Yesterday I got my 2022 S-type back from the mechanic. I had to threaten legal action because he kept stalling, saying it would be ready in a day or two every time I spoke to him for the past 15 months. I cannot tell if he did any work on it at all. I drove it home, about 25 miles, but:
1) it's noisy, apparently has a loose connection or weld on the driver's side exhaust.
2) It has no pickup, but when I drove it from Garland to Midland (abt 350 miles) in June of 2022, I was able to get it up to highway speeds, except uphill.
3) it will go 42 mph smoothly, but will start bucking if I try to go faster. There is a message that says performance is "restricted".

I was told that the car needed new catalytic converters and new oxygen sensors. The mechanic claimed that he had some made for me, but took them off when I came to get the car. He said that he had returned them to the vendor when I offered to buy them from him. This makes me think they never existed.

So there are my main symptoms. I am having to find another mechanic in West Texas willing to work on a Jaguar. Used to be able to fix things myself, but nowadays getting my body under a car doesn't work well.

Advice? Diagnoses?

Thanks!

 

You are on the wrong forum for your car. This covers the classic S types. 1963 to 1968.

Go here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ed-v8-x200-15/

It can't be a 2022 model. There is no such thing. The final new generation S type (R) was built late 2007.

 

Why is it that in the US there seem to be loads of shops that are willing to swap a motor out for another car makers V8, chop the top off, lower the suspension, add air ride, repaint the car in gordy flames (TV programs every 1/2 hour on UK TV) but try and find one to rebuild a 1960s engine as in Jose's case or plug this modern S Type into a computer to diagnose the fault and they are not around or so it seems. Just asking for a friend.

 

Cass, because the available mechanics are a lot younger than the cars and they have no experience with older engines or Jaguars.

I took my 1984 XJ-6 one time to the local Jaguar dealer back in 1997, and was told, "we have no repair books for your MY Jaguar, my mechanics are younger than your car".

Locally there is a british man who owns a "Jaguar Doctor" shop, but he only works on MODERN Jags.

 

It's a problem everywhere finding someone competent to work and who wants to work on cars more than ten years old. As for what they show on TV, I guess it's like most other stuff on TV, it's there because it's interesting, which most often means exceptionally rare. Many Americans think the UK is overflowing with brilliant classic and vintage car workshops. I wish theyd tell me where they are.
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Still those TV shows and the internet serve to educate the rest of us as to what's possible if not always on how to achieve it. I wish some of the YouTube guys would be more careful with safe practices. The right to bare arms is one thing, but the absence of eye, ear, and respiratory protection is unacceptable.

 

With all due respect Jose engines have not changed in design for the last 100 years or more. Pistons go up and down, valves open and close, crank shafts turn around. The way the valves are opened and closed via either push rods or cam shafts driven by timing belts or chains may vary but a internal combustion engine is just that. Most modern "mechanics" are not mechanics they are fitters If the computer tells them something is not working they replace it. Nothing is fixed any more and there are a lot of places that will replace an engine rather than repair what is broken or even send it back to the manufacturer to be rebuilt. The older an engine is the easier it is to work on. No fancy electronics, No stupid sensors, No ECUs or computer modules. Nothing that can't be fixed with a good set of tools and a little knowledge. I am sure if you took the S Type blue book into a garage there would be more than enough information in there for even a half competent mechanic to work with so they could put your engine back together.

 

Even on MBWorld the Yanks screw up a Mercedes. First thing is huge wheels & stretched tyres beyond the safe limit. Then it's drop the **** and ruin the aerodynamics. Cd goes from 0.25 to well over 1.0. They were designed to be nose down plonkers.

 

We won't talk about the foul up they make trying to roll the wheel-arches. Must have the widest tyres possible. Adhesion works on weight per contact patch ratio. Wider is not necessarily better. Of course compounding plays a huge role but they want them to last 70,000 miles. You can't have it both ways. And of course scrub radius is completely misunderstood so they widen the wheel to the outside only & force toe out under hard braking.

The right way to wide body a car. All are road legal & have leather upholstery & cup-holders,

This thread does not belong here so we will take some license on OT.

 

Refresh page for edits.

 

Cass I can dismantle a car inside and outside and put it back together perfectly. But not engines or transmissions or rear axles, that is something I never got into when I was younger.

In the USA, you go to an autoparts store and the Honda employees can't tell a vacuum hose from a radiator hose. They are "trained" to look up parts through a computer by make, model and year.

I never bring my cars to a shop, they never do it right and the car comes out worse than it went in.

I know a mobile mechanic who knows old XJ6 Jags and he told me if I have the factory service manual he can assemble the 3.8 engine little by little, day by day until complete.

That is my next step. Hopefully soon he will start on it. I won't push him, I will let him do it at his convenience.

 

Good to hear Jose and I wish you luck getting it back on the road. I know you have had some bad luck with getting someone to do it for you. I wish I could have taken up your offer but it was just not practicable with all the other commitments I have. Better to have your 3.8 rebuilt than top try and go down the 4.2 road with all the modifications and the unknown factor of how good that 4.2 engine would have been as it had a relatively unknow history.

 

That's often the only option. For example, I have a 2007 X Type and the transfer case is a known weak point. Jaguar does not sell internal parts, only a complete assembly on an exchange basis. Same with the later XF and XJ with the 3.0 supercharged engine - things like pistons, rings and bearings are simply unavailable separately. An exchange engine is the only option for those cars.

 

VW and Toyota have been doing it for years JB.

 

in Australia we still have a few specialist engine re-builders.
One local shop advises that a typical XK engine rebuild costs around A$11,000 which is about US$7,000.
V12 s are priced at A$13,000 which is about US$ 8,300.
These prices are for a bare engine rebuilds without manifolds, carbies etc.
They cannot be locked into these figures because problems may be found in the teardown process which may cost extra.
They do give a 25,000 ks warranty.

I agree that the average modern mechanic has become a parts changer and has very little training in proper diagnostic procedures.

 

Interesting thing is that when I was in my teens and 20's, there were no specialists to rebuild engines, there were just machine shops.
It's still that way in my area, they work on what ever you bring them and rebuild it to spec.
I've seen blocks from Italian exotics, Jag heads, my Bentley engine, and everything in-between.

They do race engines mainly, but work on everything.
An engine is an engine.

And the prices that people pay, somehow a straight six from a Jag will cost more to bore out than a flat head six from a Hudson _ I just don't get that.
I think most of it is just dishonesty _ obviously.

 

Absolutely Jeff. A rebore is a rebore. only specs vary.

 

I agree. Call someone a specialist and the price doubles. If they only work on one make of car they are a specialist hence why the Jaguar "*******s" (Sorry Dealers) can charge what they want as a Toyota garage is very unlikely to want to work on your Jaguar.
I had a Volvo XC90 which had a light come up on the dash. Took it in to the dealer and they plugged it into their diagnostic computer. They said it could be one of three things and they intended to replace all three items. (Sensors) I asked if they fitted the first and it did not fix the problem would they put the original item back on and then replace the second? Answer was no they replace all three at the same time and once the item is fitted it is mine and has to be paid for. I talked them into doing one at a time and the cheapest first as one sensor was £25 and the others between £75 and £125. Low and behold the cheaper sensor once fitted cured the problem and I saved myself £200 plus the labour to fit them. Hence the name "*******s".

 

When college age I was from a small town in Vermont. When my Mk 1 needed valve work, local shop took care of it, reasonably. Later I needed a 280 SL engine "redone", they did it. I drove it across country and sold it in California for twice what I had in it. The shop my buyer took it to, to review the rebuild paperwork did, ahem, mention that the labor for my rebuild was... extremely reasonable. Mine were the first Jaguar and the first Mercedes my Vermont shop ever worked on. Engine is indeed an engine.

 

That's the other thing too, you were in a small town, word travels fast if people are getting ripped off with poor work. Just like where I live, everyone knows the guy at the machine shop by his first name, one sees all the familiar faces of the other workers _ there's trust.

There doesn't seem to be any understanding these days in the young generation of theory _ how things are supposed to work, a good example of this is a carburetor, to be fair though I don't even think that is taught anymore.
If I was starting out again in my 20's in this day and age, I would want to know about carburation, I would want to learn about it just out of curiosity _ that keen interest to learn and understand seems to be gone now.

 

If I was starting out again in my twenties I would be studying electronics. Not electrics, ELECTRONICS as all modern cars have computer based running systems and with all new cars going electric in the near future that is where the money will be. I doubt a new car has had a carburettor fitted from the factory since the 1990s.
I just googled this actually and the last car fitted with a carburettor was an Isuzu pickup in 1994.