Hello fellow Jaguar owner's,

I have a 2013 3.0 Litre Supercharged Jaguar XF with 40k kms on it. I've had if for about 4 months now and I've had to top up the coolant twice already as I keep getting low coolant warnings especially when giving the car abit of juice on highway driving. Is this a common issue and what could be the cause.

Cheers,

​​Phil

 

Keep reading as you have the most common problem with that car.
Search for leaking cooling pipes and then pressure test your car to see where it's leaking.
What ever you do DON'T ignore this! You will destroy the engine in minutes if you run it hot!

Since your new be aware we have a nice list of after market Aluminum cooling parts to replace the failure prone plastic stuff from the factory. I would plan on combining a number of repairs/upgrades to save on labor because once the SC is off it's all exposed and much easier to do it all at once otherwise you will go back in to replace each leaking part as it fails.

When asking for help give us all the information? Mileage and where your at as most of us are in the US and there are differences around the world.
The best advice I can give is to DIY the repairs and you did come to the right spot as all the problems are well documented on here with many repair threads.

A used Jaguar and paying for repairs soon turns into a money pit!
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Your to have to do the plastic overhaul

 

Jambo/Habari Phil,

"Is this a common issue and what could be the cause."

Sadly Yes.

Causing it.

Leaks from The water pump tell tail.
The front cooling water pipes.
The thermostat housing seal.
The rear heater manifold.

Finding it by pressure testing may be difficult, especially since it leaks more at high temperatures, and speed. The higher CW temperatures and CW pump pressures.

Buy a cheap endoscope off AliExpress, and search for CW staining in the usual areas to narrow it down.

Once found replace with the most up to date part revision, or in Alloy. As D. Black states

e.g.


Top: the front Alloy pipes, which requires the Supercharger removing to replace the lower pipe. Bottom: The rear heater manifold in Alloy.

Alloy Thermostat Housing. The plastic one is OK too. But the seal is questionable!


There are more bits to replace. But do not want to depress you too much.
Look on the bright side the expansion tank low level works. (for now)

The top two options failed on mine in under 36K!

Happy hunting.

 

Nice pretty parts!
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When replacing the plastic water outlet with the aluminium version, it's best to use the OEM o-rings instead of the ones supplied with the new parts.

Also, check the heater pipe that goes between the cylinder heads as some of the aluminium versions appear to have restricted passageways.

 

The coolant system is a major weakness on the car. However, I'd figure out what your leak is before you start replacing all those plastic pieces that can eventually fail.

I'd start from the top-side by shining a work light or head lamp around to see if you can determine where you have a leak. Thermostat housing, water pump & its connectors, and right behind the water pump are areas you definitely want to check. If you can't find anything obvious, then I'd remove the front plastic tray under the radiator and the adjacent plastic tray which is under the engine. You could then idle the car a while to warm it up and see if you find coolant drips on the ground. You might not build up enough pressure idling to see a leak. If not, then do a pressure test on the coolant system with progressively increasing pressures and you should find something that starts to drip on the ground. The coolant fill cap is supposed to release pressure at 200 kpa, which is around 29 psi, so that should be the upper bound on the pressures the system should tolerate. However, I suspect you will find a leak at a much lower pressure when doing the pressure test, maybe anywhere from around 7 psi to 15 psi. There should be no need to test anywhere near 29 psi.

Mike