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They made a ton of changes, doesn't feel like they were given a fair shake, since back in the day all the reviewers made some mention of how the car was really Ford underneath. FWIW, I remember test driving this back when it was new and was impressed by the leather quality on the seats.
The seats, shifter, steering wheel, glovebox door feel/latch tone, plus the handbrake feel are all top notch IMO. The door closure sounds and trunk closure sounds are also very nice, the light controls are also quite decent. The seats, wheel, and shifter are 100% flagship tier
The turn signal, wiper control, sun visors, HVAC controls, center console opening buttons, internal and external door handles, and fuel release/door are all horrible. I'm talking 90s GM level tacky/chincy and extreme lack of confidence in operation. Oh and the fan on setting 3/10 is 2x louder than my LS on max, as are the door locks, wipers, etc....that's totally fine though since it's just a midrange car.
The most egregious offenders are the door handles and fuel door. They literally feel like they will shatter/snap even with how I normally use handles (very carefully/intentionally with no extra force) and just do not inspire confidence at all. The fuel door is PLASTIC. Like why? It's so flappy and uh....cheap plastic. Yeah...
These are all key touch points that are supposed to instill a sense of high quality and confidence every time you use them. Jag didn't seem to understand this and just did what they wanted, as is British fashion. That said, I absolutely love it.
Seriously those are great cars, and the 2.5L Duratec V6 borrowed from Ford are pretty solid engines, but they were known for oil starvation on one side of the engine during hard cornering. When you rebuild that engine, add some baffles to the bottom of the oil pan to stop the oil from sloshing around. This will solve the problem in the future.
Seriously those are great cars, and the 2.5L Duratec V6 borrowed from Ford are pretty solid engines, but they were known for oil starvation on one side of the engine during hard cornering. When you rebuild that engine, add some baffles to the bottom of the oil pan to stop the oil from sloshing around. This will solve the problem in the future.
Originally Posted by mmarshall
Yep, that is a proper Jag interior..... which Jag designers seem to have forgotten about. I was never wild about the J-Gate shift-pattern, though.
Congratulations on finding it. You also got the proper Jag color...British Racing green.
Thanks! Yeah it's certainly the least ford ford car I've ever been around lol, I've also seen many people mention the oil control issue. I'm not certain if it's that or weak rod cap design, I don't think I'll drive it hard enough for it to matter but I'll look into baffles anyway so I don't have to replace the engine a second time. Probably a good idea since I always seem to drive stuff harder than intended....I also have never owned a FWD/transverse car before so it will be a new thing for me. The SUVs we had were all my wife's so I rarely drove them and the ES was a flip.
Thanks MM, that exterior color is IMO the only way to go for a Jag and was a big factor in my decision to try the car out. Normally I'm a metallic silver guy but Jags just look right in BRG or black. I'll actually have more interior pictures in about an hour or so, the rain finally stopped so I've been taking some time today to finish detailing it.
Next step is to take it up to my shop and decide if I'm throwing bearing at the rods or replacing the engine. I have found 5 engines from 85k-110k miles within an hour of me for all under $500 and three at $350 so the main factor now is time/annoyance to me pulling vs throwing bearings at it. I was not expecting engines to be this cheap, they must not have issues too much or people just never fix the cars.
Drivers mat might be past the point of recovery, I'm going to have to try more drastic cleaning tactics
The doors are mostly textured hard plastic, the only "leather" sections are actually vinyl for the armrest/door pull area. The result is you can extremely easily take it from this level of filth to the mostly clean picture above this one in less than 10 min. Perfect for my uses since the four points my knees and arms will touch are all easy to clean and won't be damaged from contaminants. Normally I dislike materials like this but for a work vehicle it's needed since I still want it nice.
That thing is in great condition! The airbag fitment/design looks as bad as I remembered lol. Otherwise seems like a great daily beater! I think I'm going to get a 4th gen LS as a daily beater, but if I can't find one, I might look into one of these.
That thing is in great condition! The airbag fitment/design looks as bad as I remembered lol. Otherwise seems like a great daily beater! I think I'm going to get a 4th gen LS as a daily beater, but if I can't find one, I might look into one of these.
Oh the drivers bag is comically bad, but hey it's a Jaaaag so it's fine lol! Every single one I've seen has been like this.....but thanks man, I'm quite happy with the condition.
A 4th gen LS is a totally different animal, it completely outclasses this to a massive extent and it's also just a larger/better/more reliable car in general. This is more of a "toy" vs the LS, I consider cars like the LS as more serious vehicles/real cars vs mainstream stuff.
Drove itself in......barely. The next morning got the car in the air for the first time to look around, I'm quite surprised how nice it is. Nearly no rust at all, none of the typical rot these can get Not even any real leaks The wetness around the transfer case will come into play later.....
Oh great. Exactly what I wanted to see on a unknown car I just decided to commit my time to an engine replacement. Oh I'm SURE all normal and recommended maintenance was done...... Face off Actually surprisingly easy to access everything, the Jag forums make this car sound like a nightmare
If you take it's face off you can easily service anything that would be considered a "normal" repair extremely quickly.
Easy to prep for removal Same story on this side Engine/trans/driveline ready to drop out Shockingly the car has coolers for EVERYTHING. Power steering, trans, oil even all have dedicated coolers for some reason. I do not exactly see need for this on a low output car of this nature but I guess it's a big plus since you will never have to worry about anything having any chance of shearing from heat. The entire cooler assembly comes out as a unit, again shockingly smart and easy. Also allows access to the compressor and alternator for less than 1.5 hours of overall work....and I've never pulled a front end off one of these before. I'm certain that I could get it to this state in 35-45 min now.
Converter bolts all look untouched.....thankfully. This mid pipe is one of two things that suck about this car, it is hard to remove and extremely tight to access. I wasted a decent amount of time on this stupid part since it decided to burn the studs out and drill it for bolts. "Special tool" for trans support, this car is extremely weird in that the engine and trans only have two mounts total at each end of the power unit and a torque limiting dogbone at the TC. This means you need to somehow support the engine/trans package and have a way to reference their locations for reinstall. Wood works very well since it deforms and can be "locked" back to where you originally had everything on initial removal. Engine side "special tool", yea I know they made a jig for this but I'm not wasting $2000? on one for just this style of strange subframe/engine trans relationship.
AND HERE COMES THE FORD DNA. Freaking body to subframe bolts thread into the typical idiotic ford "oblong slotted nut" nonsense that ALWAYS fails to remain in the slot due to metal distortion or rust. I even let this sit for hours using a killer penetrating oil to try and avoid this. NOPE! I have to suffer though working in the small gap from door to lift pillar to pull all this out and cut the body.
OH I LOVE HAVING TO PULL MY INTERIOR APART. OH LOOK AT THAT! They FREAKING KNEW. Easy access. You can't tell me they didn't know this would be an issue. Please excuse the scan lines, my flashlight is PWM and it plays havoc with sensors in cameras. I can't really solve this unless I use another light but I'm cheap and don't want to use a high end one for shop duty. I had to end up with the 3 ft snap on ratcheting breaker bar instead of the shown config due to the fact I needed to hold it from outside the car and run my impact with the other hand. Same basic concept though.
Now that the idiocy of the body nuts is done with.....up we go, or down? Depends on how you look at it I guess. This car may have a ford engine platform and some chassis influence as well but honestly it's mostly Jag. Nice clean body shell. It got to wait up there for longer than I hoped since I didn't realize most of my time would be consumed by working on prep and service of the new engine and replacing ALL of its seals. Powertrain pod.
Overall it didn't take me more than 5 hours to get this out in total, I then focused entirely on this car to get it done/off the lift the next day.
The major parts I reused, I also transferred the valve covers over among other parts. Basically whatever engine had the best parts I transferred to the new one. Now here is an issue.....the transfer case was nearly empty and full of forbidden glitter. Kill me. This is like 2/3 a cup.....capacity is 1.1L Engineless powertrain. This is insanely unstable without the engine present, was somewhat hard to get everything back exactly where it was when I lowered it but I got it. All mostly back together, I still need to put the radiator pod back.
I'll be finishing the car up Saturday, I'll try and remember to take video of the startup. There will also be plenty more pictures of the old engine carnage and a full report on how the car drives fixed and properly on the road vs from trailer to lift lol!
09-05-22, 04:35 PM
which Jag designers seem to have forgotten about. I was never wild about the J-Gate shift-pattern, though.
