I live in Colorado and just bought my first Jaguar ( 2003 x-type 3.0 AWD 5-speed ) to add to my growing collection of a firebird and classic ramcharger.
ANYWAYS I commute to my university and went out to start it and go to class this morning the first time I started it in the cold as I just bought it yesterday. Put it in neutral rolled out to the street in the end of my driveway as I usually do and then I could put it in reverse... I couldnt put it in any gear.... In order to get it into a gear, I had to turn the car completely off and then start it in first or start it in reverse just to get it moved out of the street and then once I started it in those gears I couldnt get it back into neutral or anything else until I turned it off.
I did give it some time to warm up ( about 1/4 of the gauge ) but not all the way to operating temperature ( 1/2 of the gauge ) but then I just sat there with it running in neutral until the gauge reached half where it usually is and then I put in first and drove it about 10 miles including highway and it shifted all the gears like butter.....
Is there something wrong or do they just not like the cold?
Thank you in advance

 

I'm not an expert on these manuals..Sounds like the syncros are stiff...But My first step to fixing this would be to drain and refill the transmission with Red Line MTL...I understand this is an excellent Lube for cold climates..

 

Do you have a manual transmission or an automatic? I am not 100% clear on your description.

If it is automatic you should not be able to start it in reverse, only in park or neutral.

When you said you couldn't shift it into gear you didn't happen to be on a pretty steep incline, were you?

 

Presuming it's a manual transmission, the above sounds like a sticky clutch.

 

Its a manual and yes I keep my firebird in the garage and my driveway is a pretty steep incline could that be the issue?

 

but I was off the incline when I tried to put it in gear I coasted off the incline in neutral before putting it in gear

 

Umm....No such thing.

 

I will have that done Im also flushing the clutch / brake fluid. I just bought the car yesterday and the dealership apparently didnt properly service it. It could pass for maple syrup as it is now.

 

For those who believe there's no such thing as a sticky clutch

Common Problems - How Clutches Work | HowStuffWorks

Although it's much more common on motorcycles, I had this on a Sunbeam Tiger. Gave exactly the same symptoms as this X-type.

 

:icon_rolleye s:

 

Now that I know it is a manual the incline doesn't matter.

The clutches seem to be very robust in these cars. Mine had 160K on the original clutch when I sold it and it still shifted great. Doesn't seem to be a lot of threads on here about manual transmission or clutch issues. Granted, you have no idea how well the previous owner knew how to drive a manual. However, unless you heard some weird noises when you pushed in the clutch or noticed a lot of slipping when you drive it I don't know that it would be clutch related. Maybe best to change the fluids first and go from there.

When you test drove it and for teh day you had it anything you notice about how it drove out of the ordinary?