First of all, thanks to Jaguarforums.com for response to my birthday yesterday !! (Closing in on the big five O, and loving it !!)

To the issue : when the cold set in, a high pitch noise 'appeared' at approximately 50 km/hr and seems to originate in the gearbox (Automatic) ?

Above and below 50 km/hr, no sound is apparent...

The car has 140000km on the odometer.

Anyone had this issue with a 2003 X-type AWD ?

Thanks..., Ben

 

Ben,
To be safe I would change the fluids in both the transmission and transfer case, but first reseal the transfer case. There are several posts on here with how to do this, neither one is hard…

 

Sounds like the prop shaft bearing. Do a little searching on here and you will find a TON of threads on that. Not harmful as much as annoying. Some have been able to grease that bearing with success, others not so much. Very common problem and as far as I know that was never addressed by Jaguar in all the model years. Mine is a 2005 and I had my prop shaft replaced under warranty 5 + years ago. Was good until this winter when it started up again with the extremely cold weather we have been having. If it gets up to at least freezing it's fine.

 

So, this is an issue even with the manual gearbox ?
If I don't act on it, it will not harm the gearbox in any way, or should I take it to a dealer and try re-greasing the prop shaft ?

Thanks, Ben

 

Shouldn't hurt anything and I am living proof it affects manuals as well. Dealer would typically replace the whole propshaft. That is about $1000 and can be done within an hour. I believe someone on here replaced the bearing only. If I recall it was somewhat involved, but saved him some money. Some have luck greasing it others not so much. Do a search on here and you will find out everything you want to know about it. When the temperature will get above freezing it will go away.