Considering a clean, one-owner 2006 XType with 53k miles. Job change and will be commuting 100 miles round trip five days a week. Looking for a comfortable driver with some style, as this would be my primary car. How will this model hold up under highway miles? Any information (first hand owners) would be appreciated! Thanks
The words “Reliability” and “Jaguar” usually do not appear on the same page…Parts support for the low production engine has been spotty…Good Luck…
It’s basically a glorified Ford Mondeo. Reliability by Jaguar standards are good, reliability by overall standards should be about average.
This would definitely be a comfortable driver with some style.
However, while Ford did bring Jaguar out of the dark ages, it still isn’t known for its reliability. Or its economy. You may want to stop by the bookstore and see what Consumer Reports has to say about it.
No, I never owned one. I almost bought one once, but then I came back to reality. Good thing too, my mom and my ladyfriend (I’m divorced) both came on the test drive with me and they both thought I’d totally lost my mind.
You won’t find many/any owners here, you might try a Jaguar-specific forum. Me, I would not choose a Jag as my only car for 100 mile daily commutes. Don’t confuse the nameplate with it being a ‘special’ car, like FoDaddy said, it’s a spruced up Ford Mondeo, which we got the prior version of as the Ford Contour. Average reliability for some years, ‘too few samples to tell’ for the '06 at Consumer Reports.
Repair costs over the next 5 years are estimated to be more than $16,000 over the next 5 years. Consider a 2006 Infiniti G35 instead. It will probably cost $3000-$4000 more initially, but you’ll more than make that up with the money you’ll save in repairs (repair cost is less than $4000 in the next 5 years). The source for my information is Edmunds True Cost to Own. They derive their repair cost estimates from actuarial data.
MSN Autos says that repairs are minimal with the X-type. If you put both MSN Autos and Edmunds together, it indicates that the X-type is very expensive to repair. I’d test drive the G35. I happen to know the one, the only, biggest car snob in the world. He drives a G35 and loves it.
Come to think of it, you could spend $10,000 more up front and get a 2006 Corvette. You’d still break even with the Jaguar.
At 53000 miles it’s about 7000 miles short of the average transfer box failure. This is a sealed unit with oil seals prone to leakage at about the 60000 mile mark and ultimately self destruction. Refurbished units are not and replacement costs are in the $2500 - 3500 price range.
Much worse than average. It’s too much money for too much doubt. Something electrical will go down and it will go down hard. Sounds like a quote from Al Davis. If you had three Jaguars, you would need Jay Leno’s paycheck to maintain them. You might make it on Conan’s, now that I think about it.
To be fair, my cars have NEVER come anywhere close to what Edmunds project as the cost to repair. In the WORST years, I’ve actually seen costs less than half of their projections.
That said, a Jag is not going to be cheap - parts are expensive and good service harder to find.
My director at work (3 levels up from me, 3 levels down from the CEO and his $30 million annual income, with 400+ people reporting to him, so this guy pulls in well over 250k in an average year, not counting extensive stock bonuses) had one of these X-types. He loved it and its feel… but if you asked about it, after saying that, he’d tell you he wished he had his 99 Mercury Sable back, because, in his words, an average scheduled maintenance trip for his Jag cost more than the Sable cost in total in repairs in the entire time he owned it.
Rather faint praise.
Too bad, 'cause that Jag is a nice looking car, IMO.
With employers pulling in more and more data that would at first apper to be unrelated to doing your job, this exec should be glad the “higher ups” gave him a pass on what owning a jag says about his “how and when to spend money skills”
That being said my very best long-time childhood friend (who now Captains a mid-sized Airbus) owns a Jag. He never had good sense when it came to cars, could fly the wings off just about any airplane in the civilian fleet.
Agree with jt; budget $2400-$3000 minimum per YEAR for maintenance and repairs. That level of commuting demands a more reliable vehicle that costs less to maintain and repair. Any Honda Civic, Accord, or Toyota Corolla, Camry or Mazda 3 or 6 will be much better.
The car you refer to is a good weekend toy or transportation for a retired person. It is not something you want to depend on everyday for long commuting.
Really? I’d say if someone is pulling down a quarter mill+ a year before stock options, buying a Jaguar X-type really isn’t that extravagant at all… especially when your division is leading the company in profits and growth. Most of the people two or three levels down from him drive more expensive cars than an X-type (A6s, 5-series, etc). I question the spending priorities of many coworkers, but I don’t think for someone at his level, an X-type was even the least bit out of line.
Now the people that I know pull in less than me per year, then ask me when I’m going to lease a BMW 5-series or Lexus ES or Audi A6 like them to replace my (in their words) “POS Ford”, well - THOSE people I question their spending priorities. But they’re free to waste money if they want. I know my 13 year old Ford runs fine. 
I had another good friend in the 80’s, this one was English and had his own IBM main-frame service and set-up company. Well this guy went out and bought a XJ. When biz started to suffer I sugessted he sell it while the price being offered was still “OK” He said “NO way” it shows I am a success, I thought that passing up a chance on unloading this car at a profit (and he needed the money) showed he was an idiot.
“To be fair, my cars have NEVER come anywhere close to what Edmunds project as the cost to repair.”
Neither have any of my cars. But I take care of my cars, and not everyone does. That’s a lot of why the cost is lower for you. If you treated your cars poorly, you’d have higher repair costs. As you may know, actuaries figure the cost of repairs for repair insurance (extended warranties). They look at real data on thousands of cars and then decide what the average cost will be. Even Jay Leno doesn’t have that many cars of any type, let alone one type.
I certainly hope that Edmunds isn’t getting their repair cost from the same people that set extended warranty costs.
A year ago, I asked one of the largest warranty providers for quotes on a Toyota Matrix and a Pontiac Vibe, just out of curiosity.
They quoted ~$1300 for the Matrix. The Vibe? They wanted around $3500 for the exact same amount of coverage. I’d swear their rates are set more on public fear of what might go wrong (and therefore what people are willing to pay) than what the costs actually are…
The cost for a 2007 Vibe or Mtrix is within a few hundred dollars for 5 years of repairs. You have one data point, which is highly unreliable.
You’re missing the point…
The Vibe and the Matrix should have almost identical repair costs. The ONLY explanation for an aftermarket warranty company charging nearly three times as much for the Vibe warranty is that they’re playing on people’s fears and taking them for a ride.
IF Edmunds turns around and uses quoted aftermarket warranty rates to determine repair costs, they are every bit as guilty of playing on peoples’ fears. That is a big if, of course. But IF they are, it makes every last bit of their data useless.
Mine failed at 69K. Transfer case imploded with little warning. Luckily my X is Certified. Cost for part $2500. I’ve had it for 23K miles and this is the first major failure. Starting to get nervous.