I've had the '04 XK8 for about a year and have never been happy with the ride - every bump in the road could be felt through the steering. After reading all the posts on front end suspension issues I was inspired. So, $1,000 in parts, a $100 press, and a long weekend later and all is good. And then to make it even better, I put on a set of Continental Extreme Contact DW tires and got an alignment. The car has never felt better!

New front shocks and upper shock mounts from Parts Geek accounted for over half the cost ($540). Upper and Lower Balljoints, Upper and Lower Control Arm Bushings, and Sway Bar Links and Bushings came from British Parts UK for a total of $322 shipped. Unfortunately, the Upper Wishbone Bushings didn't fit. The bolts didn't fit through them and they were a little too long. I sent them back and will see if I get a refund. Bushings from the local Jag dealer cost three times as much at $251 for the set of 4, but they were much prettier, and more importantly, they fit.

I ordered the Conti DWs from TireRack at lunchtime Tuesday and they were delivered Wednesday AM to my local Mr Tire. So I took today off and had them mounted and Road Force balanced, and got a 4 wheel alignment while I was there. Tires were $807 delivered and the mounting & alignment was $258.

 

Nice feedback for the rest of us. Thank you.

FWIW I just replaced Perelli 0's with Toyo Venturas (seem very similar to your Continentals) and the ride is very much smoother with even better traction. Haven't needed to touch the rest yet.

 

Ed, how many miles are on your car?
Mike

 

Man, great job, and I can only imagine the improvement you received with those new parts installed!

On the UK upper a-arm bushings, Reverend Sam had the same issues...though I only ordered ball joints and sway bar bushings from the britishparts.uk site. Bummer, lesson to all doing the upper arms...get the jaguar originals

 

It just turned 67,000 miles.

I saw Rev Sam's post, but he was the only I saw that had a problem, so since there was such a big difference in prices, I figured I'd take a chance.
Next time I'll listen...

 

When I bought my 2002 XKR with about 62K miles on it, last year, I loved everything about the car except for the ride. The excessive jiggling through the steering wheel and the ever present bottoming out over the smallest dips or bumps was quite annoying. Having never owned a convertible before, I attributed some of the jiggle to lack of structural rigidity, but it was too much for me to enjoy the driving on anything but the smoothest of road surfaces. I shopped around for aftermarket polyurethane suspension bushings (which I found), I replaced the shocks, balanced the wheels and tires, and saw a marked improvement. There is still more cowl shake than I would like (especially, after I drove a new Audi R8 V-10 convertible all weekend with absolutely no hint of any shaking), but it's so much better than it was that I don't mind it much. I still find the XKR's suspension not very compliant, and certainly not as sophisticated as newer cars ten years younger, but I've got a grin on my face everytime the wind blows through what little hair I've got left, and there is never a single day where I don't get someone stopping to tell me how beautiful the cat is. Best fifteen grand I ever spent!

 

One would hope the ride's a little better - the Audi site shows the R8 Spyder "from $162,700". It's going to take some serious depreciation to get me in one of them. So how'd you wind up with one for the weekend?

 

Hi EdinVA,

I did exactly the same work on my '99 and the results were fantastic. I also put a set on the Cont's on my ride. I have 60,000 on the car and the ride is excellent now. All of the work was fairly straight forward except for getting the lowers pressed in. That took a bit of assistance from my local mechanic. He should be called an automotive engineer. The guy is a brilliant. He knows WHY things work the way they do and not just a R&R.

 

How I ended up getting to drive an R8 convertible for the weekend went something like this: My friend and business partner has an S5 Audi for which he made his final payment a couple of weeks ago, and he had the S5 in for service at keyes Audi where he bought it and where it has always been serviced. The sales mgr. asked him if he wanted to take the brand new R8 /spyder home to try for the weekend hoping to convince him to take the next step up from the S5 for his next purchase. Next thing you know we were, shall we say, doing some spirited driving Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday where we took it to Supercar Sunday at Woodland Hills Promenade on Sunday morning along with my Pantera. Great car, however, at about $185,000, it's $135,000 more than I paid for my XKR and my Pantera combined. And you know what, I think the XKR is a more beautiful convertible, and there is no comparison in sexiness to a hot red Pantera. On Monday morning, the luxurious "coach" turned back into the "pumpkin" as he picked up his S5.

 

I'm just purchasing a used XK8 (2000). I know the upper/lower control arm assembly is very marginal. I was told that you need to buy the entire control arm assembly. Reading thread like this make it seem that it is in fact possible to "refurbish" the parts instead....??

Any help/tips/thoughts greatly appreciated...

 

That's how much you'll pay for a used one...

 

You don't exactly refurbish them, you press out the old bushings and press in the new ones. You can buy entire control arms with the bushings already installed (expensive) or you can just replace the bushings on your existing arms (only kinda expensive).

 

Thanks, the mechanic who did the "alignment inspection" was recommended by the dealership. He gave me a quote of $3231.85 for the control arms (parts & labor) and a total out the door (all suspension issues) of $5,229.89. Dealer took one look and pulled the car off of the lot. Gave me a wholesale price offer and basically left it at either you can buy it or we'll send it to auction on Monday. tried to knock them down further but they wouldn't budge....so I bought it.

Engine/Trans/Electrical all seem "perfect" (now I cursed the poor car) and I have yet to see a single one that actually had all (mostly not any) of the required under carriage stuff done.

I'm getting mixed feedback from reading on using the aftermarket kit (UK supplier) vs
upper replacement bearings from Jag. Seems like I need the kit regardless or should I order everything except the bearings individually and get those from Jag??

 

Wow! That's quite an estimate. I certainly feel better about spending $1,000. What are the 'other' suspension issues that were going to cost an extra $2K?

If ordering parts from the UK, order the parts separately and leave out the upper 'bushings' (not 'bearings'). I don't think there was much of a discount ordering the kit. I was actually glad they sent me the wrong ones, so I had a reason to return them. The quality of the rubber was pretty bad. The quality of the lower bushings and balljoints was pretty good.

 

Wow! That sounds expensive. When I bought my 2002 XKR about 2 years ago, I hated the bottoming out and the terrible jiggling that came out of the suspension. I bought aftermarket polyurethane upper and lower control arm bushings, new bilstein shocks, and probably spent about $1200-1300 complete with parts and labor. For 5 grand, you could almost buy another whole XK8 just to harvest the parts. Seems terribly high.

 

I ordered urethane bushings for my XKR from a company in Virginia called Powerflex USA. Total was under $300.00, shocks were under a $100each as I recall. Check out their website.

 

Thanks for the heads up. The company is still in business. I'm goining to order my suspension bushings from them.

 

Thanks for the heads up. The company is still in business. I'm goining to order my suspension bushings from them.

 

A bunch of Texans have done the ball joint's. Because they are pressed into Iron castings/forgings, they require WAYYYYY more force to remove/install than screw-in/bolt-in ball joints or ball joints that press into sheet metal arms.


The Cheapest way to do ball joints is to buy a 20 ton press from Harbor Freight ($175-$150 with coupon) and use Autozone's rent a tool set for cups. When you finish the refurb, sell the press on Craigslist for $100.


Trying to use the rental ball joint removal tool "C-Clamp" is a waste of time. No way can the C-clamp deliver 20 tons... but the cups in the kit are useful with the press.


I used the uro upper wishbone bushings from rockauto.com. They looked just like the OEM bushings and were only $20 Each ($80 plus shipping total).

 

holy zombie post.