long-term update

Our Jaguar XK’s flying along just fine since the last update, having completed one year of ownership. We’re always discovering new things about the car, especially since, like most people, we haven’t bothered reading the manual. Stuff like the valet mode to stop random people snooping in your boot and glovebox, and the screws in the carpeted cargo area that double as hangers for grocery bags. Aside from door dings by douches and occasional selfie-takers leaning on the car, we had to deal with two other pending wear-and-tear issues that we inherited when we got the car.

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Ah, our Honda S2000 — a pain to drive daily, a pain to keep its roof in good shape, and a pain to keep dings at bay. But damn is it cheap to service.

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The first time I drove the Toyota FJ Cruiser, it was late 2007, I was only 6 months out of college, I owned a 1990 junker, this site was still growing, and I was barely getting any invites to automotive media events. Fast-forward to 2014, and I’m married, I own three cars, the site is a successful behemoth…and I’m still barely getting any invites to automotive media events. That’s how long the FJ has been around. But I digress. The Missus just got her driving licence after a month of lessons, and a manual one at that. As with any noob driver,

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So we had settled ourselves with a used Ford Mondeo for over a year now, since selling our Mitsubishi Pajero. However, when the situation dictated the need of a second car primarily for my wife, we went on the hunt for one. After a couple of months of visiting several dealerships and test-driving a lot of cars, we settled on the 2014 Renault Megane 2.0 hatchback, of all things.

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Jaguar is keen to promote the F-Type as their new hero of the line-up, its position further solidified by the news that the long-running Jaguar XK is going to end production by this summer, with no replacement planned anytime soon. However, as big of an improvement as the F-Type is as a sports car, it is missing the main reason that I bought the XK for: cargo space.

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While the other cars on our fleet are just toys, the Range Rover is the family vehicle and performs the bulk of our transporting duties. We’ve also trusted it as our luxury ride for important time-sensitive meetings and airport drop-offs. As such, it needs to be reliable. Thankfully our greyish-green Vogue has served us faithfully since 2012 with only minor niggles, especially since we properly take care of it. But it is nearly a decade old and has 111,111 km on it, so we decided to do the inevitable overhaul after it started showing signs of tiredness.

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As we’ve said before, the Honda S2000 is supremely reliable when it comes to mechanicals. But keep it in top cosmetic condition is a never-ending battle due to all sorts of random cost-cutting measures by Honda.

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The BMW 1-Series has always been an acquired taste ever since it launched in 2004. Even if the looks don’t bother you, there is still the price, as it costs more than a Golf without necessarily offering that much more (at least in the basic models). That said, if you look past the basic models, the top-of-the-range 1-Series have always been interesting cars, combining arguably BMW’s best straight-6 engines with an entertaining chassis, and probably more closely evoking the spirit of BMWs from decades ago than their larger brethren in the current model lineup.

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We’ve had our Range Rover for nearly 18 months now. When we bought it, it had some minor cosmetic flaws that we elected to leave as-is at the time, because they didn’t hinder the operation of the car. But we recently decided to keep it for longer than we initially anticipated, so we figured we’ll dress it up and restore its new-car vibe.

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The first thing we did after buying our used Jaguar XK last summer was to take it in for “smart” repair. If you’re unfamiliar with what that is, then read on.

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