I’ve always heard jags can be major piles. Or maintenance can be difficult or expensive. Which I can see both in any v12 model. But I’ve been googling on and off today and what I can tell this generation of XJ8 with the v8 and 5 spd actually seems to be be pretty reliable. If that’s the case I might actually just end up keeping it. It’s a pleasure to drive. Slow. But extremely quite and very smooth.
Both of mine were V12's - the XJ -V12 HE VdP had the usual fuel tank issues and a parking brake issue. The XJ-S had no real issues except for broken front springs (under warranty).
The parking brake would have been $1500 in 1991 - the car had inboard parking brakes and you had to drop the whole rear end to get to it. I needed to fix it to pass inspection and the dealer said "if that's all you need it for, then I can make it work one time - but don't try it, just take my word for it and bring it back here after the inspection - but don't try it.
I did just that, passed inspection and went back to the dealer, who pulled it into the bay and asked me to pull the parking brake. It worked, but wouldn't release, He whacked it with a hammer and said "you're good until next year - just remember that it might lock up, so don't use it until you really need it."