Jagwire S-Type 3.0 Sport Mini Review

It's a Jaguar. What doubts remain about the reliability?

Has to be nightfire red.

IME of my Dad's cars, reliability is very good.

Has sir considered...

Available from £12k upwards - 3.2 V6 at that price though that appears to be a bit glacial. The W12s are awesome depreciators mind you...

Having done some autotrader trawling, the overlap in price between S-types and X-types seems bizarre. About 10K gets a 3.0 2004 X-type or a

4.2 V8 supercharged 2003 S-type R.

Weird.

I can only assume that the cost of tyres, insurance and fuel are what make buyers prefer the X to the S.

It's like anything, I guess - more juicy, higher performance stuff has a more niche market and depreciates quicker, until you get to proper exotica.

It's a completely different comparison, and perhaps a bit of a bollocks one as I'm not talking about cars of the same age, but £15-18k, spent carefully, could buy a quite tidy Lotus Carlton, or it could buy a mid-range brand new Vectra.

Horses for courses.

Actually for depreciation check out Ferrari 612 Scagliatti - £190+ new - available for £80k now...

Wasn't that the one that Jezza took across France that made a farting noise all the way?

Heh yea, but to be fair, that was only a broken wiper caused by a Ferrari mech leaning on it before they got hold of it :-) I read a bit about it online, and apparently it happened literally moments before Clarkson set off from the dealership where he collected it - they reckon it was when the wiper was put down after a final polish. And then, to be fair to the mechanic, that was like 4am hehe!

I have considered them, but the '.2' bit on the documents would be considered 'excessive'.

[Phaeton]

Also even with the massive (and continuing) depreciation, the Phaetons seem hideously over-priced for a f*ck-off big Passat. It's a bit like the 607 IMO. You look at one, and think it's the smaller car (407 or Passat) then clock the badge. Where's the point in that?

Hmmmm, they're not really a f*ck off Passat, more a pikey A8 or Bentley ;-)

The engineering in them is superb, and being the VW flagship, they've made sure they never 'fail to proceed'.... so there is an attraction if you're buying to replace a company car.

But I'm decided, I want an S-Type. Actually, want is a very poor choice of word, I *need* an S-Type ;-) (Things you never thought you'd see me type.....)

Had a sniff around this one yesterday:

Rather lovely, it was, and pretty cheap for a facelift model.

Shame my Passat isn't due back 'till towards the end of October :-(

Plus, they have double glazing and a de-humidifier ffs! That's just awesome. Obviously though, you could only realistically consider the W12

6.0 petrol, or the V10 Diesel.

Isn't that going to rather fist you regarding emissions and mpg? Also, pretty sure you were referring to all Jags as 'tarted up Mondeos' about 2 weeks ago :-)

X-Type diesels are, as you say, tarted up Mondeos. To be more accurate, they're sawn-off tarted up Mondeos. Old Mondeos, too.

Things get a bit more interesting if you get a 2.5 or 3.0 V6 with AWD, but people are still going to take the piss for driving a tarted up Mondeo ;-)

The S-Type is a bit different - early ones were utter s**te, but the facelift 2004 models are very nice indeed.

As for emissions and mpg. Not my problem.

Hmm well, the XJs have dehumidifiers. And one only needs double glazing if the engine makes too much noise of the wrong sort of noise.

Yeh that's true.

Even dedicated Jagnuts.

I'd see a doctor about that ;-)

Yep. A most excellent tarted-up Scorpio ;)

Richard