1998 Jaguar XJ8 Sovereign from UK and Ireland - Comments

I've only had it for 7000 trouble free miles and right now it's only got 40k on teh clock. So far everything works perfectly.

The road to true love had some twists and turns: Having hated the look of Jag saloons all of my life, my mum did the unthinkable and bought an S-Type (to my mind, another ugly Jag) and that, strangely, was the start for me. After a test drive I knew what all of the fuss about Jaguar was about: driving them just makes you smile. To this day I’m not gone on the exterior style an XJ / Sovereign (I think) but I really did dig the interior when I saw one. Man the dash is Cooooooool. I waited until a car with 33,000 miles showed up in my meagre (Stg) £7000.00 price range (7 years old and I’d have to pay €4k import taxes to make it Irish) and bought the 4.0Litre Sovereign. With petrol prices rising through the roof and Irish Yearly road tax on the Jag being €1350.00 you might think I’d have lived to regret it, but NO. My advice: Do yourself a favour and treat yourself. The car is a ‘cream in your pants drive’ and it’s got ‘ambiance’ in spades. In Ireland they are still sufficiently rare to turn heads and there’s always the sense that your arrival has been noted by bystanders (if that kind of thing is your cup of tea). The stereo can handle anything from easy listening to hardcore metal pretty well at pretty loud volumes, but the speakers can’t take acid techno without distorting. This car was designed to kill stress and you’ll even totally dig driving it slowly. The buzz with this car in one word is “SERENITY”. That said the big cat ain’t one bit short of poke either when the boot is down. But Love must be blind; now I’m even beginning to like the outside styling. A car that’s guaranteed to get under your skin. Ya gotta just Love it.

7 years old and it’s got auto dimming rear-view and side mirrors which I think is one of the star features. The memory for three different drivers settings is just sooooo handy. The long wheel base gives rear passengers as much leg room as the passenger seat in most saloons so people love to travel with you. At the time I also checked out the competition: namely a 98’ Audi A8 and a BMW 740. Verdict: Hard seats an unemotive interior though each were nice to drive – neither had that “Serenity” thing going on. Stress will end up giving you a heart attack or eczema some day – do yourself a favour and buy the Jag.

Hey, great review on the 4 litre soverign... just bought one in the u.k. 2001 75,000 on the clock with full jag service history!! must now pay the dreaded irish VRT TAX... still reckon I will save 10k+ on the irish price...and a car in much better nick!

2 questions;where can I get it serviced properly in ireland without main dealer prices??

And Warranty DIRECT SEEM TO offer the best warranty for ireland at just over 1000 euro for one year... is there any better deal out there???

I've been reading some reviews on the 1998 XJ8, and they don't sound too good. I'm deciding between a 2001 Vanden Plas and a 2003 XJ8, but I don't want to buy a car that will give me problems and huge maintenance costs. I was wondering what you all would recommend.

Well keep in mind that the 1998 (97 in some places outside US) was a bit of a busy time for the XJ series. It was when the V-8 was new, and many of the electronics was pretty new and some things carry over from past, which means bugs galore as with just about any first year new design or major changes. On the other hand, 1998 is becoming a distant past for cars and they are aging on top of it all.

Safe bet is get one 2001-2003 as most of the bugs should have been worked out by then. I heard the major bugs in the XJ have been worked out by 2000, and not so many complaints with the 2000 as the 98s.

The 99s seem to be a toss up, I read some trouble free reviews and I read some 1998 like reviews. But just as with any used out of warranty high end car, maintenance is the key. Some people that owned these cars or leased these cars do not do any maintenance on them at all, thinking that it is not their problem when the lease is up or they trade up for the current model every other year. So, then the dealer pass the car off as clean, one owner when it's a just a shiny toad.

Records are the key. For some reason, dealerships never "keep" the service records or have no idea about the car's past. Some say it's better to buy these types of cars off one owner or two with full records than a dealership who just did a good polish and have no idea how a Jaguar works or suppose to work.