Greetings,
   A few thoughts about this subject.
First off --  Consumer Reports has no idea what they are talking about.
Never have.  In 1986, my family bought 3 vehicles. A Ford Crown Victoria, a
Subaru Station Wagon and a Nissan 300ZX.  The 300ZX was rated as one of the
worst cars on the road -- the Crown Vic was supposedly one of the best.
Nearly 20 years later, I have 280,000 miles on the 300ZX and the other two
have been crushed for scrap.

 ANY car  is only as good as it's owner.   Period!!   If you expect to be
able to ignore the X-Type and have it run forever with no care like you
would a Toyota -- it will be the WORST car you have ever owned.  If you
educate yourself and get the service manuals and do some of the work
yourself -- the car will become part of your life and it will always run
well.

I have two perfect examples of this:  My buddy has a 2000 XJR.  This car is
now 6 years old.  Two months ago, the battery died and he was so angry he
was prepared to sell the car.  I was surprised the original battery lasted 6
years.  So he went out and bought a cheapie replacement battery and it died
within two weeks.  He was actually so angry with the car that he placed an
ad for the car in the newspaper to sell it before he called me.  We took the
battery back to where he purchased it and discovered that it had a
manufacturer's defect in one of the cells and the battery was bad.  Because
of this, he now thinks Jaguars are terrible cars!!!  (I MAY be buying an XJR
CHEAP)

The other example is my 1988 XJ40.  The '88 was supposed to be the worst
Jaguar ever made.  Whilst it does have some niggily irritating problems, I
now have 228,000 miles on the car and I expect another 100,000 - 200,000 out
of it before it finally goes away.  Then again, I do all my own repair
work!!

So the best thing you can do is find a car that has been regularly and WELL
serviced.  It should give a long period of faithful service.

Webserve