Imhotep's ever changing fleet - AX GT, MG ZS180, Jaguar S-Type 3.0

[Imhotep]

5 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

It looks great for 300 quid, Satnav so must be higher spec as well. If it still has sills that's a bargain.

It’s never been advised for corrosion at all, which seems helpful, part of the reason for the cheapness is the backbox is hanging off on one side, and there’s no paperwork at all, literally nothing, not even a V5. Everything works except the driver window. Will be using it from August when the insurance on the MG expires, will renew it onto the Jag. 

[JMotor]

15 hours ago, Imhotep said:

Brand new car. Jaguar. Leather seats. CD player.

But I don’t want to talk about it any more 

 

You drinking cider from a lemon?

That JAAAAG looks not too terrible for 300 sheets. Nicely bought.

[Imhotep]

6 hours ago, JMotor said:

You drinking cider from a lemon?

That JAAAAG looks not too terrible for 300 sheets. Nicely bought.

Aye, as I said I can’t keep the MG on the roads when the weather is poor. Plus the Jag has bum warmers and working HVAC, which will be handy in the colder weather!

[Lord Sterling]

Welcome to the Jag club. 

We've had a Vectra V6 vs MG ZS V6 face-off. So now we need to do a Jag face-off.

[Captain Slow]

8 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

Welcome to the Jag club. 

So now we need to do a Jag face-off.

If Jags are drugs you both have the same dealer. 🤣

 

He's not actually seen it yet. He's going to like it. 

[Lord Sterling]

On 11/06/2025 at 20:51, Imhotep said:

Brand new car. Jaguar. Leather seats. CD player.

But I don’t want to talk about it any more 

Let me share with you a past story.

Around 15 years ago when I was much poorer, didn't have a car of my own, and then later my Mk1 E-reg Sterling, I used to go to Dudley for college (before I had my own car) and thus used to drive along the Wolverhampton Road coming up from Birmingham going towards Dudley. On the way just off the dual-carriageway are some large houses and on the drive mway if one if the houses was this Jaguar S-Type:

I used to admire it from afar. Everything about it was just so right, from it's rare metallic black colour, the wheels, the private plate and its prominence on the driveway in front of the garage where it was always parked, like a reserved space for the head of the house.

Later on, as I plodded through life with no ambition, I spotted the Jag parked off the drive and with its private plate removed:

The car was up for £2k. £2k even then was like asking me to raise a million pounds within a week, it just wasn't viable. I don't know if it did sell or not but it appears to have disappeared off the radar. The plate shows its last MoT being 2013.

[Imhotep]

So far so good….

[Spiny Norman]

Oh dear. 
Fucked or fixable?

[Imhotep]

Just now, Spiny Norman said:

Oh dear. 
Fucked or fixable?

Popped a brake line, very fixable. If it hadn’t gone totally I’d have clamped it off and driven it home carefully but it’s BURST

[Imhotep]

Ever think you’ve made a bad decision?

Moved it as it was parked illegally, pulled forwards and there was a hell of a bang. 
 

Backbox has come off and ripped the bumper off. 

Not off to a good start are we? I already miss the MG I’ve put in storage. 

 

[Spiny Norman]

The joys. That reminds me of the time my E34 started running like a bag of spanners and eventually stalled. I cranked and cranked and eventually all the unburnt fuel made its way to the back box which exploded and did the exact same to the bumper. 

[Imhotep]

10 hours ago, Spiny Norman said:

The joys. That reminds me of the time my E34 started running like a bag of spanners and eventually stalled. I cranked and cranked and eventually all the unburnt fuel made its way to the back box which exploded and did the exact same to the bumper. 

Bet that was loud! I don’t know if you remember my old Peugeot 306 cabriolet, but that did something very similar too…

I’ll mend this. I can’t (and didn’t) expect any sort of reliability for £300. It’s just a shame it’s all come at once. Despite it likely being worth about £750 or so if it’s all working, it is really hard to justify spending any money on a car I’ve paid scrap value for. But again, it was scrap value, obviously it’ll have problems. Viscous cycle.

[Spiny Norman]

3 hours ago, Imhotep said:

Bet that was loud!

It had quite a profound effect on some nearby pedestrians as I recall... 😛

Assuming your back box isn't badly damaged it should fix back on OK and the bumper will just be needing a few clips.

[Imhotep]

5 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

the bumper will just be needing a few clips.

It was built under Ford ownership. I could show it some heritage and get some duct tape for the bumper.

[Imhotep]

As per usual, many many thanks to @Heidel_Kakao for coming around and making and fitting a brake line for me, especially with this cool bit of kit I want now:

 

Also discovered some of the chrome was not chrome and was in fact paint and that’s going to piss me off far more than is reasonable:

 

But on the upside, it’s done 7 miles and not broken, so that’s the furthest I’ve managed in my ownership so far, at a polar bear friendly 17mpg!

 

Now I just need to get the ABS pump bled through which as far as I can work out requires diagnostics. Pedal is still a bit spongy but it holds pressure on the pressure bleeder and the thing is 100% bled up. 

[Imhotep]

Comedy car issues r us. Booked in Monday to be mended. Very very loud now mind. 😂

[IronStar]

How did I miss this thread? I always liked hot* late MGs and wanted to expirience one. Loving the Jag as well!

Top work, great selection of cars!

[Spiny Norman]

9 hours ago, Imhotep said:

An unsilenced V6, that must sound fantastic. 😛

[Imhotep]

I look like a scrap man. On the upside though, new* backboxes. One may not be any good but the other one definitely is so I’ve got at least one backbox good to go. Won’t silence it entirely but it’ll shut it up a bit, and the bloke who I got the thing from gave me the centre section FOC too.

[Imhotep]

Further work has happened. Decided to remove that horrible reversing camera/old broken parking sensor wiring since the sensors don’t work anyway and half the system is missing… 

Fuck me, the thing leeched EVERYWHERE.
 

Including my favourite part where instead of wiring the camera to the reverse switch on the gearbox, they wired it to the reverse light. So if the bulb fails, your camera stops working, great work there!

I’ve removed a literal armful of cabling from the car. As it was broken and half of it was missing I cut the wiring to the parking sensors to save me rooting around behind the bumpers. As the rear bumper is damaged anyway and the front one has giffer scrapes, I may replace these for units with OEM parking sensors and fit the full system if the car is a keeper. The wiring loom has all the required plugs for sensors anyway so it’s literally a case of plug and play. Car looks a lot nicer without that horrible square camera sticking down below the number plate plinth. And yes, the cheap horrible plates are going…

Gave the car a good scrub while I was there. Lord knows it needed it, this was just the dashboard!

 

Does look a LOT better now though:

Now I can’t nitpick on a £300 car, but I’m nitpicking on a £300 car. The driver door wood grain is different to the rest of the car. I need to change this for my own sanity (lighter one is the driver door)

In for backboxes and a brake bleed tomorrow and hopefully then I can enjoy the wafty quiet comfort of a Jaaaaaaaaaaaag

[Imhotep]

I can hear myself think again! The voices in my head tell me this is a good thing.

[Imhotep]

Now I’ve driven it properly…

Took it to Chelmsley Wood and back to Erdington (about a 12 mile round trip for those not in the know)…

Sublime. Very very quiet, so much so I could whisper to Mrs Imhotep and she could hear me (if I turned the dance music off first obviously). Very comfortable as you’d all expect, and completely effortless to drive. What a thing. Only complaint is the seats have no lumbar and hurt my back a tad but I could get a small cushion or something if I needed one. 

If, and a big IF it passes the MOT in October (or needs fairly minor work, e.g. less than about £300 worth), then I think it’ll remain the daily driver. Been ages since I’ve had an auto though, keep going to change gear. Tough habit to break. 

[Imhotep]

Washed car. Cannot unsee.

Anyone selling a door?

And aye the paintwork needs some love. It’ll get some before winter hits.

[Imhotep]

Thought it was worth a shot…

 

Little bit too warm though. The water was drying up almost immediately, however the car is absolutely covered in swirl marks, so on the panels I tried it did somewhat improve it. 
 

Been musing about the fleet and trying to see if I can get a cheap enough policy on the ZS so I can have both on the road and chop and change when I get bored. Else I do worry the MG will end up sat for ages and I’ll end up selling it. So hopefully someone agrees for cheap cover. 

[Homersimpson]

I've had three of these from when they were current models, the MK2 version which yours is, is probably to my eyes the pinnacle of the model as they still had the much nicer rear end lost from around 2004 onwards, a better interior than the MK1 and were a lot better built than the MK1.

Now I have an 18 year old Fiesta,. how times change!

 

[Imhotep]

So what am I doing here? Why is the key fob in water? (Yes, work bench is a tad grim I know, but it’s a solder/repair/anything else station, gets a bit messy)

Not water. Rubbing alcohol. The fob doesn’t work at all. All the buttons are jammed. Gave it a bath and cleaned it all up, microswitches then pressed and worked, however they all needed re soldering. So I got on with that. All plumbed in… Still no dice, sadly. I’m wondering if I may need diagnostics to pair, or if the fob itself is just ruined.

[Lord Sterling]

On 06/07/2025 at 19:15, Imhotep said:

So what am I doing here? Why is the key fob in water? (Yes, work bench is a tad grim I know, but it’s a solder/repair/anything else station, gets a bit messy)

Not water. Rubbing alcohol. The fob doesn’t work at all. All the buttons are jammed. Gave it a bath and cleaned it all up, microswitches then pressed and worked, however they all needed re soldering. So I got on with that. All plumbed in… Still no dice, sadly. I’m wondering if I may need diagnostics to pair, or if the fob itself is just ruined.

As I understand it, you should be able to buy another fob and program it to your car. I did this with my Jag, so I have 2 fobs now, but only 1 key.

[Imhotep]

More things have happened. 
 

New rear tyres, £140 for both fitted and balanced from the same tyre place I got the tyres for the ZS. Not bad. 
 

 

It decided to thank me for this literally THE NEXT DAY by shitting a coil and running on 5.

Didn’t have the parts anywhere so I had to deal with limp mode for a bit. While this was happening my new air filter turned up which was designed for the 2003 model year S Type. Yeah, fits great that doesn’t it?

Cabin filter also turned up. Thankfully that was a straight swap and based on the old one, it has been neglected for a while. I can’t tell if it was made in the 20th week of 2007 or July 2020, but either way, due a change:

A/C certainly smells a lot better now. 

But. Back to the misfire. Managed to get a pattern part for £60(!!!!!!!!!) (not sure what I expected price wise, but last time I bought a coil it was £4 from a scrapyard, but that was a Peugeot 106)

Then the pain began. So P303 is cylinder 3. 
 

Looks easy right? Wrong. This is bank 2, that’s cylinder 2, 4 and 6. Bank 1, for reasons known only to the engineer that designed it, looks like this:

Who did this and why? Pulling the bolts out wasn’t too bad, until I realised there was a hidden one in the very back corner nearly against the bulkhead. So tight I couldn’t get my slimline ratchet in there with the 8mm attached, I had to blindly put the 8mm onto the bolt and then lever the ratchet onto it. What a fuck on. 
 

Anyway, removed all that and then discovered there’s vacuum lines and coolant lines that go through this manifold (FFS), so I decided to get creative. 
This is the most room I have to get a cylinder 3’s coil (middle one):

 

So, I got a hammer and used it like a pry bar to give myself a tiny bit more room: 

Just enough there. After wrestling with the plug on the coil for a bit, managed to get the old coil out:

 

New one against old:

 

In, and codes erased:

 

Normally I’d not do an update for the sake of a coil but what a fuck on that was. Christ. 
 

Watch the other 5 fail now.