So I was smelling a little coolant leaking since I initially owned my 2005 Jaguar S-Type R a few months ago but nothing major. Just this week I pull up to my office and it was dumping on the ground. (Weather is hot now) I took it to a import specialist recommended to me that says it is likely something underneath the supercharger which is common from what I have read. They want 7.1hrs in labor to get in next to the supercharger to see what is leaking.

I got a quote from the dealership recently that was going to replace all the belts , pulleys and tensioners and the labor was only going to be $200. Isn't this a similar job labor wise since you have to replace the belt on the supercharger? He stated the book pays 7.1 hours which I have confirmed but I am not sure where the difference is. I am about to get deep into replacing all hoses, bets, pulleys and tensioners for well over 1K and could use any advise that anyone can offer. Thanks in advance.

 

Pulling the supercharger and changing the belt and tensioner are vastly different jobs and their labor times basically don't overlap at all.

 

+1

(that'll be the tensioner for the belt, not the tensioners for the chains.)

Make sure the source of the coolant leak is definitely determined as otherwise changing the valley pipe is useful but rather costly.

 

Thanks for the insight and this makes me feel better about the labor cost. He stated that it coming from around the supercharger area but not sure exactly until he opens it up.

If he is doing this major service what other items should I have him address while he is in there? (Belts, pulleys, tensioners, water pump, hoses?) I don't want to have do this for a while due to the labor cost.

Have you see any complications from having a shortened supercharger pulley? This would be the time to do it in my opinion. Your thoughts? Thanks.

 

Be careful!

The dreaded hose under the SC failure will leave red stains on the back of the engine that you can only see from below. But make sure which hose is leaking before giving them the go ahead to pull the blower. Have they done this repair before? It’s not very easy.

If there is visible anti-freeze then consider changing ALL the hoses. Yes there are a lot. On my 2005 STR I think I counted 22 with the inter cooler hoses. But your car is 9+ years old and has many miles (Of course it would be helpful if you told us how many?).

The hours of labor are one thing but you will have at least $300-$400 just in gaskets and with the price markup it will be most likely $500-$700.

Again with the lack of information we are guessing but has any work been done in the past?

You might want to include a good flush before refill and add the thermostat and maybe the water pump too. We are also seeing EGR valve and tube failure which are a SOB to change except when you have the SC off.

Yes if you want a pulley it would be a good time to install it but if you have over 100K miles the SC might need a rebuild.

Finally it might just be a hose that is easy to get at and for a quick repair just replacing that one hose would get you back up and running cheaply.
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