Curbside Project Car: 2005 Jaguar X-Type AWD 3.0 Wagon – Will It Be A HellCat Or A HelloKitty?

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

Yes, I fell for the charms of the Jaguar I reviewed a few weeks ago.  How could I not?  A couple of days after seeing it the first time I headed back up to Laramie, talked some turkey and after handing over 2,000 smackeroos, it was all mine.  In the intervening two days I spoke with Paul to ask if he had a CarFax subscription (who then right afterward invoked the CC effect and found another X-Type wagon for sale on his next walk, amazing with only 1602 total in the U.S.), I ordered a CarFax, somehow cajoled my wife into going along with the plan and had my older son eagerly in my corner.

Paul graciously suggested we make this into a Curbside Project Car (Cat) and was willing to kick in a portion of the purchase price (Thank You, Paul!), thus continuing the CC tradition of Jaguar projects – this is the second one, the first one ran into some unforeseen complications and unfortunately withered on the vine if you’ve been around long enough to remember.  I wrote the review piece on this one after the car was already in the driveway of a rental I’ve been rehabbing up in Laramie.  Boy, was it hard to not spill the beans.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

The two days before actually purchasing it were spent perusing a lot of forums and parts sites to see what I might be getting myself into.  The main impetus was that my older son will be getting his driver’s permit soon and an interesting car that is relatively safe and modern (no deathtraps) was appealing.  He was interested in getting his hands dirty, we decided if he were to unfortunately prang into something, then better it be something cheaper than shinier.

And lastly, if the car turned out to be a nightmare perhaps that would turn him on to cars with entirely trouble free reputations for the rest of his days.  If conversely it all worked out easily, well, then he’d be treading down the dark paths that so many of us have trodden down over they years where emotion and passion beats a perfect Consumer Reports score, physical and financial pains be damned.  I dutifully showed all the pictures I had taken on the used car lot to both my wife and son; she somewhat apprehensive, he delighted.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

The CarFax I paid $39.99 for surprisingly came back better than expected.  No accidents, three owners, Owner #1 had it for just over four years and owned it in the city I live in (so it’d be a homecoming of sorts).  It was traded in to the local(ish) Lexus dealership who then sold it to owner #2 who owned it for nine and a half years in the Boulder area up to about 135k miles and paid for a transmission rebuild amongst some other maintenance that was noted.

Then it was owner #3’s turn who racked up the rest of the mileage (I purchased at 168,268 miles) in the same general area and seemed to have a little more trouble with it with it getting less and less use, of course Covid happened too so that’s perhaps related – most notably there was an emissions issue a couple of years ago that resulted in the intake gaskets being replaced, a very common issue.  My rose-tinted glasses showed me that a car that had a second owner for 9.5 years could not possibly be a total POS and a third owner for 3.5 years well into the six figure mileage range wasn’t bad either.  If it had totally sucked I certainly wouldn’t have kept it that long.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

When I revisited the dealer they let me take it out again which I did for about a 45 minute session wherein I looked the car over some more and drove another dozen or 20 miles.  It still had the Check Engine light illuminated along with some other issues and thus I went back, listed everything I had noted and offered $1,500 take it or leave it.  They left it…  But we ended up chatting about cars for a while and he eventually suggested that my price was too low but if he still had it in a couple of weeks, then $2,000 would probably be acceptable.

I then left, did some work on the house and towards the end of the day called back to suggest that instead of waiting for two weeks, how about I just bring over $2,000 in cash then and there and we be done with it.  That worked, I’m sure he made a profit of closer to $2,000 than to zero on the deal, but so be it and I got the car along with a temporary Wyoming 60-day registration, I think we were both happy with the final price.  Incidentally, the car Paul came across in Eugene was asking for around $6,000 with fewer miles, some body damage at the rear side and had a salvage title from being rear-ended at one point.

That 60 day temporary registration’s a key piece – my main focus is to get the emissions issue resolved, if I can do that within the 60 days (before January 15, 2022), then I can register it in Colorado after passing an emissions check here (can’t have the light on).  If it doesn’t get resolved by then it’ll simply be registered in Wyoming for this year at my address up there since they don’t require any inspection.  Sales tax is less up there too.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

My wife took me up to Laramie a day later and we got the car out of the driveway.  Her first words were “Oh, it looks so much worse than I thought.”.  Hmm.  An auspicious beginning.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

The first thing I did was buy a full tank of gasoline after dumping a full bottle of Chevron’s Techron Fuel System Cleaner into the tank which I like to add to the first full tank in my older cars.  Then I checked the oil and since it was low I bought a quart at O’Reilly’s for a usurious $6.35 but it wasn’t worth crossing town to Walmart for a couple of dollars at that point.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

With those two fluids being low the dealer was definitely not setting me up with any false or otherwise implied expectations, everything else seemed alright enough to get me home though with the tire pressures right at a somewhat high 40psi.  Then it was time to hit the road, I think Allison was probably already halfway back by the time I left.

I shot another (shorter) video of part of my drive home, some of the noises are noticeable as well as some other things.  There is a sort of growling noise that I thought was likely a wheel bearing, it’s there when going straight and turning left but not when turning right.  OK, usually that means right wheel bearing.  Otherwise it ran quite well, besides some suspension clunks over expansion joints and the like as well as the intermittent hesitation at 3,000 rpm.  The seat heaters worked like a champ, in fact pretty much everything inside the cabin works flawlessly.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

Happily when I got home and my son came to the driveway, his words were: “Oh, it looks so much better than I thought.”  I suggested he have a discussion with his mother, my wife.  He looked it over and seemed genuinely thrilled, then we went for a short ride and he was even happier and excited to get started working on things.

Our order of items to be addressed will start with:

  1. Basic Maintenance
  2. Figuring out the trouble codes
  3. Tires
  4. Suspension and Brakes
  5. Fluids – Transfer Case, Transmission, Coolant, Brake
  6. Ongoing continual improvement/repair/upgrades as opportunities arise – this means getting rid of the bubbling window tint, transplanting better junkyard parts (mainly cosmetics), doing what we can to help the paint, etc.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

Might as well begin with a decent baseline and what’s more basic than an oil and filter change as well as the air filter?  We had sourced two 5-quart jugs of Castrol 5W-30 High-Mileage Full Synthetic Oil along with the recommended Motorcraft (Ford brand) oil filter and a can of Carb Cleaner (I’ll explain below) at Walmart for $59.57 including the bottle of Techron Fuel System Cleaner.  We put the car on ramps, crawled under it and I showed Max exactly where the filter was as well as the drain plug.  13mm wrench in hand, he opened the drain and watched the black gold pour out.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

While underneath we noticed that the front portion of the belly pan was lower than the front edge of the bumper so with a couple of T-25 screwdrivers and a normal slotted one we took out the almost a dozen fasteners, realigned it, and snugged it back up again.  One fastener was missing, another would not loosen due to rust, luckily it was a corner one so it was not needed in order to slot the pan into the bumper correctly.  After retightening, we realized it would have been easier to loosen the filter with it down.  But it worked anyway, just more difficult and needed a strap wrench to loosen it.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

What came off was a Wix filter a little longer than the new Motorcraft one.  I showed him how to make sure the gasket came off with the filter and also to pre-lube the new gasket so it would seal and not stay stuck the next time.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

Hand tighten the new one and clean up the oil that dripped all over the exhaust manifold once it slowed to a slow drip.  Then, after all of the sump oil had drained into the catch pan, clean that area up as well and reinstall the drain plug after cleaning.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

After that it was time to come topside again, find the funnel, clean it, and pour 6.1 quarts of oil into the filler.  After pouring it in, start the car, then turn it off, wait a few minutes and check the dipstick.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

The new oil was so clear it was hard to get a good reading, eventually we realized it was still low, and we added another .4 quarts for 6.5 total at which time it read full.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

Next was noting what else seemed low and the main culprit was the washer fluid, something used often and with vigor here in Colorado when the snow and slush start flying.  He topped it off using my inventory with the other funnel I have on hand after cleaning that one too.  Two days later we realized there must be a slow leak as we could no longer see the level however there was still fluid in the system when we sprayed the windshield.

Obviously there’s an issue somewhere along the bottle, we’ll need to figure out how high or low it really is and either fix it or find a better bottle in the junkyard.  Or just live with it if it’s towards the top.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

We drove around the block a few times until the car warmed up, checked for leaks, found none – well, none from the oil filter and drain plug anyway.  There are several others.  After that we drove to the auto parts store and I showed him what you do with the old oil, he carefully emptied it into the giant tank and wiped the drips off the container.  Then I let him drive around one of our huge church parking lots with me instructing for about 45 minutes which he enjoyed, it was his first time behind a wheel.  The parking lot was so large it had its own lanes, turn lanes and stop signs, so sort of a mini highway system, a good way to start.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

The next day a new air filter showed up so it was time to look at that and start to figure out the code issue.  The two codes that show are P0171 and P0174, they denote a lean condition on each bank of cylinders (it’s the 3.0V6 in this case, basically the same as also used on the Jaguar S-Type and Lincoln LS).  There are at least a dozen reasons for these codes ranging from the simple to the more complex so we began with the simple. The first step is to start the car and carefully spray carb cleaner around every fitting where air could possibly get into the intake without being designed to.  If the engine note/speed changes whilst being sprayed, there’s likely the problem.  However that didn’t show/change anything so on to actually doing work rather than continuing going all Zoolander with flammable chemicals.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

Removing the airbox cover required loosening about seven Phillips head captive screws.  The old filter was dirty and a new Bosch one (made in China) was only $5.99 plus tax, not bad, I see why many of the junkers I see have a new filter in them, it’s what we started with too…The new looked just like the old except the old was made in the USA.  Easy enough to install.  Of course that would not have anything to do with our intake air issue, rather the opposite, but there is no reason to drive around with a filthy and clogged air filter.

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

We looked at the battery (date code 1/18), so almost four years old but starts the car immediately and the terminals were spotless so that’s good.  I don’t recognize the brand/source, something to keep an eye on, I’ve not been getting much more than about three years out of batteries lately.  Jaguar puts these in a box with a lid, kind of nice, except on ours one hinge is broken.  And then I leaned on it and broke the other one accidentally.  I’ll look for one of those as well I guess…

2005 Jaguar X-Type 3.0 AWD Wagon

There are three things that are the main culprits in regard to the trouble codes we have – first is the brake booster line that plugs into the intake manifold.  Ours looked brand new as did the fitting, I think someone changed it at least semi-recently.  Second is the PCV line (above), the early cars had frequent failures with a slightly ruptured hose, ours has the updated hose and it looked fine.

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