When Jaguar first came out with the 2000 Jaguar S-Type ("just a little history repeating" was their theme song in advertising) my wife fell in love with the car. In 2001 we sold her Saab 900S and bought a new 2001 S-Type. She absolutely loved the car and over the past 19 years put 173,000 miles on it. The car still looked great, but 19 years of New England winters with its associated salt took a terrible toll on the frame and other engine parts. Although I have to say, in terms of reliability that car would give any Lexus a run for its money. I have absolutely no complaints.

I remember the day we got it home and I was poking around the engine compartment trying to find the transmission dipstick. I finally gave up and consulted the owner's manual. Lo and behold it was a sealed transmission. It was the first time I had heard of a "sealed transmission". It was also one of the first cars with a built in navigation system. It was a tiny 4" screen and ran off of a CD in the trunk. If you think some of the modern built-in navs are cumbersome, you wouldn't believe how slow this system was to use, but it was state of the art back then!

We sold it yesterday to a gentleman who likes to work on cars and restore them. Today is the first day without seeing it there in the driveway and it is kind of sad. Even though it was my wife's car, I was the one who always took care of it.

 

Glad you and your wife enjoyed it for so many years. It's easy to become attached to some vehicles. As far as having the reliability of a typical Lexus product, that is unusual (but not unheard of) in a Jaguar. I share your frustration with sealed automatic transmissions.....I'm a firm believer in keeping transmission fluid changed, although it is becoming harder and harder to do so today, in not only that transmission, but many others as well. I suspect the manufacturers do that for couple of reasons......cheaper and simpler to produce (no drain holes/drain-plugs/dipsticks), and it prevents the re-filling of the transmission with the wrong-spec fluid or the wrong level of fluid.

The same platform that produced the Jaguar S-class, BTW, also gave us the highly-rated Lincoln LS sedan (Ford owned Jaguar at the time), but the LS, of course, lacked the elegance inside and out that Jaguar did.

 

I'm having a very hard time believing a 2000 Jaguar was reliable as a Lexus. That Jag ranks at the bottom of the list, while the Lexus ranks at the top. I am sure there is more to the story.

 

I have bought two Jaguars in the past few years. Both reliable. Neither has ever left me stranded. But my 2010 Rx450h did, as did my 2016 RX350.

 

sounds like he got a lemon!

 

well seems like you at least got good use out of it... to me that will always be the car that clarkson used to try to set a sub 10 min lap of the nurburgring in, ironically it broke down in the middle of a lap lol

 

well now i'm curious how that happened, and not totally surprised given current toyota

 

There's no doubt that Lexus are statistically more reliable than Jaguars but that just means that, while there are tens of thousands of satisfied Jaguar owners, there are just more satisfied Lexus owners. The reliable Jaguar is not some sort of elusive unicorn.

 

Just to be clear, in talking about reliability I was referring only to our particular car. By no means would I compare all S-Types to Lexus for reliability.

Before we purchased the car I was on a now defunct website dedicated to the S-Type. The 2000 models, particularly the V8's, were having many problems. I actually tried to talk my wife out of the car, but she was having none of it. Fortunately I think they corrected a lot on the 2001 models, plus we had a V6 which didn't have some of the problems the V8 had.

And I will say this, my LS with 6 fewer years on it has severely delaminated wheels and peeling drip moldings. No such problems with her car. It literally does look newer/better than mine.

 

Well, yes, there is more to the story. Every brand has both lemons and unusually reliable vehicles in its midst. The reliability ratings we see from well-known organizations like J.D. Power and Consumer Reports are done from the average responses of many thousands of vehicle-owners. Nospinzone (fortunately) had one of those Jaguars that did not come off the assembly line a lemon.

 

That's a long time to keep a car. Sounds like it served you well.

Did you replace it with something else?

 

The S-Type was also sold as the Lincoln LS, and was very reliable. The X-Type was also sold as the Ford Mondeo/Contour, and was not.

Never owned a Jaguar, but our 2007 RX350 left us stranded three times.

 

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.

Just like a Lexus could be a lemon, a Jag could be bulletproof. I wouldn't try and replicate that result.

 

The quality of Lexus wheels is very poor. I had all mine replaced under warranty on both my Lexus. They last 2 years before they start to bubble and corrode - if you're lucky. My dealership ended up running out of replacement wheels as they were doing so many. Mechanically, Lexus are generally good but the wheels and bodywork trim is all cheap stuff.

 

I was Jaguar's Press Fleet manager 2000-20003 so I had to test drive them before lending to automotive journalists. I liked the look of the S-type & loved driving the S-Type R. I would deliver Jag's to Mike O'Driscoll the President, we got on splendly & I became his Chauffeur around L.A. when he went back to England I quit that job & bought a 1999 XJR with 100k miles. Sold it with 141,K miles because it had some blowby from the engine. My wife still misses it !