Yay, shiney new MOT

Carole Simpson-Hadley · January 18, 2018

Yay.......... Ruby, our newishly acquired '98 XJ8 X308 sailed through today's MOT with no advisories. Only done 2K miles since the last one, but this was the first in our ownership. We have done a bit of fettling over the past couple of months, so a good result.

Note we use our local authority testing centre where they have nothing to gain by being over zealous as they don't undertake repair work; that said, they are very thorough and the tester we usually book is an ex-Jaguar technician, so he knows what he is looking for. Our '07 S had a clean bill of health (no advisories) just before Christmas; now for the '07 XK in 3 weeks time. Then a hat-trick!

Next job is to attend to the driver's door check strap, which doesn't check. Usual problem is that the door end fitting of the strap (through quite thin metal) pulls through, necessitating removing the securing screws, fitting oversize washers to cover the hole, and re-fitting. Or a new strap. Means removing the door trim, so we shall set aside a decent time window for that!

Ruby says "happy growling" but please don't fit a leaper on my bonnet

Carole Simpson-Hadley · January 19, 2018

Thank you Ron; yes, it is always good to come away armed with the shiney new ticket, even better when there are no advisories.

There was some fettling to be done on the XJ8.......the various rear lights were intermittently all over the place, but that didn't take too much sorting; neither of the fobs worked properly but everything else was down to an in-depth valet session and a careful check of all the usual potential issues.

Travelling in the 8 is a fine experience....very quiet, very smooth ride and generally extremely comfortable, and, we suppose, quick enough with the 3.2 V8. However, the S has the edge, being crisper handling, buckets of torque from the twin turbo 2.7D and altogether more involving from a driver's point of view. It's just nice to have around when we feel like a waft around the countryside, but isn't a daily driver.

Definitely no leaper......that is just us, although we are still thoughtful about the black leapers when we are at work!!!!! Claude thinks hot rod flames along the side would be a good addition but we can see the conflict of interest!

As always, happy growling