Jaguars

The cars--not the cats. 

The Jaguar's factory warranty is expiring next month, so I took advantage of a coupon for a free vehicle inspection.  I know that their goal is to find things that need doing, and charge you dealer prices, but I figured it was a good way to find out if anything was wrong with the car.  The dealer gets more money for stuff that you pay for, but they still get paid for doing warranty work, so they have an incentive to look it over pretty carefully.

I was not disappointed.  They found a leak at the transfer case, and fixed that under warranty.  (I shudder to think what this would have cost me.)  They also found a recall on the engine control computer, which would have been covered, I'm pretty sure, even out of warranty.

They also found the air filter and cabin filter were both in need of replacement.  This does not surprise me; we live off a dirt road, and air filters don't last very long up here.  The price to replace these two items came to $89--which is a bit much, but I think of it as an incentive for them to make sure that everything that could be done under warranty is done under warranty.  Buying the filters at CarQuest would probably have come to $25 easily, and I don't even know where the cabin filter goes.  My time is now scarce and therefore valuable.

I have been looking at buying an extended warranty for the X-type--but the cost is breathtaking.  I have read that a number of the extended warranty companies really don't like writing contracts for Jaguars or Mercedes now because past experience has been so bad.  The old joke, "The man who wants a Jaguar needs two--one to drive, one to have in the shop" was apparently true.

Yet they are reputed to have dramatically improved in quality after Ford bought Jaguar some years ago.  (That alone should tell you something about Jaguar reputation in the bad old days when you dare not operate two power windows at the same time, without verifying that you had spare fuses--Ford buys you, and your quality goes dramatically up.)  Certainly, this car has been exemplary.  I have had one problem with a seat belt that got stuck, and a keyless remote that failed in roughly 30,000 miles.  That's really not bad.

When I asked for a quote from my credit union's preferred extended warranty vendor, for 36,000 miles, 36 months, with $100 deductible--it was more than $4000.  Jaguar, who presumably knows how reliable their cars are, quoted me $3800.  (That was the cheaper choice; the other one, which I presume would include a chauffeur, was $11,000.)  That's a pile of money, especially when you consider that the Kelly Blue Book on this car is about $11,000.  If I recall correctly, the GM extended warranty we purchased for my wife's TrailBlazer (and which was for more time and miles) was about $1400. 

I am hoping that the absurd price of the extended warranty reflects the fact that most people who buy Jaguars have more money than sense, or have been terrified by the repair bills already.  I confess that there are aspects to the X-type that make me scratch my head.  I have about 20% of the front brake linings left--and the service advisor tells me that I will need to replace the rotors as well.  Apparently, the rotors only last two or three brake linings before they need to be replaced.  Also, unlike GM, there are no wear sensors on the disc brake linings--so you get no warning before they start to gouge the rotors.  (Maybe that's why rotors have to be replaced so often.)  The dealer wants $600 to do front brakes.  Even the Corvette's front brakes were only $350--but then again, I didn't need new rotors.  GM actually does seem to know something about making cars, it appears, at least compared to Jaguar.

It gives me momentary pause, wondering if I should be looking at trading the Jaguar and the Corvette in on something more practical for where I live, such as a Subaru WRX.