I Have a 2001 2.5 V6 SE (Manual) 83k miles & The suspension is terrible! mainly rear end but front isn't great either - the car handles badly and you can really feel the inertia under braking and acceleration. It bounces & rolls, is hard work to control at motorway speeds & if the road surface is anything other than perfect - it feels like the whole car is going to shake to pieces!
Now the crazy part - It passed the MOT 2 days ago with no advisories!
(I expected an EPIC fail & was hoping the test would at least diagnose the issues)
I replaced the rear ARB Bushes, this cured some of the rattling but the problem persists & is getting worse over time. Now the even crazier part - The shocks & springs are fine! They pass the bounce test (about 1.5 bounces) & have been inspected by my mechanic & obviously the MOT tester. No leaks on the shocks & no signs of corrosion or excessive wear on the springs. No major clunking noises either. I'm at a complete loss, I don't have a limitless amount of money to start throwing new parts at it - I really need to narrow this down a bit - can anyone help me please?

Despite the problems I've had I love this car and have formed an emotional attachment to it! I guess Jags just have that kind of effect on people eh?

 

First off how is the tire ware?
are the rear tires standing up straight or do the lean \ / or / \
i suspect you will find they are / \ dont worry this is an easy fix now thanks to Thermo.
this may help to diagnose some of your issues.
now another test you can do is jack one wheel and place on jack stands.
now holding the tire at 9 and 3 pull push and twist,do you get any play? if so get a friend to see where the play is? pay close attention to the bearings.
on the rear take a look at the upper and lower control arms how do the bushings look?
now on to the anti roll bars both front and back this is what i suspect may be your issue grab the bar with both hands in various places and give it a good up down side to side shake you should have little to no play.
these are the quick test we can get more in depth once we narrow this down.


let us know what you find.

 

Thanks for that, a friend of mine has some jack stands - so I'll get onto that this coming weekend.
As regards the anti roll bar (the rear one) I do remember backwards & forwards play last time my Jag was up on a lift, which is why I had the bushes done. The next thing I had intended to try replacing was the ARB drop links, do you think these could be the issue?

 

Worth a try very inexpensive and the old ones are potentially 14 years old.

do me a favor next time you hit a large roundabout say a motorway junction 1/2 way round give it some gas. does the car feel like the back end is coming out (like you are going into a skid) if so your rear lower control arm bushings are shot.

 

Hi, Apologies it's taken many months to give some feedback on this, it took me quite some time to sort out the money/parts I needed! I thought it would be worthwhile posting my experiences on here in case any other users are having similar issues.
Firstly, the tyre wear seems pretty much even front & back. My mechanic said there didn't seem to be excessive play when rocking the wheels either. I decided to go with new front end ARB bushes & droplinks. It turned out, the front bushes were so badly deformed that the roll bar was catching on the subframe. New bushes & droplinks made a massive improvement to the handling. On the rear I had new droplinks & lower control arms, again - substantial improvement. Worth noting, I bought EAP rear droplinks - avoid! They failed after 2 weeks! I replaced with some FAI links & everything seemed fine......for a while!
While everything seemed much improved for a time, the "feel" of the suspension seems to have deteriorated again. There are no more bangs & clunks & the excessive inertia under acceleration & braking seems to have gone,but the handling is poor & seems to be getting worse. I still have the feeling that the car wants to tip & lean, especially when going over potholes & uneven roads. I think someone on this forum described this as "tea trolley" handling - this sums up my car perfectly! It seems slightly worse on the OS rear wheel. To make things worse, the steering has started to feel very light and vague, not precise at all - I have to make lots of small adjustments - not too bad when going straight but pretty bad going round bends - especially on a rough road. I feel this has to be connected to the suspension issues in some way, but I have no idea how. Shocks & springs still seem fine, nothing clunks - the only noises I get are squeaks when going over a speed hump. I should add - I've never had a wheel alignment done, should I try this now or wait in case I need more suspension components replaced? The next thing I would probably try, after researching on here is replacing the bushes on the rear hub carrier arms. I don't want to do this unless I have to because the bushes aint cheap, but I've poured plenty of money into this car & want to solve this once & for all! Any further help you could give me would be much appreciated :-)

 

Just a side note, how are your tyres bearing up? The X is prone to "tramlining" with certain tyres, especially pirreli's!! quite offputting when it happens! Do a search here or on the other forum, lots to say about it!!
Good luck!

 

Here's an example:- Wandering.

 

I certainly have the symptoms of tramlining and I have one tyre on the front of a different brand to the other 3, but plenty of tread left on all of them & the wear seems pretty even to my eyes. The steering issue is fairly recent - only the last few weeks, whereas the suspension issues in general have bothered me for months & slowly got worse over time. I'm reluctant to have a wheel alignment done yet as it would only have to be repeated if I have to replace carrier arm bushes or track rod ends. I may have to bite the bullet & get the alignment done, I guess then they would be able to tell me if the track rod ends have gone. Really need to get this sorted as I'm planning a long trip at the end of next month. I'm getting a serious headache with all this research!