So my wife and I went to Cars and Coffee today for the first time with the new 2016 F-Type Coupe. The car got a lot of looks however someone noticed that the rear drivers side brake caliper was hanging down a couple inches. Upon further inspection we noticed that the top bolt holding the brake caliper was gone and it was only being held in place by the lower bolt which was also coming loose.

Obviously the car was unsafe to drive so we called Jaguar Roadside assistance who dispatched a tow truck and we got a text saying the tow truck would arrive at 12:08 PM which it did not end up showing up until 1:15. To make matters worse the Jaguar Roadside Assistance tow truck ended up doing minor damage to the drivers side front and rear rims where they attached the straps.

The car only has a little over 1,000 miles on it so I am a little nervous that the brake caliper is falling off. Jaguar said they would take care of the minor damage to the rims however I am not too impressed with Jaguar thus far. I am hoping this event is just an anomaly and uncommon in Jaguar ownership.

 

First time I've heard that...someone was asleep on the line that day.

 

My dad used to walk along a busy road near his house, and as an old machinist, he picked up anything he saw along the road. I noticed a box of unusual bolts in his garage, and asked him what they were. There were dozens of them. He said they were disc brake calipher bolts, so I guess these things come off from time to time. Maybe it was a Monday or a Friday car.

 

Should never happen. I spent 10 years in senior plant level management at a Tier 1 JIT automotive seat supplier to various OEM's. The bolts are a safety item and as such the torque is controlled with error proofing that will stop the assembly process if the correct torque value is not reached. It would be interesting to ask Jaguar for the First Run Capability and SPC data for this operation which they have to have as an ISO company. If it is truly a production issue, they would be looking at a service bulletin for those vehicles with those production dates to have them checked for proper torque. They would not risk the exposure of a safety defect that apparent leaving their plant.

A better explanation is if there was a repair that required dis-assembly of the brake caliper after final assembly and during that process the bolt was incorrectly torqued. But quite honestly those repairs should also be in a controlled assembly environment using torque monitoring equipment so it would be surprising.

So my best guess is some repair after it left the factory where the bolt was not re- torqued to spec or even put back in. This would also help explain why the other one was loose. In any case, if it were my vehicle I would be raising holy hell at my dealer and demand a regional rep contact me. I would demand Jaguar pay for a thorough inspection of the safety items on the vehicle to ensure proper torque values.

Although there is always a first time, I've been driving over 45 years and have had a number of vehicles. Not once has a brake caliper bolt fallen off.

 

This!

 

This is taking the expression the wheels are coming off the bus to a whole new level. Certainly sounds like yet another example - and I'm not suggesting the vast majority - of extremely poor quality control. More like no control.

Good luck!

 

I would have just driven it to the dealer,,, also, an easy fix.
Lawrence.

 

Wow that is a crazy one. I'm glad someone spotted it before the caliper came off completely. I'm not sure if a caliper could come off or not but I imagine if the bolts came all the way out, then when you braked the caliper would start spinning and rip the brake lines off and you would lose the fluid/braking ability and most likely spray your whole car in brake fluid which is lethal to the paint. I know I will be checking my calipers today!!

 

Let's not get carried away here JagBrian*. Surely this is - it better be! - an extremely isolated (one-off) incident and I doubt the need for sounding the alarm (not that you are) for all of us, some of us, any of us to start checking the calipers. If that becomes the case then it really is the "wheels are coming off the bus", literally and figuratively. *Still, and I agree, good to know.

 

I'm inclined to agree with 99Gsp, who noted above that this kind of thing is not likely to have occurred at the factory. On a modern assembly line, critical items requiring specific torque values are done with tools preset to the pre-determined spec. That points to the calipers being removed at some point after it left the assembly line.

I had a similar scary incident about 8 months ago when my wife found a lug nut lying in our driveway, which I quickly identified as from my F-Type. Sure enough, the right front wheel was missing one lug. In addition the 4 remaining lugs were loose, with a couple not even finger tight.

A few days prior, I'd taken the car to a wheel repair shop to touch up a minor ding on the right front wheel, which they repaired beautifully. However, they clearly forgot to torque any of the 5 lug nuts, which could have been a huge mess, if not worse. Amazingly enough, I'd driven the car at least 100 miles since, with no vibration or other symptoms one might have expected.

 

NOT GOOD! (Stating the - what could have been dangerously - painfully obvious). That (lugs properly torqued) is exactly a major cause of concern - as the owner of several high performance automobiles, my greatest fear - and why it's always important to have the utmost of confidence in your who does the work! Of course leave it to human nature to muck thing up. Glad you escaped unscathed.

 

Eeesh... Wow, that's scary.

(Running out to the garage to check the torque of lug nuts)

 

LOL . . . a month or so before in my own garage, I had swapped my original Velas for Gyrodynes and personally torqued (all 20 checked at least twice) to 92 ft. lbs. per the spec. Believe me, I went back and rechecked after finding that, but the other 15 were still right on spec.

Since the right front had been off only a few days before, there was no question as to what happened.

 

About 15 years ago, someone tried to steal the wheels off the VW Corrado VR6 I owned at the time.

The locking wheel bolt (AKA lug nut) defeated them, but I drove for a couple of days with only one bolt holding the left front wheel on...

 

I was called 'Lug Nuts' at school when I was younger...I thought it was because I had big ears not big nuts
you lurn sumfin every day!

 

Very scary. I am on my 4h Jag and never heard of such a problem. The roadside service is sourced out so no surprise there. I rely on AAA and never had a problem but I never had to have one of these low cars towed yet. Only my XJ8.

 

I always specify and get a flat tow from AAA. My MINI sits 2" lower than the F and have always gotten fast service and no damage issues.