Daimler Super V8
1998

2014-19 updates & links

Terribly self-indulgent, I know, this page is not linked from anywhere, but is here for the benefit of petrolheaded acquaintances too far afield to see it for themselves.
This Daimler is finished in Seafrost - a pale turquoise that I think is one of the most attractive colours in Daimler's range. There are three large images here, followed by a host of smaller ones, each showing some detail. I bought it at 50,000 miles, in near-perfect condition, so it has had only one previous owner. I had only to give it a new set of wheel-trims and boot-badges to make it indistinguishable from new. (Yes, I am that fussy!)

Yes, I really do keep the tail pipes polished. How sad is that! Looks good, though.

I had the (factory optional) reverse park sensors retro-fitted by my local dealership, because overall length is 17 feet, and I wanted help with today's absurdly stingy parking slots. The dealership has looked after my motor cars for over 20 years now, so they know what I expect and, to do them justice, have not let me down.

All the Daimler SV8s were long-wheelbase. Overall length is 17 feet.

Now for the detail. Starting with the bad news, no 90+ thousand mile motor car is free from some signs of use. Here are the worst bits.


The driver's side kickplate has a few scuffs and the top edge of the sill a few chips. They are not very visible at this scale, but they are there. The passenger side is, predictably, better.	The driver's rug shows some wear, but still offers a good appearance. The compartment just visible at the top of the picure can accommodate a pocket torch or suchlike small impedimenta.

The rest is all good news.


The underbonnet insulation panel is intact.	The engine bay is clean (but not bulled - I am not that sad).

The tool kit is complete and almost un-used.	The spare wheel is un-used and the bay a repository for odds & bits. I inherited the balance weight on the rim - ugh!

When I bought the car, the boot badges were a bit manky, so I gave it new ones ...	... both sides.

The chrome is good ...	... on both sides.

This gives a good impression from the rear.	Yes, I do keep the underside of the boot handle clean and shiny.

You really wanted to see those tailpipes, didn't you?	Really!.

The boot is a good size and fitted with brolly loops. It can accommodate a small electric "buggy" of the kind used by disabled persons, if the buggy is first partially dismantled. The spare wheel, battery and many of the fuzes live under the floor. There is a fuzed accessory to provide power for a cool-box, independent of the ignition circuit. It can also be used to top up the battery and I have made up suitable interfacing plugs for both purposes.	The document wallet lives on the right hand side and includes a full Jaguar/Daimler service history from new as well as the various manuals that were supplied from new.

On the left side of the boot lives the 6-disk CD autochanger.	The car comes with a plumbed-in, hands-free Motorola brick that takes a full-size SIM card. There are spare batteries and an off-car charger.

The interior


The interior woodwork is "as new". Buttons on either side of the steering wheel boss adjust radio/tape/CD volume and cruise control respectively.	The centre console controls ventilation, entertainment and communications (telephone). The J-gate selector will be familar to Jaguar and Daimler owners. The gearbox is 5-speed automatic.

Left hand rear door. The armrests throughout the car are upholstered in leather. The door pocket has generous room for a pair of folding binoculars and oddments. The large "woofer" loudspeaker in each rear door is supplemented by a "tweeter" at the front of the door-handle recess (not clearly visible in this picture), affording excellent sound quality throughout the frequency range. Front seat passengers are similarly cosseted, their tweeters being in the "A" pillars at either side of the windscreen.	Driver's door. The controls for the seat's 3-positional memory are in the armrest. Door mirror settings are also remembered. There's clever stuff about the remote locking gadgets, too, each being keyed to a different driver so that seats are set correctly automagically ... as long as you don't swap keys. When you open the driver's door or remove the key from the ignition, the driver's seat moves back and the steering wheel moves forward and up to afford extra room for the driver to alight with dignity. This feature can be turned off to safeguard the ankles of an unwary RH rear seat passenger. A third key, coloured green to distinguish it from the others, is the valet key, intended for hotel staff who may be instructed to park the car and retrieve it for the owner; the green key gives access to the car's interior and the ignition circuit, but not to the glove box or luggage boot.

Just a fun pic to show off the condition of the door mirror - powerfold, of course.	Overhead are a main interior light and two highly-directional map lights. The rocker switch controls the 3-position sliding steel sunroof and the grey blob on the right of the picture is the microphone for the in-car telephone system. At the top of the picture, the spectacle-compartment can just be seen; this accommodates one pair of spectacles - driving glasses or sun-glasses according to the owner's needs or predilections. Personally, I find that a panama hat eliminates any need for darkened lenses, except in snow.

The front passenger, like the driver, has a full range of seat adjustments by electric motors, controlled by the multi-function knobs and buttons visible here, though not a seat-position memory. The condition of the lambswool overmat can also be seen in this picture. The centre armrest has a fold-out compartment at its front, equipped with cupholders. I discourage the carriage of sticky drinks inside my motor car, but find it a handy place to tidy away car-park tickets.	Rear seat passengers have a picnic table and each seat is furnished with a generous map pocket that also affords room for an emergency tweed cap for those occasions when one finds that one has locked the house, leaving one's panama hat inside. The front passenger's "tweeter", aforementioned, can be seen on the "A" pillar in this picture.

The rear passengers have a lot of leg-room, thanks to the long wheelbase. Three seat belts are provided.	The Daimler motif sets off the headrests. The rectangular sockets just above the window line secure latches on a pair of roller-sun-blinds that can be lifted from the floor of the parcel shelf.

Rear passengers also have their own ventilation console and seat heaters. The switches on the right of the front passenger seat enable position and rake to be adjusted from the rear or by the driver for front seat passengers who cannot suss out their own controls.	The front seats have front stowage pockets.

Lambswool rug for the front passenger - almost as new.	The wheels were professionally refinished in 2008 and I made the car a present of new centre-trims when I bought it; they still look good.

Eulogy

At the time of writing (May 2009), this motor car had just had its tenth service at an authorized Jaguar dealer and covered 90,500 miles. Very few of these Daimlers were made; all were supercharged; all were long-wheelbase. Currently, Daimlers are available only to special order and are pretty much badge-engineered Jaguars. This one entered service in the Southampton area and changed hands in 2003, at 50,000 miles. Since then it has been garaged in rural Devon and been my daily-use transport. It is unquestionably the best, most reliable motor car I have ever had - and those include three Bristols and two Bentleys, not to mention a Sovereign V-12 Jaguar and a late-model 6-litre Double-Six Daimler. It is not as quiet or as comfortable as the SV-12, which must rate as the most refined mobile English drawing-room of all time, RR not excluded; nor is it as lavishly appointed as the D6 or as meticulously finished and pedantically over-engineered as any Bentley; but it is a better "driver's" car than any of them. Its handling is only slightly less sure-footed than a new XK-R - given the size of the Daimler, that must be expected - and the sheer grunt available from the supercharged V-8 will surprise any but the hairiest of the motor-cycling fraternity. Only the high driving position, generous seats and phenomenal headlamps of a late '90's Bentley make it marginally superior to this Daimler, in my view. I cannot speak for the latest models from Crewe, as they are well beyond my pocket.

The Daimler is also surprisingly economical: overall mpg has been just over 19 in my hands; 24mpg is possible on motorways if driven legally. Servicing is annually or each 10,000 miles and very few replacements have been needed - a couple of wheel-bearings, a cam-cover gasket, a driver's door seal and a light-switch, if memory serves me. The only "breakdown" was in December 2008, at 90600 miles, when the thermostat failed, causing some vanes to be lost from the water pump. As a precaution, new timing chains and tensioners were fitted whilst the front of engine was dismantled to replace the water pump.
I had the wheels refurbished in 2008, as they were beginning to deteriorate so as to be difficult to clean satisfactorily. Tyres are about Ł130 each and I have needed a pair about every year. Oil consumption has been roughly a quart between services - all of it burned. There have been no drips; in fact, my drip-trays are starting to rust, for the first time in their lives! For this reason, the underside of the car has been cleaned and waxoyled to protect it from corrosion.

If I used all the grunt all the time, I should expect to consume more of everything.

Update - September 2014

Last year, the radiator was diagnosed as "tired" so, rather than risk an embarrassing failure, I had it replaced with a new one. I also insisted on a change of gearbox oil; this is not a service item, as Jaguar consider that the gearbox and rear axle oils are good for the life of the car. In fact, there is no rear axle drain plug, so that remains an "issue" for me. However, the gearbox has fresh oil and a new filter, which cannot do any harm and may, perhaps, prolong its life.

This year, at 98,000 miles, I had new headlamps and a new windscreen fitted. The former has transformed night-driving and significantly improved driving against light. I would recommend a new windscreen in any car after eighty or ninety thousand miles, as the micro-pitting that occurs unavoidably after such usage causes dazzle to build up gradually. I still have not succeeded in having the rear axle oil replaced, as the "official" method of doing so is to remove the diff housing and invert it to drain oil via the filler hole ...
I also had an irritating failure of the left-hand buttons on the steering wheel; these control radio volume, channel selection and telephone. This had occasionally happened before, but been remedied by running a heater for a few hours in the front footwell. It seems that there is an electronic box that suffers from English damp, which is not fully ameliorated by the dehumidifier that I use routinely. Anyway, this time, the box had failed completely and was replaced.