The Joys of Car Ownership

Those of you who know me know that I come from a family that loves British cars. That is pretty much the only reason why I ended up driving a 1994 XJ6 Jag. Now most people's reaction to the fact that I drive a Jag is either "awesome, it's a jag!" or "wow, you must have piles of money sitting around!". Unfortunately the first one is true only some of the time, and the second one has yet to be true ever (I'm working on that one, though). But honestly I have a love-hate relationship with my Jag. On the one hand it's still a very nice car in spite of being 15 years old. It drives well, for the most part, and has done a great job of getting me from place to place in spite of my sometimes spotty maintenance. Anyone who says that Jags have terrible reliability hasn't owned one built after 1990. And if you have a newer one, JD Power and Associates should put your mind to rest! On the other hand, parts are expensive and sometimes hard to come by. I've had more than one part that was only available in re-manufactured form.

Case in point are the new front shocks that I'm in the process of replacing. Now if I had a standard car I might be able to walk out of Advance Auto Parts with a new shock for $15.99 a pop, assuming I'm being really cheap, of course. The Jag, however, needs shocks that run a whopping $185.00 a pop! But I bite the bullet and buy the things because, after all, it is cheaper to fix what you have than to buy something completely new. Of course, that price doesn't factor in having someone install them or, in my case, the time of installing them yourself. Lets just say that last night I decided that I was going to use my new welding setup to finally get the old nasty ones off and get my nice shiny new ones on, and 9 hours later I finally got the right side installed. I love working on cars at 2:30am on Monday (well, Tuesday I guess)! I'm sure my neighbors loved me banging on my suspension with a claw hammer at 2:30am as well. Hey, with British cars everyone gets in on the fun!