I have had an issue with the 2003 STR (80,000) and for some reason i have a faint smell of of coolant outside the car, i just recently had the coolant flushed and i put in one of those low temp thermostats and upon doing so the housing leaked with it installed, with a new seal, i then removed it and put in the old thermostat(which i was having no problems with in the first place) and the housing leak stopped. Its annoying the hell out of me bcuz there is no fluid leaking from the housing now, my water pump seems ok bcuz no fluid is leaking from the weep hole WTF!!! all my clamps and hoses appear to be ok, what else could it be--I notice my fan runs a lot, i notice it when i park the car the fan is running and i smell faint coolant....Could it be the radiator or would would be my next move??? Its not overheating now and the gauge stays in the middle....

 

Check your overflow tank. Mine was cracked where the little hose attaches to the tank fitting. I broke the fitting off the rest of the way and tapped it for an 1/8" pipe thread ****** fitting. Not sure if it's a common problem, but it's worth a look. I smelled coolant too, and had just a very little bit showing now and then on the tank.

 

Exact same problem.. I just rammed a two sided hose barb into the hole and I get a few drips that leak out every few thousand miles, but definitely not enough to justify spending close to $200 on a new tank..

 

as a side note, since replacing my t-statand i spilled a little fluid i do get a faint smell. It will eventually stop. When i was at the track and i changed my regular coolant over to water wetter in my bike, it did the same thing for a few days.

 

Yeah Jason, I've done this countless times as well.. Whenever you drip coolant on the engine it usually gets on the exhaust manifolds it just has to cook off. You can wipe and wipe, but you never get it all, time is the only way. Another side not: is it weird that I like the smell of coolant burning? and the smell of gasoline?? and melting tires???

 

Cracked and leaking coolant overflow tanks seem to be a relatively common problem for S-Type owners, especially 2003 and earlier. Did Jaguar ever solve this problem by switching to a more resilient and heat-resistant plastic by a certain model year, or does this problem continue to persist all the way to the 2008 model year?

 

Thanks for the replies, ill definetly check that overflow tank 2 make sure, the coolant was changed and i did have a leak in t stat housing and a fair amount did get into the compartment..Ill give it a couple of weeks but i just get the feeling its not that easy, we'll see. thanks all

 

Well, it looks like my coolant tank is going south. There is a leak at the hose fitting at the top of the tank. Will be covered under warranty at no cost to me. A question though. Would another workaround fix be using PVC cement to glue around the hose fitting until I can get it to the dealer?

Thanks for any insight,

Mike

 

I would use epoxy instead of PVC cement. I would let the epoxy set up for a few minutes so I could glob it on with a toothpick and then build it up in an effort to provide more temporary support and minimize the chance of that hose fitting snapping off prior to getting the car in for tank replacement under warranty....

These plastic coolant tanks really are inferior. I've read so much about their frequent failures here on this forum that it causes me to give ours a thorough visual inspection at least a couple of times a week. Jaguar Corporate should have improved the material quality of these tanks years ago....

 

Thanks Jon,

I'll try that. My guess is that Jaguar Corporate figured that it would be cheaper (for them) to not improve the quality and just eat the warranty claims or hope the coolant tanks lasted long enough so that customers would have to buy them after their warranty expired.

Mike