I brought my 2015 R in to the Jaguar dealer for an oil change a few weeks ago with about 18k miles on it. About 2 weeks later, I started hearing a slight knock around 2800RPM. The car still drove/performed perfectly fine. I checked the oil level and found that it was over-filled.

I called the Jaguar dealer and told them the oil is overfilled and I hear a knock. They had me drive it in for service.

Diagnosis: Rod knock.
Prognosis: Engine needs to be replaced immediately.

The dealer took care of it and had a new engine installed in a little over a week. This was a really great turn around time. I just picked the car up and it seems to be driving just fine now. I can tell that the engine is not the same, as the cracks/pops happen at slightly different trigger points and with a different cadence. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but different enough that I can tell it is not the same engine.


So while I was very happy with how quickly the dealer was able to resolve this issue, at no cost to me, there are several parts of this situation that really bother me:

1. The dealer played this off like it was a random failure of the engine, a warranty issue, an act of god. I looked up the details of a Rod Knock and found that they are almost always caused by lubrication problems. This was almost certainly caused by the oil being over-filled. They never acknowledged this. The service receipt also seems to only mention that I brought the car in with a knocking sound. They left out the part about the oil being over-filled. I suspect this is because the engine replacement must have cost a fortune. What do you think? $20-30k? So by playing this off like a random failure, they got Jaguar to pay for it. If they admit that this was a problem they caused, the dealership might have to eat it. Also, why did they have me drive the car in for service with the problem I described to them? It seems like they should have had it towed to prevent more damage...
Ultimately, I'm not too upset about any of this, since I got the new engine pretty quickly and without hassle. I just thought it was a bit shady that they pretended it had nothing to do with the oil issue.

2. If my F-type is about to run out of gas, it will beep and print big warnings on the screen. If I ignore this and keep driving, the worst case scenario is that I am inconvenienced, stuck on the side of the road. The car will be fine.
So then why is it that when the car KNOWS that it has a problem with the oil level, which can cause catastrophic engine failures, it DOES NOT LET ME KNOW AT ALL!?? This one pisses me off! Why did it let me start the car at all? Why not beep and say "OIL OVER-FILLED. Urgent service required". I did not get so much as a check engine light. WTF Jaguar? This is just absolutely unacceptable.
The only reason I knew the oil was over-filled was because I happened to go looking at the oil level, because the engine was already making a knocking sound. No problems were displayed on the main screen.

Here is what the user manual says about the oil over-filled message:

"If the message Engine Oil Level Overfilled is displayed, seek qualified assistance immediately. Do not drive the vehicle as this will cause serious damage to the engine."
"Overfilling with oil could result in severe engine damage. Oil should be added in small quantities and the level rechecked to make sure that the engine is not overfilled."

But apparently, this is not important enough to even so much as alert the driver in any way.....


So, the moral of the story is this:
A. ALWAYS check the oil after getting an oil change. Don't trust people to do their jobs correctly. It is really annoying to do this on an F-Type because you have to warm up the engine, turn the car off, wait 10 minutes, then you can check the oil digitally. There is no dip-stick.
B. If the car knows that there is a very serious problem which may lead to catastrophic failure, it might keep that information to itself. Thanks Jaguar.

 

Personally, despite the user manual "boiler plate", I doubt very much that an overfill caused your rod bearing problem. My understanding of the typical overfill is that the amount is equal to the difference in capacity between the AWD and RWD oil pans and this amount of overfill is unlikely to cause much in the way of issues IMO. The lubrication issues that typically cause this kind of failure are oil pump/oil pressure issues or extremely LOW oil levels.

I think you dealer acted like your engine failure had nothing to do with your oil level because it didn't ;-)

2 cents,
Dave

 

I agree with the advice to check oil level after any service that involves the oil (same reason I re-torque my own lug nuts after any shop touches them).

But I also don't think an oil overfill would cause this problem.

 

100%

Oil overfill did not cause your engine failure. The engine would have to be significantly overfilled to the point where the rotating crankshaft started hitting the oil while spinning, which caused it to aerate the oil, at which point oil pressure would drop off. You'd probably get a light for this...

Also you're assuming that there is no warning for overfilled oil... while there very well may not be; you also may not have been overfilled enough to trip the warning, because it wasn't really an issue yet.

 

My extremely non-scientific 2 cents, but like seraphi it would also seem funny to me that a catastrophic engine failure on a fairly new F-Type related to engine oil pump/oil pressure or extremely low oil levels occurred just 2 weeks after the dealer was servicing/changing the vehicle's oil. Probably not related, but would bother me.

 

sometimes coincidences are just that....


Cheers,
Dave

 

You're right. I know. Just, this would really tick me off. Replace your engine. Oy!!

Peace,
M

 

But no one suggested that this was the root cause in this case.

 

I am glad this worked out for you. I suggest to avoid repeat, take it easy during break-in period and change your oil earlier, especially with the first oil change. If 18K was the first oil change, it is likely that, and not an overfill, that was largest contributing factor.

 

If it was his first oil change the warranty would be void.

 

I thought oil got better with age, like a fine scotch?

No, this was not the first oil change . I am pretty sure the new engine would have been on my dime if that were the case.

 

Irrespective of whether the excess oil related to the engine failure; I agree with the concern about the difficulties with checking the oil level. I had my car for three weeks before advice from this forum allowed me to check the oil - only to see that it was overfilled. I took it to the dealership (after they told me to drive the car there). They sat on it for a couple of hours then claimed that I must have not been checking it correctly because it was not overfilled.
Well I used exactly the same method to check post dealer review site had used before and sure enough it was indicating normal levels. Far be it from me to think that the dealership who had serviced the car previously might have removed the excess To avoid any future damage claims but it does make me think we should err on the side of caution when it comes to trusting the dealerships to manage the oil levels properly.

 

You've touched a chord with me on this topic as well. I've had my F-TYPE R for a few weeks now and I'm really bothered that oil pressure is NOT displayed nowhere on this car. I even bought an Autometer ODB2 transmitter that I can see all of the readings on my phone and oil pressure isn't even on the list of the 200 things that I can look at. Is there some Jaguar lore, that I'm missing that doesn't make oil pressure important?

 

Almost as an aside, but since you mentioned the fuel warning - running out of gas can be more than an inconvenience. It risks damage to the fuel pump, so your stop by the side of the road may end up on a flatbed to the dealer.

 

I think that Jaguar may be getting gun-shy about their service departments overfilling the oil sump. I too got the dreaded "overfilled" warning when I randomly checked the oil level several days after purchasing a just-CPOd F-Type AWD R (they did an oil service as part of the CPO process). I called up the Jaguar Customer Service 800 number, and they immediately scheduled me to be flat-bedded to my nearest Jaguar dealer 50 miles away (not the dealer that did the oil service, who was 1000 miles away). They confirmed that the oil had been overfilled by one-quarter of a quart (that is one sensitive oil level sensor), and adjusted to the correct full level. So it was no big deal (except for the longish flat-bedding bill that Jaguar had to eat). But why don't the techs doing the oil change not take the stupid extra 10 minutes to check the stabilized oil level? Gotta be a management decision to skip that final step...

 

I can't remember that last car I owned that had an oil pressure gauge. OEMs stopped fitting them when they found that very few owners knew how to correctly interpret the indication on the gauge. Combine this with the very low probability of an engine actually having an oil pressure problem and their disappearance is not a surprise.

Coolant temp gauge is quite similar.

 

Well not having a gauge and not having a sensor are two different things. I was surprised my XFR relied on being able to flash me a danger will robinson message in the dash if something sprang a leak; Jaguar always stated that the driver didn't need to know unless it was into the red zone. Glad to see they changed their mind back for the F-Type or is that just marketing ?

Have they really dispensed with an oil pressure sensor or is this covered by the need to know electronics too ?

BTW, check your oil when cold - I too got an "oil overfilled" report when I checked a couple of hours after coming back from the dealer service. I'm not an AWD. Overnight once the engine cooled off, got the Oil OK message. I'm assuming some temperature expansion took place.

 

I believe that the oil should be at the full only mark after being heated up, not cold, so it may be overfilled which is usually just a case of the dealer removing the excess. The overfill sensor is sensitive so it doesn't take much.
Lawrence

 

A car I bought new in 2005 had an oil pressure gauge.

But, it wasn't connected to a sensor...

R53 BMW Mini.

 

Why would any manufacturer build an engine without an oil dip-stick?
Reminds me of the fully electronic dash of the 1980's. It was quite the fad while it lasted, but proved totally impractical.