It works fine on the open road, but in traffic, forget it. It overheats.

I have a new radiator (the last one broke in traffic), mostly new hoses, water pump is fine. The radiator bottle cap is new, the radiator bottle is a couple of years old.

Both fans work, neither is obstructed. System has no air bubbles.

I was stuck in traffic on a 95° day today, watching the temperature gauge climb from 199 (normal temp for my car) to 243 when I finally got moving again.

When I got off the freeway and took the back roads, I watched my temperature gauge go from 199 to 220 at red lights. Turning the heater on inside the car helped the car, but not me... lol


Am I missing anything?

2004 X-Type, 233,000 miles... It lives in Texas.

 

Thermostat and/or temp sensor

 

Tumbleweed: Check the fan control module. Your radiator fans spin, but perhaps too slowly to cool the engine in hot Houston traffic. This can occur when the fan control module's electronics go bad with age and heat, a familiar issue in our X-Types. Do an advanced search of this forum for "fan control module" posts by Thermo for a simple test. For example: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...28/#post581069

At highway speeds, air is forced thru the radiator and fans aren't needed. And when stuck in traffic, blowing hot air into the passenger compartment uses the cabin fan to supplement the (weak?) radiator fans.

 

Tumbleweed, sounds like your fans are starting to go. Like what dwclapp said, there is a simple test. Simply start the car (engine temp doesn't matter), turn on the A/C and turn the dash fan on max and dial the temp to the lowest it will go. This will force the engine fans to run at max speed. At this point, open the hood/bonnet and lean in towards the engine a little bit. You should be getting a strong blast of air in your face. If you are getting a nice gentle breeze, your fan controller is on its way out.

 

the a/c wasn't working well until the car got moving, even when the engine was cold.

I'm going to start with replacing the fan module this weekend.

 

Tumbleweed, if you are replacing the controller, please note that there are 2 different ones out there. You have the early style and the later style. The only visable difference in them is that the plugs are different and you can't have an early car and a later module without getting an adapter. The cut over point for this is around March 2004. Since you have a 2004, you need to look in the driver's door jam and find out which month your car was made. Then, as you are looking for controllers, you can match up the plugs to make sure you get one that will work.