replaced the lamp unit when I got home, another straightforward job and all is now working fine. Ordered the repair kit on Ebay (the one with stainless steel inserts) and split the old lamp unit ready for fitting, at least then I have a spare that I can swap back over or sell. The drivers wing has some minor rust bubbles starting, spoke to the painter we use at work for 'smart' repairs and he said he could paint it but rust would probably come back in six months. May just keep an eye out for a 'sound' used wing in the right colour, I don't fancy £280+ VAT + paint and fit for a new one !

I decided that after working as a Jaguar salesman for the last 13 years that I should actually own one at some point ! The company provide me with a new Jaguar as my company car and change it every few months due to the mileage I travel to and from work, my weekend toy is a Subaru Impreza and my wife has an old Saab 9-5 that she likes because of the heated seats and auto gearbox. The plan was to purchase a nice trade in S-Type from work to replace the Saab but unfortunately company politics got in the way. My fallback was to then look for a suitable car either privately or from a used car dealer. Initially the criteria were fairly flexible, 2002 onwards to get the 6 speed auto, 3.0 V6 preferred but consider a 2.5 or even the 4.2 V8, budget of up to £2k. To say that the search was 'an experience' would be an understatement ! I was not expecting perfection for £2k but did expect people to be honest when I was traveling some distance to view cars. The motor trade has a bad reputation, I thought that the 'bad old days' were gone but sadly not ! Before traveling to view cars I called to ask a few basic questions to avoid wasting anyones time, any warning lights showing ? climate control working as it should ? oil or water leaks ? corrosion ? details of service history? In some cases I went out of my way to mention that I was 'in the trade' so an honest description would not necessarily scare me off like a 'retail' buyer. I covered hundreds of miles on my week off to look a various cars, here are some great examples of what I encountered: One 159,000 mile 2002 3.0 Sport from Autotrader was using pictures taken when the last owner purchased it 2 years ago, car had been stood since the MOT expired in May, boot full of water, flat battery, engine management light on and bonnet would hardly open due to previous front end damage. The car was priced towards the top end of the budget and was advertised with full history, I called a day in advance to ask about the car and the day I was coming over. The trader assured me that there were no issues with the car. When I pointed out that the car in no way met his description and showed him why the bonnet would not open he said 'sorry I had not seen the damage !' Asked if any movement on price, bearing in mind that half of the advertised extras did not work (power fold, rear blind, 6 disc CD player missing) and the service history was 'patchy' his response was 'no that is the bottom line' ! Another one that required a 250 mile round trip had the climate control issue with hot air out of the outer vents and cold from the inners, trader had been driving the car himself and 'just closed the vents' to solve the problem (I had asked specifically about whether the car had this issue) Rear bumper had been replaced and stood out like a sore thumb, just had a poor 'blow over' in the correct colour with the previous Zircon blue showing through in places. Advertised as a 'Sport Plus' which was the 2003 'run out' model with extras prior to the 2004 face-lift, guess what ? It wasn't a Sport plus so no extras ! Some of the private sellers are just as bad, went to view a 79,000 mile 2002 described as fantastic condition and priced accordingly. When I got there it had oil and coolant leak (owner said I thought having to put water in every couple of days was normal on an old car !) Bodywork looked like it had been polished with a breeze block, not even had a quick wash and vac to help sell the car. Owner said it has been for sale for a while, I said 'I wonder why ?' Finally purchased a 2003 '53' 2.5 Sport from a trader who described the car honestly, he had taken the Jag in part exchange car and sold it me as 'spares or repair' to avoid any misunderstandings. The ownership experience has been 'challenging' to say the least. Drove the car back home (120 miles) and all fine, then started getting low coolant warnings over the next few days. Checked the coolant sensor and looked for leaks on the hoses and header tank but no sign of anything and the invoices showed a new header tank and heater valve less than 15k miles ago. Turned out to be a collapsed radiator which luckily only let go close to home and didn't loose all the coolant. That required recovery to our dealership so that I could get the radiator replaced. Jaguar price for the new radiator was approximately £330+ VAT (less a bit of employee discount) but thought that was extortionate ! Instead I sourced one from 'Fast Rads' http://www.fastrads.co.uk/partfinder/?id=1&vrm=YH53HZX They listed three versions but the suitable one for my car came to about £139 including VAT, optional 2 year guarantee and next day delivery, which I thought was fantastic value. On a note of caution, I found lots of cheaper ones online which said they were suitable for auto or manual but did not have the necessary oil cooler connections that the automatic gearbox requires ! The part arrived as promised and one of the master technicians fitted it for me at 'mates rates', everything seems fine so far ! At the same time he cleaned and freed off the rear calipers as they were sticking on the sliding pins, new rear pads were £14 so another cheap fix. The passenger side headlight has a problem, the aim adjuster has broken allowing the interior lenses to flop about, I have tried the 'screw through the plastic' fix but probably need to source a used headlight ASAP. My plan will be to then purchase the uprated adjuster repair kit from Ebay and use the headlight I have removed as an experiment to see if I can fix it ? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2712860021...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT The addition of cruise control was a piece of cake, used the guide I found on here and purchased a steering wheel with controls already fitted for £50. Two torx screws and a 21mm bolt later and we have cruise and audio controls working with no reprogramming needed, happy days ! Still need to sort out the minor corrosion on the drivers wing, may just try to source a good used one in the right colour (this is on a budget after all !) The fuel gauge has a mind of its own so will need to look at that, the test mode for the gauges makes the needle do a full sweep so I need to find out if the sender units in the tank are faulty.

Hi Peter and thanks for the welcome ! Already have some queries for our master techs when I am back in work, seems to be losing a bit of coolant and fuel guage has a mind of its own. Service bills show that it had the header tank and climate control valve replaced within the last three years and no obvious signs of coolant leak ? Ah................ The joys of motoring !

Having worked as a salesman at a Jaguar dealer since 2002, I decided it might be time to actually own one ! Just purchased a 2003 S-Type 2.5 Sport auto in platinum silver / warm charcoal. I was selling these when they were new and always liked the S-Type. The 'R' would be my ideal choice but I have a Subaru habbit to support as well !