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I said we would look at this one this week: https://www.finn.no/car/used/ad.html?finnkode=100818081 Before we went in, I told my fovourite wife that we should do the good cop/bad cop routine. But she apparantly forgot all about it, because she was like a monkey that had gotten hold of the keys to the banana plantation. Something which put me at a certain disadvantage, bargaining-wise. But we got 10% off the asking price and they'll polish the headlights. Plus a three month 50/50 warranty. Everything I checked seemed to be in order. No rust, no overheating, no clunky transmission, good tyres, and all the bells and whistles (some of which had their own little bells and whistles) seemed to be working as it should. One owner and all the yearly services had been done by Jaguar Norway. I think we'll be happy with it.

Had the Jag for a year now, doesn't time fly when you are having fun? Thought I would post up how I'm getting on with it. I've covered some 6210 miles and used 238 gallons of fuel at a cost of £1243.97. Gulp. This gives me around 26/gal, not bad considering. Soon after purchase I had to have a new radiator and rear discs fitted as well as a driver's door mirror. Earlier this year had 5 tyres fitted as they were showing their age, other than that nothing. Its annual MOT came back perfect - no advisories - not bad to a ten year old car. Still need to get the multi-cd installed properly though. Love it to bits; quiet, comfortable, powerful. What else does one need?

The press was great for some parts but when it comes to the thin outer shells of the bushes cutting them is far easier. To get a purchase on them with the press would require very precisely sized mandrels which would have taken too long to make to be worthwhile. I bought the bushes from https://www.spring-loaded.co.uk/ as they're local to me. There are lots of people who supply them but Spring Loaded were no more expensive than any of them. There was some lead time from Powerflex as apparently they're not a common part which I can believe as I doubt many people want to make there S-types stiffer. Part numbers were PFF27-601BLK and PFF27-602BLK. That's front and rear bushes for the lower front arms on an X200. There is also a slightly softer compound option, they're purple in colour. Personally I wouldn't fit poly on the inner and rear outer registers on lower arms of the S-type. Their standard bushes are known as "pillow ball bushes" and the way they work is like a ball-joint. So unless they're worn out there is zero radial play but the central tube of the bush is free to move in and out of alignment with the outer shell. This misalignment is necessary for the lower rear arms of the S-type to move through their arcs properly. This is because the mounting points on the chassis do not all align with each other by design for complicated geometry reasons. Polyurethane bushes could have either of the original bushes abilities but not both as making them soft enough to replicate the misalignment would allow radial play and hard enough for no radial play would make the arms bind as they moved through their arcs. That all seems very confusing written down doesn't it? The third bush of the lower arms is the front one and that is a great big bonded metal and rubber jobby. Now that one I would consider polyurethane for but I knew I couldn't afford them when I did my lower rear arms so didn't really look too far into it. The upper arms both front and rear would be good candidates for polyurethane. But do note that they have integral ball-joints so fitting new bushes to old arms may not be worthwhile. The bushes can of course be re-used in another arm though. I fitted Polybush front ARB bushes 6 months ago and am happy with them. I shall also fit poly to the rear ARB at some point as they're looking pretty rough, that's a hell of a job apparently..