Free guide · 2013–2020 · supercharged V6 and V8
Jaguar F-Type X152: what to check before you buy
What this car is, and the six questions that decide whether the one you are looking at is a good buy.
In this guide · 6 chapters
Who built it, and what they built
Jaguar showed the F-Type to an invited audience at the Musée Rodin in Paris on 26 September 2012, and to the public at the Paris motor show the same day. It went on sale as a Convertible in 2013; the Coupé made its debut at the Los Angeles and Tokyo shows in November 2013, and Jaguar dates its arrival to 2014. Jaguar built the range at its Castle Bromwich plant, in the UK.
It was designed under Ian Callum, Jaguar's Director of Design, and the Coupé's shape goes back to the C-X16 concept coupé of the 2011 Frankfurt show. Callum, in Jaguar's own release: "No design project has given me greater pleasure than the creation of the F-TYPE."
The E-Type question
You will read that the F-Type is the E-Type's successor. None of the Jaguar documents we read calls it that, and they do not agree with each other on the connection either. At the launch in 2012 Jaguar called it "the first two-seater sports car from Jaguar since the iconic E-type was launched more than 50 years ago". In 2024 it called it "Jaguar's first two-seat sports car in almost 40 years" — which fits a count from the end of the E-Type in 1974, not from its launch in 1961. And Callum, interviewed by Kyle Fortune of wheels magazine in 2012, said: "of course the E-Type was in the back of our minds when we designed it, but I told my team to forget about it."
So we will leave the lineage to Jaguar, and give you one pair of numbers it put side by side itself: by the time production ended in 2024, Jaguar had built 87,731 F-Types, against 72,528 E-Types. The F-Type figure includes the later four-cylinder cars and the facelifted ones. Jaguar has published no split by engine, body or year that we could find, so we cannot tell you how many of the cars in this guide were built.
The body
The structure is aluminium, and Jaguar's wording matters for an owner: it is "exclusively riveted and bonded", not welded. The Coupé's body side is a single aluminium pressing, and Jaguar gives its torsional rigidity as 33,000 Nm per degree — "greater than in any previous production Jaguar", as Jaguar put it in November 2013. The Convertible has a fabric roof that opens or closes in twelve seconds at up to 30 mph.
It is not a light car for all that. Top Gear gave the base Convertible's weight as 1,600 kg in 2013, "10 percent more than a base 911 cabrio".
The engines
Two of them, both supercharged, and in Jaguar's workshop bulletins they carry codes you will want to know:
- AJ126, a 3.0-litre V6, which Jaguar says was "developed from Jaguar's highly acclaimed 5.0-litre V8". It came with 340 PS or 380 PS, and, for the 2018 model year only, with 400 PS as the 400 SPORT.
- AJ133, the 5.0-litre V8, with direct injection and what Jaguar calls a "twin-vortex" supercharger: 495 PS in the original V8 S, 550 PS in the F-Type R, and 575 PS in the SVR.
Both have two high-pressure fuel pumps. On both, Jaguar's own repair procedure takes the supercharger off to reach the coolant pipes beneath it, and much of what the buying guide says about these engines is about what sits under and around that supercharger.
The sound, which was the point
Jaguar did not treat the exhaust as an afterthought. At launch it described valves that "open under load from 3000rpm which allows the exhaust note to build to a thrilling crescendo at the redline", in an active exhaust it said had been developed through more than 85 iterations. In 2023 its senior sound engineer, Charles Richardson, put the same number on the V8: optimisation work on the whole powertrain, "most of all to the intake and exhaust systems – more than 85 iterations before we first launched the car." That year Jaguar gave recordings of the V8 F-Type to the British Library, "to be archived for all time". The library's curator wrote that as "production of this engine comes to a close, this unique noise takes its place in the nation's archive".
How it ended
The last F-Type left Castle Bromwich in June 2024 — by Jaguar's account "50 years to the day since the last Jaguar E-type drove off the production line". It was a 5.0-litre V8 Convertible in green with a black roof and tan leather, close to the colours of the last E-Type, and Jaguar said it would be handed to the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust. In 2021 Jaguar had announced that it would become an all-electric brand. Of the 150 ZP Editions it announced for the final year of production, Jaguar wrote that they "will be the last internal combustion-engined sports cars designed by Jaguar."
The cars in this guide are the first part of that run: the supercharged V6 and V8 cars from the launch to the facelift for the 2021 model year.
How the figures in this guide work
How much work each job is, not what it costs. Every point in the buying guide carries an effort — an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop — and, where we can say it, whether the money sits in the part or in getting to it.
Where Jaguar printed a time, it is there too. Many of Jaguar's workshop bulletins give the warranty time for the repair. Jaguar itself says those times "must be taken as guidance only", and so do we: a warranty time is the time Jaguar allows its own dealers for the job, and an independent workshop may take longer.
There are no prices, and that is deliberate. What a job costs depends on which country you are in and which workshop you walk into, so a figure we cannot verify is worse than no figure. If you want an amount, ask any workshop one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every hour in the buying guide becomes your own number, in your own currency.
None of this is advice about one particular car, because we have not seen the car you are looking at. Have every one of them inspected before you buy, by someone who knows these engines.
The six questions that decide whether this car is a good buy
The newest of these cars are six years old and the first are thirteen, which is young among the cars we cover. That works in your favour twice: most of them are still in good order, and much of what goes wrong is documented by Jaguar itself, in bulletins written for its own dealers. Six questions.
1 · The supercharger drive — does it clatter?
Jaguar's own bulletin describes a "'clattering' / 'knock' / 'rattle' noise" from the engine, caused by wear in the part that cushions the drive to the supercharger. The same noise can be two very different jobs, and Jaguar's own test tells them apart. Which one you are hearing is the difference between half a day and a supercharger.
2 · The coolant pipes under the supercharger — have they been done?
A Jaguar bulletin traces an "engine overheat" message and coolant loss to "weakness in the plastic weld process of the coolant pipes", and it lists every V6 and V8 F-Type from the first car. To reach those pipes, the workshop takes the charge air cooler off, and then the supercharger. That is why the invoice for this job is one of the best pieces of paper a seller can show you.
3 · On a V8, the timing chain — and why this guide will not give you years.
PistonHeads says the V8 can suffer from noisy timing-chain tensioners; Rush Magazine describes a timing-chain flaw on early cars without saying which engine. We searched more than a thousand Jaguar communications filed for the F-Type and found no bulletin about it — the F-Type timing-chain bulletin that does exist is for the four-cylinder. So the buying guide says what is known, what is not, and how to listen for it, and leaves out the years and engine numbers you will see quoted elsewhere.
4 · The steering — which system, and what it needs.
Up to the 2015 model year the F-Type has hydraulic power steering; from 2016 it is electric. Each has its own Jaguar bulletin. On the electric cars, Jaguar held back unsold cars in 2025 over corrosion in a wiring junction box, and said that any repair for cars already on the road would come in a separate campaign. Which car you are looking at decides which question you ask.
5 · The rear differential — dry, or wet?
Jaguar's own message to its dealers puts a leaking differential pinion seal down to "Parts/Supplier quality", on every engine. Two magazines add what it can lead to, and what a careless repair can do. It is a quick look on a lift, and a cheap thing to find before it becomes an expensive one.
6 · The VIN — which of Jaguar's bulletins and recalls are this car's.
Much of what Jaguar published about the F-Type is tied to ranges of chassis numbers, and several items are software rather than parts. A Jaguar dealer can tell you from the VIN what has been done and what is still open. On this car that printout answers more questions than any other single document.
What the answers add up to
On a car with a full service history and a clean read-out, most of what remains is small: an hour or two at a time, a few half-days, and very little that keeps the car in a workshop for longer. The heavy items on these cars are few and they are known — the supercharger drive, the coolant pipes, and on a V8 the question about the chain. That is something you can plan for.
That is only useful if you know what it is made of. The buying guide takes each of these six apart, adds the things that are simply a few years old, and says for each one how much work it is, what tells you about it at a viewing, and whether it has to be done now or can wait. It comes with a card you print and take with you, in the order you do it, including the two moments at a viewing that come only once.
Which years, which specification
Jaguar's bulletins count in model years, and so does this guide: the first cars, sold from 2013, are 2014 model year. The facelift was revealed in December 2019 for the 2021 model year, so the cars here run from the 2014 to the 2020 model year. The 2.0-litre four-cylinder that joined the range for 2018 is a different engine and is not covered here; a good part of the F-Type bulletins you will find online are about that engine only, and the buying guide says which.
2014 model year: three Convertibles, one gearbox. The F-Type with the 340 PS V6, the F-Type S with the 380 PS V6, and the V8 S with 495 PS. All rear-wheel drive, and all with Jaguar's eight-speed automatic, which it calls Quickshift and which its bulletins name as the 8HP70. The S had a mechanical limited-slip differential and the V8 S an electronically controlled one. The steering was hydraulic.
The Coupé, from 2014. The same two V6 cars, and at the top the F-Type R Coupé with 550 PS, a second-generation electronic differential and, in Jaguar's words, "for the first time on a Jaguar – Torque Vectoring by braking". Carbon-ceramic brakes were an option on the R and S Coupé.
2016 model year, on sale from spring 2015: the big change.
- All-wheel drive, on the S and the R, with the automatic only.
- A six-speed manual, only with the V6 and only with rear-wheel drive, on both the 340 PS and 380 PS cars. Jaguar developed it with ZF.
- Electric power steering across the range, replacing the hydraulic system.
- The R Convertible, replacing the rear-drive-only 495 PS V8 S.
Jaguar said the range grew from six versions to fourteen. AWD cars have their own bonnet, with a deeper central bulge.
The SVR, from summer 2016. 575 PS, all-wheel drive, and a titanium and Inconel exhaust. Jaguar called it "the fastest F-TYPE ever".
2018 model year: a new face and the 400 SPORT. LED headlights, new bumpers, Jaguar's Touch Pro screen on every car, and the 400 SPORT with 400 PS, sold "for one model year only". The R-Dynamic name that appears from this model year is a trim: Jaguar's American press kit pairs it with the 380 PS V6, not with more power. From this model year the R and the SVR were all-wheel drive only.
2020 model year. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, particulate filters on every engine, and softer low-speed damping on the R.
The manual's last year is unclear. Jaguar's press kits still list it for the 2019 and 2020 model years. A UK magazine says it had gone from the UK range by 2019. It may differ by market; if you want one, check the car, not the brochure.
And after the facelift, no V6 in Europe. For the 2021 model year Jaguar sold the UK and the EU a four-cylinder and two V8s; the V6 stayed in North America.
European and American cars. Jaguar's American documents print the same numbers in horsepower that its European ones give in PS — a 380 is a 380. What differs is the paperwork: most of the Jaguar bulletins quoted in the buying guide are the North American editions, which is where they are publicly filed.
Beyond that, look for a car nobody has modified. Factory wheels, standard ride height, the original exhaust and unaltered software. On a supercharged engine, an unmodified car says more about how it was looked after than about the owner's taste.
What it is worth
This is the hardest thing to establish on your own, and it does as much as anything to decide whether you buy well. We are not going to give you a price list — it varies by country and by month, and an out-of-date number is worse than no number. We are going to give you the method.
On this car, the paperwork sets the price. Two cars with the same mileage are not the same car if one has invoices for the coolant pipes, a dealer's printout showing the campaigns done, and a service every year, and the other has a stamped book and an owner who says everything has been done. The gap between them is usually larger than any difference in colour or mileage.
There are three kinds of car for sale, and each one deserves a different offer.
The documented car. Full history, invoices tied to readings, the campaigns done, an owner who knows what was done and when. Asking price at the top of the market, usually justified. What you are buying is the history.
The tidy car with no paperwork. Drives well, looks good, and the owner says it has always been serviced. The hardest of the three, because the things you most need to know — what has been done under the supercharger — are exactly the things you cannot see.
The project. Known work, price adjusted to match. Be careful here: on a supercharged engine, a noise nobody has diagnosed is not a project yet, it is a question.
How to set the three against each other. Take the asking price, work through the questions in this guide — and the lists in the buying guide, if you have it — and add up what is coming in the first two years. Call that the entry price, and compare entry prices rather than asking prices.
Compare like with like. A V6 and a V8 are different cars, a Coupé and a Convertible are different cars, and a manual is a different car from an automatic. The comparison that matters is between two cars with the same engine, body and gearbox.
Where to look: your country's big classified sites, the Jaguar specialists and dealers, and the auction sites. Follow the market for a month before you go and see anything. You do not need a list price; you need to know what is happening — which cars sell quickly, which sit for months, and at what price.
What it is actually like to own one
Top Gear drove the Convertible at its launch in 2013 and summed it up: "It's fast, lithe, quick to turn. It's beautiful and wonderfully desirable, and to heck if that means it isn't very practical. It's loud and sharp." CAR, in the V8 S, called it "fantastically, absurdly, implausibly exciting to drive – challenging (on the limit) in a way you just wouldn't expect in a modern Jaguar."
Both engines are loud in the way the engineers meant them to be. CAR heard the V8 as "a gravelly baritone growl that grows to a rapid, multi-cylindered snarl". Top Gear thought the V6, through its exhaust, had "a sonic character that's spookily reminiscent of an old-school straight-six on SU carbs. In other words, of an E-Type." On cars with the active exhaust, a button or Dynamic Mode opens the valves, and you will find yourself using it.
It is a usable thing, within limits. Two seats, and in the Convertible a boot that Top Gear called "ridiculously mean". The Coupé has a tailgate. The battery and even the washer reservoir live in the boot, which is worth knowing when the buying guide talks about water.
It is full of moving parts that a sports car of the 1990s did not have. Door handles that slide out when you unlock the car and back in when you drive off. A centre air vent that rises from the dashboard. A rear spoiler that comes up at speed. Valves in the exhaust. Two magazines report that the handles and the vent can give trouble. None of this is a reason not to buy one — but at a viewing, everything that moves should move.
What it costs you in attention. Less than an older car, as long as it is serviced on time. On these engines the cooling system is the thing worth watching, and the buying guide explains why.
What it gives back. A supercharged V6 or V8 with an active exhaust that Jaguar says took more than eighty-five iterations to develop, in a two-seater that Jaguar built for more than a decade and then stopped. That is not an investment, and this guide will not pretend it is. These are the early cars of the last petrol sports car Jaguar designed, and once you have heard one start you understand why people keep them.
The buying guide — €24
Everything above is what the car is. This is what you check.
Nine faults that belong to these engines, taken apart one by one, with how much work each repair is and how to tell which of them you are looking at. Sixteen things that are simply six to thirteen years old, every one with how much work it is, what tells you about it at a viewing, and whether it has to be done now, within a year or two, or not at all. Where water gets into a Convertible's boot (from Jaguar's own checklist), which cars have a blocked air-conditioning drain, and the paint and glass that Jaguar repairs on this aluminium car. What Jaguar documents about the differential's pinion seal, the clonk from the driveline, the automatic gearbox and the manual's clutch — and which of the bulletins you will find online belong to the four-cylinder or the F-Pace instead. The viewing in thirteen steps, including the two moments that come only once. The sentences you say to the seller, and how to build an offer out of what you found.
And a card you print and take with you — sixty-six lines, in the order you do them. That comes as a separate file, because nobody wants to print a whole guide to take a few pages to a car park.
This is what one of the sixteen looks like
9 · A squeal from the rear brakes
An hour or two · Jaguar's warranty time is 1.1 hours to grease the caliper contact points
Two Jaguar documents. One for cars with the larger, 380 mm front brakes: "A 'squeal' noise from the rear brakes may be evident at slow speed as the vehicle is coming to a stop." And a 2018 message for cars on 19-inch wheels: "the noise does not indicate a degradation in functionality or braking performance." Jaguar also looked into the cosmetic finish of painted rear calipers in 2015 — appearance, not function.
Leave it — it is a known trait. Grease the contact points if it bothers you.
And this is how the card reads
- 1 · Before anybody starts it
- 2 · The cold start · do nothing else, and nobody revs it
- 3 · The engine bay, engine off
- 4 · Round the outside
- 5 · The boot, floor up
- 6 · The roof, or the spoiler · hands clear
What €24 buys, put next to what it saves
The coolant pipes under the supercharger are half a day by Jaguar's own warranty time, and its bulletin lists every V6 and V8 from the first car. The supercharger drive is half a day for the isolator kit — or a whole supercharger, and the guide gives you Jaguar's own way of telling the two apart. And on a V8, the timing chain is two or three days. The guide is €24. It will not stop any of that from being needed — but it does tell you which of them you are looking at before you agree a price, and that is the whole of the difference between paying for a car and paying for someone else's postponed maintenance.
Why there are no prices in it
Because a price we cannot verify is worse than no price, and because a price would be wrong for most of the people reading this anyway. Workshop rates across Europe differ widely, and so do parts prices. A quote from a specialist in one country tells you nothing in another.
What does not change is how much work a job is — that follows from what has to come off the car. So every point in the guide says whether it is an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop, with a labour figure where a source gives one. And it says whether the money sits in the part or in getting to it, which is what lets you tell a fair quote from a bad one.
If you want a figure, ask any workshop one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every effort level in the guide becomes your own number, in your own currency. One question, and the answer is actually true for you.
How this guide was put together
Because you should know before you pay for it.
- Every fault and symptom comes from a source the guide names, the manufacturer's own documents first. The effort levels are our assessment, unless a source gives the hours.
- Where the evidence is thin — the V8's timing chain rests on two magazines and no Jaguar bulletin — it says so, gives no years or engine numbers, and puts Jaguar's own documents first everywhere else.
- The effort of every job is counted item by item and checked against the list before every edition.
- It says as plainly what you can leave alone as what you have to do. Ten of the sixteen age points start from leave it.
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Have every car inspected before you buy by someone who knows this engine. This is general information about the model and not advice about a specific car.