Our 2011 XF Supercharged 5.0L with 55k miles just started knocking in the engine. It is at an independent shop and the mechanic said that the oil level was almost non-existent. There are no oil spots in our driveway or work parking spots, so I was pretty surprised to hear this. It was overdue for an oil change but not for any extensive amount of time/mileage. Understandably, all cars burn oil, but I don't know how it would have dropped that badly without a visible leak somewhere.
In any case, I've learned a hard lesson, and now need to determine what to do with the car. Our shop says they generally don't tear down these engines, but simply replace them and the job would run approximately $15k. The only other option given would be to sell to a junk yard to part it out.
Unfortunately, I live in an area without a garage I can use as a shop, so I don't feel like I can try to part it out myself.
I've yet to get a second opinion on it, but was wondered if anyone else had gone through something similar, like a totaled car that they didn't end up going through insurance to resolve.
Is there any way to see if there is any local jaguar community that would be able to put it to good use?
Any help is appreciated.

 

Somewhat unrelated to the request for advice, but I wanted to comment that I was pretty impressed with the "new" feature of Related Topics at the bottom of my post. That didn't exist many years ago when I used to be more on car forums for my Cobra car club.
It referenced this previous post, which I missed, that is essentially the exact same issue.
I've messaged this member to see what they ended up doing, but they were probably similar to me, in that they joined the forum to get help for this specific issue and judging by their post count, will likely not see my message.

 

At what intervals did you check the oil ?
A 10 year old car, but with low miles shouldn't have become a serious oil burner unless abused at some point. How long have you owned the car ?
With a petrol engine, there are two ways for oil to get into the cylinders and burn alongside the fuel, (1) via the piston rings, and (2) down the inlet valve guides, (the vacuum in the inlet manifold draws it down). The inlet valve guides have seals on them to stop this, but over time these harden up and wear, thus allowing oil down. The much thinner modern oils used nowadays don't help.

 

I used to buy wrecked Toyota Supras to either part out or rebuild. Granted your car is worth far more in parts than as a non-running whole, but parting it out yourself is a lot more work than you probably want to do anyway. Essentially you now have an inventory of about 3,000 individual saleable parts that you have to remove, photograph, document, post online, communicate with buyers, pack and ship. You might break even after the first 100 but you'd have to sell another 100 to cover your labor on the first 100. I was mainly using parts from one to rebuild another and only sold a few parts individually because its a major hassle to retail parts.

Because I live in a single-family subdivision and can't be keeping non-running cars outside for the neighbors to gripe about, what I would do after I removed specific parts that I wanted was to have a "part"-y. I would invite the the local owners over for a Saturday, provide some beer and music, tell them to bring their tools, remove whatever they wanted and just pay whatever they felt like. Then on Monday, whatever was left went to the shredder for recycling. My neighbor across the street did the same thing with a Porsche Boxster. I don't remember what failed but he had bought it brand new and something catastrophic failed right after the extended warranty expired. It sat in his garage for years while he waffled whether to pay to fix it or sell it to a salvage yard for a huge loss. I suggested the "part"-y, so he contacted the local Porsche club. They stripped it clean in two weekends and he made considerably more than the salvage yard had offered. I don't know if the same strategy would work with an XF tho. It doesn't seem like the kind of car that has a bunch of DIY kind of enthusiasts, at least probably not very many in a concentrated geographic area.

 

@pdupler Thank you, that is excellent advice. I agree 100% a X250 is probably a stretch to find that many DIYers in one area that are currently in need of a specific part at the same time, but it may be worth a shot.

 

That's tough - sorry to hear it. Yes unfortunately engine replacement is typically more than these cars are worth.
What's the condition of the rest of the car? If it's immaculate then you might be worth finding an accident write off with a good engine and doing a swap. But that's hard to find and still pricey. Otherwise I suspect the economics aren't there

What region are you in? There are a good number of XFs of that vintage still around (mine is a 2010 of the same spec). So you might be able to get some value from parting if you can be bothered with it

 

Hey Jeff,

Have a 13 XF that’s engine blew a few years ago. Ended up purchasing a new transmission and engine, all in cost me around 10-11k CAD. Check out car-part(dot)com and see if you can find any “reasonably” priced powertrains near you. My replacement was about two-three years ago, I’d imagine it’s easier to source an engine now than it was back then. Winter months tend to have a lot more engine available than summers do for obvious reasons.

i don’t believe you’ll have much luck parting out your vehicle. Jaguars are few and far between from what I’ve seen in my neck of the woods. If you do go that route, I’d recommend mentioning Range Rover/Land Rover in your ad as the parts may be interchangeable, and those seem to be more common.

Best of luck

 

Where is this car Jeff, I might be interested in it if you still have it ?