Thank you JaguarForums.com !!! I have been a lurker (now a newbie) on this forum reviewing all of the great expert knowledge of S-Types. I own a 2000 S-Type 3.0. Bought it with 58K miles and it now has 92K miles. It ran perfectly for the most part until the last 6 months (horrible idling). Codes produced a Cylinder 5 Misfire reading and it didn't pass WA emissions tests. My son was home from college so instead of teaching him on a broken lawnmower engine, I decided why not rip apart my favorite ride (using a limited toolset and no experience ever working on a Jaguar motor, much less any auto engine (but I did grow up as a farm boy with some tractor engine experience).

Long story short, replaced coils and plugs on Cylinder 5 bank and it went very smooth. Car now idles great, but still received some misfire codes. So we decided to go all in and replace the other side under the intake manifold. I had an uneasy feeling once we passed the point of no return, but we pulled the manifold, replaced the coils and plugs (all looked good). We then put the manifold back on. In doing so, we busted the hard plastic vacuum hose to the crank? (that is a total guess from me). Since we did this over Christmas, Jaguar was closed. So we got a flexible vacuum hose from local auto store and replaced hard plastic vacuum with flexible hose vacuum. Fired up the car and we were driving!!! Over the next 5 minutes, whenever car came to full stop the idle would drop and basically the car would immediate turn off. We re-checked the hoses and ultimately found that the rubber fitting over a stem in the back of the engine was cracked and losing air (from the same part line that we replaced (vacuum to crank ~ again I am guessing). It has a 90 degree elbow above it. We were able to temporary force fit a Jeep crank vacuum fitting to make it work. Restarted the Jag and it purrs like a kitten now! Idle is around 600-700 RPM, power in the car is like I never experienced since I owned it at 58K miles. Car has ran like a hungry cat for the last 72 hours, we are loving it !!!! And this is all thanks to this forum and Jag videos on YouTube made by a father/son. In Seattle, coil and plug replacement is between $650-$1000 ~ and that isn't the Jaguar shop itself ~ priced 3 separate garages... so to me, this forum is the only lifeline to owning a car that needs so much love and care yet pricewise is not worth the cost to take to the Jaguar dealership for maintenance and upkeep. Thank you all again for dumping your expertise and experience into this forum and making it free for all of us to learn from.

Now on to the problem... car seems to run perfect... and I mean perfect! However, after clearing all codes and driving for a few days, I am at only a single code that is P1388

Question 1. Do you think I can pass a WA emission test with a P1388 code?
Question 2. Some posts here say to Flash the PCM and change oil to a heavier grade. Does this clear that code most of the time?
Question 3. Could I have created the P1388 code by changing plugs and coils and not putting it back right? The code existed before the change, so I think P1388 and my misfire codes are separate of each other.

I am going to take it into local shop to change oil and have them look at code this week (and get the waiver if I can't pass emissions). Any advice, thoughts or direction on solving P1388 and passing emissions is much appreciated.

 

One more time for the new guy!!!

TSBs are your friend.

bob

 

Thank you Bob / Motorcarman. I will look at the bulletins more going forward. Looks like this one is out of my hands for now then and I will need to take it to a shop to resolve it.

 

i agree the P1388 and misfire codes are not related.

Before delving too deeply, I'd try a fresh oil change. Lots of forum members have had that code (and/or P1383 for the other bank) and have reported good results with an oil change, self included. Here's a good discussion on the subject, including some thoughts on viscosity related to these codes:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...bad-vvt-68687/

FWIW, I'm running 10W-40 in my '02 V6 (280k miles) with great results.

 

To add I've subbed 1qt of oil with ATF. It helped clear both P1383/1388 on my 00 S Type and I added a bit of ATF (when not subbing 1qt of oil) about 500mi before changing oil. Makes a huge difference

 

Thanks for the feedback. Oil change scheduled for Thursday so we will see how that goes. When you changed the oil, did the code immediately go away after your cleared it or did it take some driving time on the new oil change to make a difference? The other thread you gave me talked about doing 2 oil changes (1 to clean, the other final with a 500 mile drive between the two oil changes.) I am just trying to get a feel for how your car reacted to the heavier oil change.

 

It's been a while so the details are vague. I think I cleared the code and it didn't come back. If you don't clear it, you will need a few drive cycles for the code to clear itself. Either method is acceptable, but I was impatient and want some answers right away. Serenity now!!!

Re: Flushing the oil, adding ATF, etc. Not only am I impatient, but I'm also lazy. In my case, I just changed the oil and that was it. Worked for me, but YMMV.

 

The ATF suggestion is a good one. You MIGHT get it fixed with an oil change but just a few hundred miles with a quart of ATF in the oil before changing it will really clean it out.

Let us know if you were able to get the code to stay off.
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Just a little confused as to why an oil change would clear a fault, I am thinking that it has something to do with the VVT of the cam shaft becoming ‘sticky’ and the ATF clearing the movement?
As an aside I used to run a workshop and did a comparison on one car (BMW) with a compression test before and after an oil change having run an engine oil flush (much the sameas you are doing with the ATF)
We saw an average of 5 psi increase on the readings.

 

Yeah, that's basically it. I don't know if the VVT actually becomes sticky, or if the oil pressure has dropped slightly due to a partial viscosity breakdown. All I know is several people have reported fresh oil has taken care of it, self included. Others have reported good results with a flush, but I didn't try that myself.

See the link in post #4 above for more details.

 

There are small oil passages in the VVT unit that get gummed up with residual dirty oil. The ATF is highly detergent and gets those passages clean.

I noticed you must stay on top of oil changes on these cars.