Good morning forum family and happy new year wishes go out to all of you.

NEED HELP WITH THE S-TYPE!!

As protocol I have been searching the archives for an issue I have been monitoring for the last month on my 2005 S-type 4.2L V8 (Normal Aspirated version) with 117,000 miles, which is a weird smell I can describe as burnt electrical wire, to the best of my degree. You can smell only from outside of car after it has been driven a few miles but it's very faint (you get a whimper of it).
After a few days of really trying to pinpoint a location, I have found a hotspot of consistency which is in the area of the cowl (In-cabin filter area).

Code reader scans no codes from ECM. No visuals of any wire burning that I can see under hood.
Honestly I don't know how certain fluids smell on jaguar cars after they are heated to an extreme point (I've had nissan maxima's for 12years an a jag ain't a nissan!)
So the questions are...Does the orange coolant give off this kind of smell?, or alternator, valve cover gaskets, IMT-O rings, etc.

Again this car is the 2005 S-type 4.2L V8 (non-sup) with 117,000 miles. Any help advice on areas to check will be appreciative.

 

Not sure on the wire burning smell, but if it appears to be coming from the cowel / cabin filter area it's possible what you may be smelling is oil burning off the exhaust manifold. Our cars with over 100K on them all seem to need we valve / cam cover gaskets...

Run your hand under the lower lip of the valve cover particularly towards the rear and see if you have any oil on your fingers...

If that doesn't help maybe joycesjag or brutal can chime in!

 

had my 2005 start smoking from under the hood. found some kind of insuation above the firewall that turned to powder and was dropping on to the manifold. As a temporary fix I removed the burt insulation and will now take it to the dealer to find out what the stuff was and what was its function and do I need to replace it.

 

 

Thanks guys, but I do not know to much about the V8's. But common sense is telling me that you have a leaking cam (valve) cover gasket and you are smelling it coming through the cabin (pollen) filter.

It would most likely be on your passenger side firewall area.

 

Thanks gentleman for the input. Went out yesterday morning an did the finger test for oil but found nothing. Car set all night so I will try that again after I've driven it a few miles, once the rain clears here in Georgia. Then the odor will be present. It is time for a valve cover gasket replacement. Found oil on two spark plugs (originals) on the drivers side when I changed out about 10,000 miles ago, so it could be worsening a little more. The car has lost about 2 miles per gallon since I changed the oil about 1,100 ago. Thought that was strange because she usually picks up mileage after an oil change. I usually use Castrol regular synthetic 5-30, but Walmart was out, so I got the good stuff (Titanium synthetic 5-30) and she has not liked it at all...miles per gallon went from averaging 22.9 mpg to 20.8 mpg.

So another question is...will a degenerative valve cover gasket cause a decrease in gas mileage?

 

Reduced mpg from one synthetic to another? Wouldn't think so. How's the air and fuel filters?

 

Well...their questionable "bfsgross"

Why?...because after entrusting a buddy of mine to do a quick favor of picking up an air filter while I was letting the oil out. He went to advance auto instead of Coventry West an got the STP filter that suppose to fit the S-type but is actually a few mm taller than the jag (visteon) filter I wanted him to bring. The STP fits but you have to really use force to get the airbox to close.
I've purchased a new fuel filter from Coventry west but I haven't had it installed yet. I will let a mechanic friend put that on since I don't like messing with anything fuel related even though it seems pretty easy to pop on from Vance's DIY video. Not sure how long the one (fuel filter) that's on has been there since I bought the car relatively cheap with 89,000 miles on it.

 

Be nice to her and spend the extra $$ to get the K&N flat panel you will see some definite improvement over the stock paper filter and it not too bad roughly $50. Not only do you get some added ponies but it will last you 100K miles with some routine maintenance (cleaning) annually... :-)

Also on the fuel filter, be sure you put it in with the arrow facing the correct way (towards the direction of the fuel rail) otherwise you will burn out your left side fuel pump and thats an painfully expensive lesson...

 

Hey...can anyone tell me about this.

When synthetic oil drops on an area like the manifold, an burns...does it give off a different smell from conventional oil, or will it be the same?

Just trying to pinpoint this smell under the hood that I have after the car has been driven. If it does smell different then that would be the issue of v-cover-gasket.

 

Are you sure it's not a coolant smell? The later S Types are pretty tight when it comes to oil leaks but they do suffer from coolant leaks around the DCCV area.

Maybe dribble a bit of coolant on the hot exhaust just to help identify the smell?
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