Quite a few new members have joined us here over the summer, many of whom have chosen to do their own maintenance. I was underneath our S-Type yesterday doing a routine oil & filter change and tire rotation (at 48,250 miles). While I was there, I went looking for some of the common issues that have been reported here over the past year or so. Some of the new guys may not be familiar with them. Hope this write-up helps in that regard....

1. After removing the undertray, it's always a good idea to inspect the general condition of the top of it. Mine was completely dry, no leaks or spots or any trace of any fluids whatsoever. Just some road dirt and sand that was easily shaken off....

2. While draining the oil, I had a close-up look at the oil pan for potential leaks in the oil pan gasket. Mine was clean and dry all the way around, another good sign....

3. Next, a thorough inspection of the Dual Climate Control Valve (DCCV). It was clean with no signs of orange coolant leaks or stains. Keep in mind that these valves can fail in two different ways - leaking externally (easy to spot) or leaking internally (difficult to spot). So just because my DCCV looks great externally does not mean that I'm out of the woods with this original part on our car. Keep checking it on a regular basis, and always monitor your HVAC system to ensure that the A/C (in cooling season) or heat (in heating season) is being delivered equally and consistently through all of your HVAC system's vents....

4. After draining the oil, removing the oil filter, and installing the new oil filter, I slid further back to get to the ZF transmission pan. I took a good look at the notorious sleeve to see if its O-ring was still intact (meaning no ZF Fluid dripping out of the sleeve). More good news - everything was bone-dry. My sleeve seems to be holding at the moment....

5. And finally, I located the two 8 mm bolts on the U.S. drivers side of the transmission that attach the gearshift cable to the transmission assembly. If you've been on this forum awhile, you know that over time these bolts have a tendency to get loose and sometimes even fall out, meaning that your gearshift selector (and therefore your entire car) is stuck and won't move. I took my small 8 mm open-end wrench down there with me, and yes indeed, both bolts snugged up between 1/4 and 1/2 turn with the wrench. They still had a long way to go before coming out, but they definitely needed tightening. Glad I caught this when I did, and this little check-up has now become part of my routine for whenever I'm underneath the car from now on....


Hope this information helps some of you who aren't yet familiar with the known issues that can frequently go wrong with these S-Types. A little prevention (and quick spot-checking) can go a very long way in staying ahead of these issues if you'll just do it on a regular basis. All of these spot-checks took me a total of maybe five extra minutes while doing my routine oil & filter change and tire rotation....

 

Very nice post, good info!

 

Thanks for posting this.

I haven't had a chance to even look underneath as yet but it sounds like this car has a front belly pan just like my Q45 did.

Do you HAVE to remove it to do an oil/filter change?

I will most likely be doing this in my driveway with the car on jackstands.
So do you have any pointers on good lifting points for the floor jack so that you can get a jack under the factory recommended lifting points?

Any tips on how you should do this to get the car up on 4 jack stands? Such as one side at a time or is there a front center lifting spot or rear lifting spot like the diff etc.?

Bob S.

 

well done Jon. I'll link it in the FAQ section, and hopefully our new organizer will put it where it belongs among the information there.

 

If it's not already noted elsewhere, be aware of the OEM lug nuts and spanner/wrench issue. Ditch the original pieces and replace them with quality after market pieces.

 

Great post Jon and well needed!

 

Yes, the belly pan has to come off to get to the drain bolt and oil filter. To make oil changes easier on my S, I got a set of the heavy duty Rhino Ramps from Advance Auto. With the car up on these, it's easy to get the belly pan off, and, I don't have to worry about damaging anything trying to use my trolley jacks and jack stands.

Regards:
Oldengineer

 

Jon-

How much do you charge?<g>

 

I used to have a set of those. I never liked them as they were too hard to use on my cars. They either slid or caught the body work. I finally just threw them out. My driveway is too short for these as well.

But I was actually looking ahead to when I need to take some wheels off for repair and put some new pads on. They're definitely useless for those jobs ;>)

So if anyone has tips on getting this car safely up on 4 jacks stands without damage to the car I really would appreciate it.

Thanks.

Bob S.

 

Great write up Jon! This surely will help all of us newbes on this forum too go over your check list. When i went To my local jag tech for an oil change he noticed there was a slight oil leak from the oil pan gasket, looks like I'm going to have to get it changed out sooner than later to be on the safe side.

By the way, those two 8mm bolts you are referring to, do I have to have the belly pan removed to get access to it for visual checking and tightining???

Thanx.

 

Jon - good job!

About jacking: JTIS shows the location of the places to use. The rears are fairly obvious (kinda triangular, just forward of the rear wheels - avoid the plastic fuel tank!!) but the fronts are not. The front ones are kinda metal rails quite near the exhausts and more central than on other cars.

For the real newbies: never work on a car supported by fewer than 2 items! Jacks can suddenly lose fluid and then no longer support the car.

Oh, and the vehicle jack is realistically for emergency use only (but practice using it before you have that emergency, so you're familiar with it).

Again for the real newbies: to remove a wheel, slightly loosen the lug nuts (wheel nuts) before you use the jack.

The undertray ("air deflector") aka belly pan has too many fixings of varying kinds. Mad. First time, be careful not to strip any threads or round off any nuts. Apply grease etc if you like.

If you have an STR, good luck getting at the DCCV

If you have headlamp powerwash and wish to take off the forward (radiator) undershield look out for the wiring and piping etc. My front undershield was rusted on so I needed to remove the wheel well (arch) liners and cut off the rusted parts. A blob of grease in manufacturing might've helped.

 

Toller,

I'll do an oil & filter change, tire rotation, and all spot checks that I mentioned for the grand sum of $200. You supply the oil & filter, and you bring the car to me. Hopefully, that price guarantees that I never have to do this to anyone's car except ours....


Jag79,

You do NOT have to remove the belly pan to access the two 8 mm shifter cable bolts. But in order to gain enough working room underneath the car, you do need to drive the front wheels up onto a set of heavy-duty Rhino Ramps. I have the 12000 series, and they give me just enough working room to find the bolts, then inspect and tighten them....

 

Here's what I'm trying to ferret out.

After a while of being on the market service people and shade tree mechanics develop a set of tips about this stuff. If you have to lift the vehicle only at the factory specified jacking points it 's hard to get a jack under it too ...

So sometimes a 2x4 or piece of plywood such can be used to spread the load across other areas to get one end of the car up so that you can place the jacks under there. This is harder with today's more complex, lightweight and hence more susceptable to damage vehicles.

Bob S.

 

True - today's vehicles are more susceptible to damage from jacking given all the plastic covers around and underneath them. That's why I use my Rhino Ramps as much as possible....

 

There's room for a jack & axle stand at each of the places.

I use small blocks of wood between the jack/axle stand and the car metalwork. I prefer hardwood.

 

Going to paste this inside the top lid of my tool cabinet....perfect!

 

I am new to the forum and just happened to be doing the oil change procedure on my 03 s-type r. I am glad I read your post was unaware of gearshift cable to the transmission assembly bolts issue. Thanks I will be sure to check them.

 

Here is an oil change shift linkage video I made to help people put a visual on this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXLzU03z6Do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Ay5...eature=related

 

Jon, nice one on the service tips for newbies....good thinking batman

Vance - your vids as always are excellent. Lovin them and thanks for taking the time to make them and share them with this forum....Kudos to you

 

Thanks no problem I enjoy making them. Got a garage now and a tripod so they will only get better. Now just got to figure out something to do to the STR to video tape. I may redo the oil change one once I am due for another so there isnt so much background noise. In Feb I plan on doing a spark plug change so there will be a video for that. Once I get the rest of my stuff unpacked I can hook up the camcorder and edit my brake video and get that up.