Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

• An unfortunate turn of events. A quiet rant.

The famous painting by Edward Munch.
Kind of says it all.

(I am currently hunkered down due to a shelter in place order. I am quite aware of the necessity for such a drastic action. I hope that you and your families remain safe and healthy during these trying times. This post was written several of weeks ago.)

Now that I've gotten my XJS running right, bought a new set of tires and almost finished my self defined shake down period it was time to address the two most pressing needs. Now the biggest priority was to get the front suspension squared away. I had detailed in previous posts how I replaced some of the more easily accessed suspension arm bushings. Now I wanted to get an accurate estimate for rebuilding the suspension. I needed the information so that I could decide whether or not I was going to go forward with this car.

I have owned this car for over four and a half years but have not driven the car that much. When I bought the car it seemed to run okay but the transmission was going out. After replacing the transmission it sat around like project cars usually do, as you deal with other things going on in your life. I was working on it as I could.

I started driving the car in earnest a bit over a month ago. My goal was to put five hundred shakedown miles on it. This has taken a long time since I have a short commute and only work part time. However this was chance to interact with the XJS as an actual car, not just an abstraction.You know how your dream car is more of a fantasy than a daily driving reality, especially if you bought it as a project that you hoped to get running. Eventually.

I started to get comfortable while driving the car as it took quite a while to overcoming feelings of self consciousness. A bright red 12 cylinder Jag is not what I usually see on my daily commute. It can obviously garner some second looks. The car started easily every morning, idled well when cold or hot, never stalled on me, and most importantly maintained it's proper temperature. It has not demonstrated any problems, I was feeling pretty good about it. It wasn't even leaking any oil!


I was a little leery of talking to the convertible top shop as I was afraid that they would tack some huge surcharge on the job, just because it was a Jag. I was pleasantly surprised that the quoted price was not out of line with he price they charged me to change to top on my Mustang. And that was seven or eight years ago, so I was feeling pretty good.

I had contacted a local independent Jag shop several years ago and seemed to strike up a comfortable rapport with the owner. I asked if he could give me a price on a complete front suspension rebuild. He told me that he couldn't do that, since most cars didn't need to have all parts replaced. I figured that there had to be a flat rate quote somewhere for the job, and he could add the major parts that would be needed. I pressed him, but he insisted that wasn't the way that he would do it.

He would perform a complete inspection and list what was needed. Of course he would have to charge me labor for the inspection, which seemed fair to me. I wasn't sure exactly where was I was at with my car, so I told him that I would get back to him. That was a couple of years ago.

I recently contacted this shop as I was ready to finally commit to having some work done. I had planned to do the work myself, of course, but certain recent events made me think that I should save the strain on my aging bones and farm out the job. Also, we are planning an extensive remodel of the house and my time and garage space will be needed to deal with that. I even came to the realization that I might be willing to actually spend a few bucks. Unfortunately the shop seems to have undergone a change in management.

I called the shop and spoke with the service writer and asked about having a suspension inspection done to determine how much a rebuild would cost me. I told him the year and model of my car, the '89 XJS. He then informed me that they did not work on cars older than 1996. I asked him why, and he answered that it was hard to guarantee a satisfactory result with with cars that old. He went on for another couple of minutes before I told him that I got it. I thanked him for his time and ended the call.

I was pretty disappointed and told my Wife that evening. She told me that I should see about taking the '97 XJ6 down there before it became too old. So I called the shop back this afternoon, the car is newer than 1996, here comes the punchline.

I called the shop and spoke with the same service guy. I told him what I wanted and asked how much the inspection would be. He said that he couldn't do that. He asked if I had any service history records for the car. Like most hand me down old Jags, of course I didn't. Oh, he said, the shop doesn't like to work on cars where they don't have a prior service history with the car and owner. It's possible that they could replace some parts and not completely fix the problem. There could be "multiple layers of problems." ( his terminology)  (Of course there could, these are old Jags!) Expenses could add up and cost more than the cars are worth. As if I didn't know that!

Yes, I agreed, an old XJS isn't worth that much, but I remember when a decent XKE could barely fetch a grand and NOBODY fixed them. They just pushed the car to the side. An owner might want to spend money on an old car because they liked it. (Why am I having to explain this to a Jag shop?) He said that the "customer experience" is very important to them, and they didn't want to sour the experience by being the bearer of bad tidings. I responded, "You know Jags, old Jags are NOTHING but bad tidings!

I guess he then decided that it was time for a change in tactics.

He asked me who I had spoken with before. I told him that it was the owner, but it was several years ago. He asked me why I just didn't take it to a Goodyear shop and have them do the work. First of all, I said that many shops don't even want to work on a Jag. I told him that I figured that his shop would be familiar with the cars and their problems and would know how to fix them. He begrudgingly admitted to that. So I asked him if he just couldn't inspect the suspension and give me a read out of what needed to be replaced. He said no, that he would have to perform a complete alignment that would cost me 450.00 to achieve a base line. (He knew that would shut me up, he was right about that!) So I told him that I understood that he didn't want to get involved in this sort of work, and thanked him for his time.

Clearly this shop doesn't want to deal with old cars with an unknown history. I can understand that. They would rather deal with newer cars that are just out of warranty than waste a lot of time diagnosing an old beater's series of problems. Time is money and they're not running that shop as a hobby. Still, it doesn't make any sense to perform an expensive alignment on a car with known worn parts, unless you just want to use it as a tactic to shut the customer up. It would make more sense to inspect and replace faulty parts like suspension arm bushings, ball joints, tie rod ends, rack bushings, etc. then perform the alignment. Service records are valuable, especially to a prospective buyer as they know what maintenance and repairs have been performed. You don't need to look at a service history to see if a tire is worn out. Likewise if a ball joint is loose or bushings have perished.

Suspension repairs are difficult because unwieldy and dangerous springs have to be removed while the car is propped up in the air. It is not like engine tuning or dealing with electrical gremlins as the problems are usually not intermittent and the defects are visually obvious.

A policy of not working on older cars or obvious junk is not too hard to understand. The cars and their owners can be stubborn and cantankerous. I remember when I worked at a motorcycle shop just out of high school. The owner told me that they would never work on a basket case. I asked why, and he told me that more than likely parts were damaged or missing and that the likelihood of satisfying the owner was slim. They would often refuse to pay the bill and the shop was stuck with their junk.

I guess that this might be the real issue. Dealing with bottom feeder owners like me, with old tired Jags that could refuse to pay the bill. This would cause the shop to take a big loss. If there's no real value in the car, then placing a mechanic's lien on the vehicle would just be a waste of time. I suppose that the shop could ask for half of the estimate up front, sort of like a restoration shop arrangement.

Back when I had my shop, I was talking with the owner of the German car repair next door. He told me that it was hard dealing with owners of old Mercedes that were brought in for service. He started charging them a diagnostic fee of an hour's labor, before looking at their car. Many owners left right then. If they agreed to the repairs then he would deduct the cost from the total repair. Even then, he said he would often have to bargain with the customer who wanted a discount on the estimated cost. The shop owner said that it was tough to keep the shop going profitably.

Enough with the empathy, what does all this mean to me?

First of all it means that I have to find a shop willing to work on my car. I'll have to do some investigating on the Net, then do some calling and visiting. I could do still some of the work, though as I stated earlier, I'm going to be in the middle of a long, long, home remodeling project so I won't have the time. I also don't want the leave the car partially disassembled and immobile during this period. Thankfully, I have the resources of my Jaguar Forums community available to help out with advice, information and encouragement. They have been a real life saver in the past.

The bottom line is also that I don't have to do anything right now, both cars are up and running well. They are both usable except for some grumbling from the chassis and the tendency to chew up a tire or two. I also have other cars that I can drive so I'm not really in a jam. But I really wanted to move forward with my XJS. I suppose I can work on other things until I can tackle the suspension.

Still, the bitterness of disappointment leaves a bad taste in my mouth