Help finding a used car

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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
5,367
Location
Dublin, Ireland
As some of you may remember from a previous thread, my father is looking to by a used Jag S-type.

We headed down to a dealership to test drive a manual 2.5V6 S-type they had in stock. It just happened that they had an identical 2.5V6 S-type in automatic, and I persuaded him to try it. He fell in love with it, but felt that the autobox really needed the 3.0V6 engine.

He then headed up north to try a 3.0V6 Auto (wanted to buy it, but it was sold - they were also missing a lot of stock that was on their website :rolleyes: ) and he's now decided to ditch manual, and buy his first automatic car.

So - the hunt is on for the following car:

Engine: 3.0
Gearbox: Auto
Trim: SE (will take sport if it has optional chrome pack)
Spec: light colour leather interior (ideally ivory), CD etc
Ideally: Park assist, Luxury interior, satnav would be nice too-but not a must-have.
Colour: Pacific Blue, Jag Racing green, Black. (will consider other colours if there is a bargain out there!)
Mileage: Less than 20000 ideally, but obviously will consider up to 35/40k if very cheap!
Year: 2004 (The import tax on a 2005 is about £12000, which makes them pretty expensive!)

Parkers prices (model with 10000 miles):
'53 plate
Franchised Dealer £ 17535
Independent Dealer £ 16775
Private Good £ 15860

'04 plate
Franchised Dealer £ 18400
Independent Dealer £ 17600
Private Good £ 16640

'04 plate facelift model
Franchised Dealer £ 21275
Independent Dealer £ 20350
Private Good £ 19240

'54 plate facelift model
Franchised Dealer £ 22080
Independent Dealer £ 21120
Private Good £ 19970

Is it worth it for the facelift model? £3000 seems quite a lot if they just spruced up the exterior.

I'm looking in all the usual places: fish4cars, autotrader, adtrader, desperateseller, ebay etc - but its hard finding any facelift cars that are reasonably priced. Even some of the non-facelift cars are attracting mad money! Cheapest that meets all the spec requirements apart from colour is £16000 for an 20000 mile 04 car (looks non-facelft), but all similar cars are more like £18000.

Are there any good websites full of private ads rather than trade ads?

Cheers
 
for a car like that its either ebay / trader / specific jag garages

you can set trader to show private only, which might help the search
 
Yeah - trying all that. It's easier now he knows what he wants I suppose.

Annoyed with Charles Hurst in Portadown - they had the perfect car for him, he rang them, they told him it was still for sale. When he arrived, it said sold, and half the stuff on the website wasnt there!
 
I'd seriously consider going to an auction for a jag.
There always seem to be loads going through and I bet they don't make a lot of money.
Subscribe to the bca auction view, it's only a few quid and well worth a look.
:)

bca auction view
 
Problem with the auctions is that we live in Dublin, so flying over for an auction, then finding out that the car is a lemon is an expensive hobby!

Everyone I have spoken to has said that the auto is a far better choice, and even my father, who previously said he'd never have an automatic agrees!
 
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