In another thread I mentioned having some issues with my vehicle this summer, and some of you asked for more information; so here's some greater detail on this summers experience:


Back in the middle of June my radiator fan picked the exact wrong time to fail, in heavy accident traffic caused by a highway closure. Temps spiked for a short while until I could get out of the way and let the car cool off. There was no noticeable engine damage and the vehicle was dropped off later that week to have the fan replaced. This of course took two weeks, because Jaguar. At the same time I had my window seals replaced and the metal kick plates which were laminating on both sides. All under warranty.

After getting the car back at some point in July I noticed a ticking noise over top of the normal engine noise I could hear while driving. It sounded similar to someone shaking a salt shaker in perfect harmony with the engine. I'm convinced that a normal person probably wouldn't have noticed this noise and that my job has made me hyper sensitive to this kind of thing... when I took the vehicle back in after a week or so of this noise, at first I was met with some resistance: this noise is normal, its a loud engine, sounds like a diesel... etc. My dealership agreed to have their master tech take a look who immediately attributed it to the supercharger. There was excessive slop in the rotors, and when he pulled the nose cone there was evidence of teflon wear on the rotors themselves. My supercharger was replaced under warranty; this took 3 weeks because Jaguar. At the same time my CEL had come on for one of the O2 sensors which was also replaced under warranty and the codes cleared.

When I got the car back, the noise I had heard had not been fixed. There was no improvement and the noise hadn't changed at all. I took the car back in and pointed out the specific noise with many people surrounding my engine bay. First thought was the timing chain being loose or damaged. When that wasn't it they pulled the valve covers off and checked valve lash. Several valves on the exhaust side of one bank had excessive lash, including one tappet that was cracked and was causing the ticking noise. My engine was not replaced, rather they replaced all 8 exhaust valves on that bank, the guides, the tappets, the exhaust camshaft, a head gasket, the entire timing assembly, a cam gear, and about 100 bolts/seals that were one time use only. This was done under warranty per Jaguar corporate's direction. They also replaced my key fob because it was falling apart. This also took 3 weeks because Jaguar.

The ticking issue is now fixed. I don't know for sure, but I imagine this was caused by the original overheating I experienced in June. No clue how hot the car got because we don't have a real gauge, but the exhaust side of the valvetrain would overheat prior to the intake side so its plausible. Hopefully that's all of the powertrain issues for a while.

 

Wow. Thanks for posting. Did they ever mention the tune? (Someone had to ask. )

 

Sorry to hear about your issues. This points to how useless temp gauge is. Could you describe signs of overheating to better prepare the rest of us for this eventuality?

Maybe some tuner, like VAP could create a patch to give us true temp read on the dash?

 

If it got hot enough to crack tappet then for sure there is other damage, including burned valves and destroyed valve seals on BOTH sides. Have you asked to see old valves? If they are fine, then tappet is likely coincidence and you noticed because you started to pay attention post overheating...

Supercharger - yes I can see it failing that way. One tappet and nothing else - no way.

 

They did not.

I maxed out the gauge while trying to get out of traffic. There was no sign prior to this as the fan only runs when you're in traffic, and an internal failure caused it to stop working. You won't know until your needle spikes.

 

The supercharger is probably unrelated. This isn't an uncommon failure with these engines.

Keep in mind there are different levels of overheating. I wasn't spewing steam or anything like that; this wasn't a severe overheat, but it was an overheat. The taping 100% wasn't there before; these kind of little things drive me nuts in my job, so i'm always conscious of any new/odd noise.

 

although under warranty, i wonder how much this would have cost. i'll continue to lease these types of cars thank you very much

 

I recently drained all coolant from a 2.0L I4 VW Jetta engine, then redlined it for 10 minutes in neutral. It didn't seize. Next is to tear it down and see what kind of damage. Before you ask, the car was pulled out of junkyard, I wasn't destroying anything running just because.


Here is on AJ133:

 

Information only valid for NA AJ133 engine . SC Version use graded tappets on intake and exhaust side .
regards
Ulrich

 

Not sure why you posted any of this, but can we maybe re-size the photos so they aren't so gigantic? And for everyone else, when quoting a giant picture, please delete the picture.

 

I posted this to wonder why would a tappet crack as a result of overheating.

Sorry about screenshot, it is barely wider than your signature photo on my screen.

 

Im sure the tappet cracked because the camshaft was banging on it like a hammer, not due to getting hot. The excessive lash could be a result of the overheating, eventually causing this condition.