New member advice....

Its always a difficult one finding experienced old school type car servicing and repair garages TODAY you can trust to work on cars of this generation ,even though ive worked in the motor trade all my life i struggled early on to find someone competant i could TRUST to do work on my older generation XJS car!,

my own experiences down the last 24 years of owning an xjs have led me to believe NOT to seek out so called "Jaguar specialists" i found the majority of these that i tried had little more experience than the average car repair mechanic but charged substantially more for their labour time because of the word "specialist"

my advice would be to seek out an older established buisness more along the lines of the traditional

"Motor Engineer's garage" rather than a general modern day car repair workshop, or jaguar specialist ,these mechanics are still around and many gained their working experience on older generation cars like these and are familiar with the workings of the 70's designed motor car the xjs i would include in this

something id recommend anyone to do whoose just bought one of these cars is to have a full service carried out ,most old Jaguar cars usually have a pile of old service invoices etc with them .closer examination can sometimes reveal that not much regular service work has been carried out in recent years also ! all be it the car has a "pile of bills" with it many of those can go back decades !, seldom are their recent paper trails and dare i say it? a good number of former keepers ran the cars at weekends in the summer and spent little on it that was my own experience, their is definately a reluctance for some former keepers to fully regular service older cars that sit in the garage more than they are out on the roads," lumpiness" and poor running issues is usually down to this, the car sits in a garage more than its out on the road it DOESENT do them any good !

i would suggest you BOTTOM IT from a service point of view then you KNOW where you are starting from

you can put together your own service kit upfront for a garage to fit for you .and present that to a reputable motor engineer style local garage !

the best thing you can do for the car is give it a damm good service BEFORE you start using it that on its own should take car of any lumpy, poor running issues, the V12 is a bullitt proof motor refreshed it will serve you well ! ive owned one 24 years now! im also a BIG fan of using original "period" grades of MINERAL oils and lubricants the manufacturer recommened for it when new,

these you will find in the owners manual for all these models ,period style oils and lubricants are still avaiabe today ,if it were me id be changing the engine oil and filter ,changing both air filters, and fitting a set of 12 new spark plugs ,flushing out the coolant for brand new, and having the braking system checked regarding disc and pad wear, if the brake fluid is decades old thats certainly worth changing for NEW also ,along with re-charging and inspecting the air conditioning system again something former keepers neglect to do the gas in the air con system doesent last long ! in short going through it methodically from a service point of view is a GOOD THING to do ,you then know exactly were you are starting from regarding future servicing ,oil changes etc i wouldent trust to what a former keeper said he did with it , kind regards Glenn