First of all, Hal, you need to learn to properly pronounce the name of the cars from Coventry....they're "JAG-you-ars"...and never, ever shortened to "Jags"....never. It's just not done in Merry Olde...period.
My wife and I leased a Jag-you-are XJ8 Vanden Plas model in 1999. Absolutely a beautiful automobile....dead quiet at speed...just the sound of the Pirelli's skimming over the pavement. White Gold in color, with Biscuit leather interior and all burled walnut trim everywhere. Solid handling, smooth riding...very comfortable Connally hide seats - both front and rear. Great climate control system, excellent sound system. Trip computer was very nice, and worked well. In short, a very nice automobile that we planned to buy after the lease period was over. Actually, the car was leased by her business....we decided to let the business absorb the depreciation off the dealer's lot, and we'd purchase the car if it proved to be a good vehicle. Jag-you-are's warranty was bumper-to-bumper and good for the length of the lease, and I figured by then we'd know about it's reliability and what the true cost of ownership may be.
I don't know if it was a dealer problem or not, but everytime the car was taken in for an
oil change, or some other normally scheduled service, they always managed to find
something else wrong with the car. On one trip for a scheduled
oil change, they said they heard what was described as a 'grunch' in the right front suspension. Cause...? They claimed they found a small rock up under the lower control arm in the spring perch which was causing noise everytime the suspension flexed. Funny, but we never heard it, and we never asked them to look at it. Further examination of our work order showed that we ideed had complained...in their words "Customer states there is a noise in the right front corner of the car". When we picked up the car after another scheduled maintenance trip, I noticed they had replaced one of the overhead cam cover gaskets to the tune of 6.5 hours of labor at $65/hour labor, plus parts! Again, a repair action not requested nor authorized by us!
Then one day the battery went south...no pre-warning, nothing to alert is it was going out. Car just wouldn't crank. Had it flat-bedded in to the dealer. Guess what....? Surprise...the battery wasn't covered as part of the 36 month lease warranty....and they wanted $260 to replace it! When they called me with the diagnosis, I asked why so much. The answer they gave me was that Jag-you-are didn't put a large enough battery in from the factory, and all the electronics in the car often caused batteries to play out. Too bad it happened in the third year of their "Bumper-to-bumper" warranty period....if it had happened in the second year, the battery manufacturer would have pro-rated the failed battery....yada-yada-yada.... I told them to PUSH the car outside, and I'd be by to take care of it. Stopped off at Sears and picked up an $85 DieHard before I went to pick it up. Put it in the trunk when I got to the Jag-you-ar dealer's lot, hooked up the cables finger tight and went in to borrow a wrench - er, a "spanner" - to tighten the cables. "Nope, can't let you do that Mr. Rice, it's against our insurance regulations! We have to perform that service....and how did you get back to where your car is parked?" On and on and on and on.... I finally told them to either give me the car "NOW" or they could make the remaining lease payments...and they had 15 seconds to make up their minds. The service people just stood there and looked at me with dumbfounded looks on their faces until I started to count down the 15 seconds....at 6 seconds, they handed me the keys. I fooled with the cables until I got the car to start...drove it home and took my own 'spanners' to tighten the cables and battery hold down clamp. Car drove fine for another 3-4 months.
And then there was the time they replaced the entire exhaust system because they said it was rattleing somewhere in the catalytic converter. Again...funny we never heard that! Labor charge to Jag-you-are warranty program was over $1800 for that little soiree.
Bottom line, after 36 months of lease ownership, I figured I couldn't afford to own this beast. At $65/hour labor, I figured it was going to cost us close to $3 grand a year just for service work if everytime I took it in to them they found something else wrong with it that
we were obviously too stupid to notice. So, we let them have it back after 36 months....
My experience tells me that Jag-you-ares are alright to lease when the dealer and the Jag-you-are service network is toting the freight for maintenance costs. But, after that...YOU DON'T WANT ONE! They're one of the prettiest cars you'll ever see broken down on the side of the road, or on the back of a flatbed on the way to the dealer for a $260 battery!
What are the two happiest days in a Jag-you-are owner's life? Easy...the day he gets his new Jag-you-are, and the day he gets rid of it!