Hi everyone,

I introduced myself in the intro section but figured I'd introduce myself to the section I'll be circulating and gathering as much info as I can in. My name is Dino. Not new to the car scene, but new to Jaguar. Picked up a '05 S-Type w/46k miles, 1 owner car (older couple). Had 5k, 10k, 20k, 30k and 40k service done at the local Jag dealer. And just before I picked it up they replaced the intake manifold valve. I wish I had a manual but it is automatic. Bought it for a daily driver and rear seat big enough for my toddlers also. I know, what good is a intro thread without pics but just picked it up last night and it's rainy and nasty here in Chicago. I think I found a good mint find and appears to drive flawless, so I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed. Also, brand new snow tires and rims on it for the winter.
Looking forward to learning as much as I can from all the experts here.

-Dino

 

Hey Dino, welcome to the forum and S Type club!


Have a good look around the "How To" guide sub directory located here on the S Type board. Loads of great information especially on the 3.0 and I might add most DIYs have pics!


Anyways one other thing you should consider:
Go to the upperish left corner of any site page
-Click "UserCP"
-Scroll down to "Edit Signature" click
-Add Model Year and engine
-click "Save"


Poof your signature will have any important information that we would need to help you! Grab a cold one and start reading!

 

Thank you Rick! Forgot to mention it is the 3.0.

 

^ What Rick said....

Welcome. These S-Types are still one of the best bang-for-the-buck rear-wheel-drive highway cruisers out there. They all have some quirks that must be addressed, but once rectified, you'll enjoy a very nice car for a long time if you keep up with the required maintenance. We've had ours for nearly six years and it just crossed 85,000 miles last week. The key to successful ownership is being able to do the vast majority of maintenance and repairs yourself. With the help of this forum, you can....

 

Thank you! So far the engine bay seems like overall it is not terribly crammed with the 3.0.

 

Welcome Dino, and good luck with your new purchase!

I love the backseat also, plenty of room to put the baby seat into versus my Mustang!

I am not new to cars but new to Jaguar myself, and this forum has been extremely helpful in learning about my car, ('03 3.0 automatic), and has helped me make some repairs myself, also.

Please read all the sticky posts, its a wealth of information regarding our cars!

 

I kinda had a hint when you mentioned "intake manifold valve", we refer those here as IMT valves. Hopefully you meant the O-rings that they replaced:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ck-pics-49214/


Oh yeah, Jimmy reminded me, be really careful with those tether covers located on the parcel shelf. They can break very easily and the are quite pricey now a days to replace. Jaguar sells the cover and metal anchor that goes through the parcel shelf, last time I paid around $38.00. I have replaced 3 of them so far, only from "our" mishandling of them.

 

Thank you Jimmy! I come from mostly Porsche cars and is hoping this car will be much easier to wrench on! But I have definitely begun reading all the wonderful info on this site!

Not sure, just saw an invoice before I purchased the car and it stated intake manifold valve replaced. I wasn't too familiar as I just really liked the car so didn't do much research on it beforehand. Thank you for the tips though, appreciate it! I honestly don't really know much on these cars...yet!

 

Hello , nice to see you here Dino .

 

I enjoy my 01 S Type 3.0. It is not near the car of my Mercedes, but interesting to drive around. Once you do the maintenance and take care of the frequently identified challenges, you're good to go.


Mine has the Ford 5-speed 5R55N automatic, yours has the more troublesome 6-speed ZF.

 

Thanks!

Being a one owner car (old couple) and all services done at dealer I am hoping I nailed a good one. Fairly low miles too, just hit 46k. What issues did the 6 speeds have?

 

It has almost none except that owners generally fail to maintain it e.g. fail to change its oil.

 

Indeed. There are many threads here regarding the ZF 6-speed (6HP26) transmissions. Rick, Wayne, and I just changed the factory fill of Lifeguard 6 ATF in my S-Type a week ago today at just over 85,000 miles. The old fluid had lost its "liquid gold" color and was more of a "Coca-Cola brown". I chose Mercon SP ATF after researching potential fluids for a number of years. While I was not experiencing problems with my ZF, I knew that the friction modifiers in my original fluid had to be wearing out. The shift quality is now smoother, especially through the lower gears when accelerating from a stoplight....

I'm glad we did the drain-and-fill. In my opinion, it was time and effort well spent from a ZF preservation standpoint....

 

Really appreciate all the info. Even though it only has 46k miles on it, I was planning on doing it anyways. Any particular brand that you both used and really liked? I've been using RedLine products on my manual cars, anyone tried the Redline ATF in these cars?

 

Have a look at the stickies so you get the right info.

 

As others have said the 2003 and up gearbox is stone reliable given a change of fluid every 80Kish miles or so. Far superior to the unit used in the earlier cars.

The fluid requirements are quite precise and must be followed. I don't beleive that Redline makes anything suitable but don't find any real advantage to their products anyway.

 

The key factor is that whatever ATF you choose must meet the Shell M1375.4 ATF specs. Lifeguard 6 (the "liquid gold" factory fill) does. Mercon SP does. Castrol Multi-Import did, but Castrol tech support now disavows its use as a substitute ATF in ZF applications, primarily for liability reasons. Owners here have used it with good results in the past, including Rick back in 2010. Others have used Pentosin, MobilOne, Wolf's Head, and RedLine over the years. In the UK, many report using MillerMatic fluids. Do your due diligence, make sure your ATF of choice meets the required specs, and follow the very cumbersome (and potentially dangerous) drain-and-fill procedures to the letter. If you screw it up, you could be sentencing your ZF to death with an underfilled transmission....

 

Thank you for the good info on ATF! Knock on wood, car doesn't seem to need anything, but I do eventually want to do the ATF.

 

Dino, back years ago when I when was forced to replace the electrical sleeve, Joyce's Jag had about 45,000 on it. When I drained the original liquid gold it still was as close to original color, just a tich darker than new. Just FYI.

As mentioned there are many alternatives to the Lifeguard6. Although Lifeguard6 has dropped in price considerably in the past couple years.

 

Good to know, I'll probably wait until spring or next warmer day (since the temps here have now dipped into the 20s!
I'd like to go with whatever people had best results with. Slowly absorbing as much info as I can on these cars LOL.