I visit the 'Cars" forum at least once a week. I saw your post some time ago and did not respond because others had replied, and their answers appeared ok.

You raised a new issue that was not in the 'cars' post, and that was Power Steering (PS) fluid. I will reply here.

$300 to replace the battery?

I don't think so unless there is something special about it. You should be able to buy a replacement at "Batteries Plus" for $100 to $200 dollars, probably about $120. Also, Batteries Plus will change the battery for you if it is an ordianry change-out, not requiring any special. Batteries Plus will not touch it if thay have to take apart anything to gain access ot the battery, for example, unbolt and move aside a brace, or remove splash shields for batteries not in the engine compartment, but in the fender (I've got one of those and do my own change-out). There is extra labor if the battery is not in the engine comapartment but elsewhere like under a seat.

Change Powwer (PS) Steering Fluid???

Why? What was the reason for this? Did the fluid get contaminated? Power steering fluid does not ordinarily get changed unless something happened to it or there the vehicle has over 100,000 miles on it. I've driven a number of cars to over 140,000 miles and never changed the PS fluid. However, not being familar with the Jaguar product, I advise you to consult your owner's manual for the recommended maintence period.

Change the fuel injectors???

Why? If the engine is running well, leave these alone. These are expensive and there is a lot of labor involved to change them. Often, injectors last the life of the engine. Are you sure they recommended to change them? Maybe the recommended to flush the injectors with a cleaner. That's a much different. To flush, a mix of fuel and cleaning fluid is temporarily piped into the fuel log and pressurized. The engine is run to allow the cleaning mix to flow through the injectors. After a period of time, the cleaning mix is removed from the fuel log, everything returned to normal, and the fuel pump enabled (if it had been disabled). Nothing major has been disturbed. A flush costs $75 to $125 at your friendly local auto shop.

Wheel Alignment:

Yeah. That should be done right away. If wheels are misaligned at 20,000 miles, I'm suspicious these did not get final alignament during the warranty period. To delay, will only wear the tires faster and handling is affected. Don't wait on this. do it now and the remaining tread will last longer. You'll get more miles before you have to replace the tires, that is, unless the tires are already prematurely worn down to the replacement limit.

If everything you say is true, I'm getting a bad feeling about your dealer. Since the car is out of warranty, maybe you should use a shop you know and trust.

Oh, one other thing: About your wheel alignment, take the car to a tire and alignment shop and get a second opinion. If the alignment is bad, let them do the adjustment. You may have to take it to an alignment shop that works on European cars as well as American.

Probably, they looked at the tires and spotted a wear pattern that was common to misalignment, and did not actually measure. This method is reliable if the tires have not recently been rotated.

Thanks, Jemdandy. I have now elaborated on the "Cars" thread. We'll try a private garage -- not dealership.

I don't mind putting money into this car. It's cost us almost nothing to date, thanks to the extended waranty, and we'd like to keep it much longer. I just don't want to do unnecessary repairs!

At 20,000 miles, a yr 2005 model is considered a "cream puff", in other words, a desirable low miles auto, and a Jaguar to boot. If you were to sell it, the main concern of the buyer would be: has it been stored correctly. With miles that low, the car may have had a lot of short trips on it and the engine might not have gotten hot enough, lomg enough, to evaporate condensates out of the oil.

If it were my car, I'd keep it! And I would not allow it to be driven on salted roads. My policy would be to keep it in the garage after the first road salting for a winter season. It would not go back on the street until the salt has been flushed off in the spring by a rain. If you keep it out of the salt, the body can stay corrosion free for many years. I have experience with 2 cars that I did this with and each attained 13 years of age before any sign of corosion appeared. When driven, these cars were not babied. One had 99,000 miles and the other, 130,000 miles before they were moved out of my ownership.

Clean it up and it'll look good in parades.

Ha-ha! This is our family car! It doesn't get a LOT of winter driving, but some. (We leave for Maui early January and return end of February.) It's garaged year 'round. Neither of us smoke or are overweight, so it's holding up well, although I doubt it has much market value. (So why is our insurance $700/yr.? LOL)

We've had Jaguars for years. After DH retired, one of our two began accumulating *dust*, so we decided to try being a one-car couple. Once in a while we've needed to rent a car for a day, but otherwise we've been fine. You can rent a car now and then for a lot less than it costs to own and insure a second car, and there's no 'dusting' involved.

We kept the remaining sedan a bit over 10 years (under 50K miles). Then we didn't want another big car, so we traded in the XJR and bought this '05 X-Type VDP 'used' from a Jaguar dealer in mid-year. It had 2700 miles and came with a six-year waranty (now expired). It's 'depreciated out' on my budget, so if we have a bit of maintenence on it now that's only fair.

Thanks for taking the time to look over my questions about that maintenance. I don't know what we'd buy to replace this. All car makes look alike to me now, and few seem to have the nicely detailed interiors I like.