Hello all,

The X-type has been running great these past couple years since I bought it. Thought today while warmed up and sitting in a turn lane the engine developed a knocking sound. At first I thought maybe it was wheel or suspension related, but when I pushed the clutch in and rpm's dropped so did the knocking tempo. The sound also increased in tempo when the engine was reved up. Popped the hood and felt around. The knock is most prominently heard and felt at the rear engine bank. Engine was visibly shaking too! The check engine light did eventually come on, but is would flash with a 2-3 second duration. Power was down and acceleration was poor!!

The car was running awesome just yesterday and earlier today. Oil was little low so I added some. It was changed back in April with Castrol Edge 5w-30 synthetic and was still golden clean.

I had the car towed to the local Jag dealer (only place that works on these cars around here...at least that I know of). Not sure if they had a chance to look at it or not, played phone tag with service reps.

Any ideas? Loose timing chain? Broken valve train component(s)? Rod bearing?

Thank you!

 

Injectors? mine was shaking like crazy past few weeks thanks to my mom , she wasnt driving my jag properly and boy u had to see the smoke came out from my jag once I hit the pedal to metal

 

Chas, seeing as you are in Waukesha, I am assuming you took it to Fields. Jenkins Jaguar is in Milwaukee on the northeast side of town. Not as convenient for you, but not that far either. They seem like nice people and took good care of me when I needed my propshaft replaced under warranty. Haven't used them for anything else though as the car has been great since I got it. For more mundane things like oil changes, tires, etc. I take it to Reina International Auto on 127th and Capitol. Very trustworthy and reasonably priced. Been going to them for years. Run my three Italian brothers and used to be Alfa, Fiat and Maserati dealers. Every time you go in there you will always see something unique.

 

These injectors are not that noisy, and I confidently feel that the knock is metal against metal. I have some 75#/hr injectors on my Porsche and they are much louder but it is a "tick-tick" sound not knocking that I can feel. The loss of power may have been a knock sensor retarding the timing. As far as the engine shaking I am not sure.

Alfadude, thank you for the line on Reina International Auto on 127th and capital.

Yes, I did take the car to Fields, I have heard good things about Jenkins, but my tow bill was already $90 some dollars and Fields was some 6-7miles away.

 

I have heard some less than flattering things about Fields, but have no direct experience with them. What I like about Reina is you get a free loaner when your car is in there. It's usually a piece of crap, but it's free and gets you where you need to go. Talk to Lorenzo. Tell him Jeff with the gray X-Type sent you.

 

Jeff, do you think Reina would be able to tackle possible engine work such as what I may have to encounter? I have also heard some less than flattering things about Fields in Waukesha but great things about Fields in Madison...go figure.

Getting back to Reina, it has been my experience with independent shops that specialize in a certain ethnic brand of cars that they are unlikely to touch something other than certain brands. The everyday stuff like brakes, oil changes, even spark plug changes I can do on my own. I could even tackle this engine problem as well but I now live in an Apartment and most of my tools are not with me.

Thanks again!

 

hate to tell you,but its going to be a rod,cant run engine low on oil,that happenned to mine,and I thought it was timing chain,but was wrong.sorry about bad news.

 

Oh, boy ... a rod knock would not be good. Seems like it came on at an odd point in time, though. I mean, you're just sitting in traffic and this starts up? Pretty weird, if you ask me.

If it was just an injector, I wonder if one of those injector cleaning procedures that the jiffy lube places offer would do the trick.

 

if you want to clean injectors first,try a can of seafoam when tank is almost empty.I do this on mine every 3 tanks full and the cat purrs.But if that doesnt take care of it,I wish you good luck,hope I am wrong,but that is what happenned to mine.Keep me posted,would like to know what the problem is.

 

Oh ,on mine it was the rod bearing.

 

Did they just have to drop the pan or was the rod journal scored as well?

 

Yeah, they would look at it. They sell Jags there all the time and have sold a number of X-Types through the years. Actually, I felt guilty I did not buy mine from them. I almost felt disloyal, but I wanted a maual sport and found one on my own at a good price out of town. They service what they sell. They work on all kinds of cars from classic and newer Ferraris and Lambos to 10 year old Saturns. You see a lot of BMWs and Audis in there as well and everything in between. At the very least they would give you an honest assessment of it. Sometimes half the fun of going in there is seeing what's in the shop. A while back they had like a year old Citreon big *** sedan in there they were doing something to for a guy that worked at some French embassy or something in Chicago.

 

The oil was 3/4 qt low. The engine and filter hold 5.9 qts. So even at a qt low I would not think it was starving the engine for oil.

It will be what it will be at this point. Can the pan come down, or is it a engine pull job if it is a rod bearing?

I agree it was a odd circumstance just sitting in traffic. I had been on the highway some 5-minutes earlier and this cat was purring!

 

Hi Bob,

Would you mind sharing on how long the rod bearing took to fix. Did you perform the work yourself or was it done by a shop. Would you mind sharing the costs involved....I welcome you to PM me if you want to keep it confidential.

Thank you!

 

Hi,the shop I took it to took the pan out and showed me the rod and crank journal.It was scored and I think it could have been turned but I decided to get a motor.Found a good used with 20 k for 1800.00.Still have old one out.Parted the throttle body out of it.The car was one quart low on oil.If I had the time and if I had torn the engine out myself,I would have turned the journal,and would have been alot cheaper.For awhile I thought it was something on the timing chain,but boy,was I wrong.If I can be of more assistance let me know.

 

also,the shop took the pan out with engine on car,it can be done with engine on the car.so dont let shop tell you it cannot.

 

I spent $1600 - $1800 in parts and crank machining just to turn the crank, new bearings, replace the damaged rod, new oil pump, and gaskets. By the time I was done I wished I had found a good used engine and save a lot of hassle and time. I purchase mine with a spun rod bearing so can't comment on what led up to the bearing damage. Good Luck and keep us posted on what you find.

 

Well, I just got back into town today from a week of being gone and just playing phone tag with the dealer (I work longer hours than they do). They were saying the spark plug on the back head broke off and what they were saying and how they were describing it to me just did not add up.

After my eye view of it today I seen that the spark plug seemed to have backed out (unthreaded) and then got finally pushed past the cyl head threads (rolled the threads) from compression pressure. Once the spark plug was popped up and out the heat melted the spark plug boot on the coil (it was still bolted down).

The dealer tried to re-tap the threads with a M14x1.25 and since the threads were pushed upwards he could not get a good bite on the tap (well duh!). This then concluded the dealer expertise on fixing my car other than to pull the entire engine out (22 hours labor @ $110/hr) and ship it to a machine shop or pull the back cyl head at 35 hours labor and take it to a machine shop.

The dealer is convinced there is a steel sleeve that the spark plug sits down in. I am not convinced and I could not get any magnet while down in the spark plug cavity to grab. Besides why would Ford/Jaguar go through the trouble of this steel sleeve and still have the spark plug threads be Aluminum?

I am confident these threads can be re-tapped and replaced with a Keensert locking thread insert. I may have to do the work myself or I am planning on seeing if this machine shop can come out to the car and install this.

The dealer said that that form of repair is "beyond what the do there" meaning if there is no parts to replace they stay away from it. Keenserts have been around for some 40-years and at dealers as well.