Jaguar Repair: power steering leak causes fire, british car repair, jaguar specialist

Question
Yesterday I was driving my 1985 XJ6 and after getting off the hwy I noticed a tremendous amount of smoking coming from under the car. People on the sidewalks were yelling, your car is on fire, get out quick. I stopped the car, jumped out and looked underneath and there were flamed dripping from under the car. After opening the hood, a mechanic told me that he moved the steering wheel and it made a horrible noise and I had a leak in the PS line, which had caused the PS fluid to leak onto the exhaust pipe and the heat ignited the fluid. How much do you think this would cost to fix. The car still starts fine and only has 29 thousand miles on it, would you fix it?

Answer
Sorry Silvia, I quit working on cars for people many years ago. It sounds like you need a Jaguar specialist so you should look in your local yellow pages for a British car specialist to see if they work on Jaguars. An 85 XJ-6 with only 29K on it is a great car. You should avoid regular mechanics unless they have a lot of Jaguar experience.
Just about all major cities in the US have British car repair shops. Jaguar dealerships are presently at a very high labor rate but there are usually one or more independent Jaguar shops in every city that there is a dealership. I don't work on cars any more but if you are within a 100 miles of Nashville TN I can give you the name of an independent shop that does good work and most important is honest. One other in Carson City, NV.

As far as the noise, if the engine was running when you turned the wheel it was probably just low on fluid and the power steering pump was trying to pump air. It is about time for you to have all the rubber hoses and fuel lines especially, to be replaced. Not because of the mileage but the age. The rubber parts age with time and 23 years is old for them.

Howard