Heh...I get that a lot. The funny thing is, my 88 is the second- or third-most reliable car I've ever owned.

My cars have interesting lineages: The 99 Jag was bought off a used car lot. But the others came to me the following ways:

87 Starion - rescued from a trip to the crusher back in 2001.
88 Conquest - abandoned on the side of Interstate 59 near Gadsden, Ala. Paid about $640 for the car at auction a month later and swapped in a new engine (it was abandoned because the previous owner slipped the balance shaft/oil pump chain and drove it until it locked up).
88 Jag - Bought out of a barn south of Atlanta for $676 in 2008, and all it needed was a $4 coil wire (coil wires from Chevy Cavaliers just happen to fit an 88 Jag perfectly) to make it run.

What can I say, I like reclamation projects (both our dogs are shelter adoptions, too).

The only reason I can't say the 88 is the second- or third-most reliable is I can't decide whether it was more or less reliable than an 88 XJS V12 that I owned from 2002-2004. The thing about old Jaguars that are still running is that if they're still running now, it's quite likely they were "good" Jags to start with. Most of the older ones that were crap (and there were many) have already died off and left us with the survivors. My current 88 is about to roll over 200k and doesn't leak fluids, hard as that may be to imagine considering its pedigree.

Jess

p.s.: Thanks all for the opinions on the clutch.