OK folks - new to the forums, forgive the fact I haven't done the formalities of introducing. 2010 XF Supercharged, 15,589 miles. Original owner. I can count on one hand the number of times I have put less than 93 octane into this car. It's had all services done at regular intervals despite the low mileage.

I drive the car almost every day, just not very far. Live in the city so admittedly tough miles. Had it in the shop for a tire replacement and the dealer told me I had low brake pads and a few months left to get it addressed. So I wasn't too shocked when my low pad sensor light came on and decided to get it fixed before heading out for a couple hundred mile road trip over this past weekend. While there I told them to replace the oil, and the dealer mentioned that they had recommended a brake fluid flush as well, so why not just get the 45,000-mile service done as it would be cheaper than the oil and brake fluid individually ($395). Sure, I said. Then they call while the car is there," the fronts are low too", and do I want them done as well, will be another $1200. Thinking they were all being replaced for the $900 I was quoted already for the brakes alone I was a little taken aback and I said no thanks, I'll wait on those.

Anyway, picked up the car that afternoon, drove home less than 2 miles and parked in the garage. Next afternoon I start out on my road trip. I don't make it down the alley when the car starts idling rough, and RP indicator comes on. Bad smell follows in the cabin (hard to even describe) and by the time I call and get it back to the dealer the engine light is on and my baby is hurting, bad. I'm thinking "did they forget to put the oil in ".

Anyway, today the dealer calls to inform me that the 4 valves on the left-hand side are stuck open and fuel is pouring in and need to replace the plugs and while they're in there they could do all eight, and blah blah blah. I really don't remember the specifics of his schpeal as I was fuming. "It will be $3600 if we do this and that and $6400 if we do it all..."

I stop him. You realize there was absolutely nothing wrong with this car except the brake sensor warning before you guys got your hands on it, and less than 2 miles later I've got serious engine issues.

"There's nothing that we could have done to cause this", is his reply.

I call BS. Thoughts? And anyone know a reputable mechanic in Chicago?

 

 

Yep., sounds like BS. Too bad you didn't check the oil level on the dash before giving it back to them. I am sure they would cover up that mistake quickly once they got the car in their hands.

Plugs are good for 100K miles. Nothing should have happened to them despite stuck values or fuel injection gone crazy.

Oh, and by they way, rule of thumb, never take a car to a dealer outside of warranty. It's suicide.

 

The valves dont stick open but on direct injection injectrs the valves inside the injectors can stick open dumping fuel. And no there is nothing they could have done to cause this, it is nothing more than coincidence. While some recommend the whole bank since it all comes apart to replace one, extended warranty companies only pay for the one that sticks open. And yes to spark plug is fuel fouled and should be replaced too and i recommend another oil change because the fuel will dilute the oil than has gone past the rings. And then it takes somedriving to clean the fuel out of the exhaust system. Theyre ford(motorcraft) injectors

 

I actually did this immediately after getting off the phone with the dealer. Case open, we'll see what happens. I am skeptical I will see any sort of "love" here since I'm past warranty (in years, not mileage), although I agree that a car with 16K on it and full-service records shouldn't have such issues.

 

Thanks for the input and the recommendations. After calming down a bit I called back to get the error codes and the diagnosis. Here's what they sent. So it appears that they didn't isolate to one faulty injector. One or all four fail? I've searched the forums and the interwebs and it seems this has happened to others, but during rapid acceleration which is not the case here. I drove 500 feet down the alley at 10mph, put the car into park to get a moving truck out of the way, got back in the car and failures. I am very curious to know what could have caused this if it was nothing they did. Any idea what I should pay for this type of repair? (I'm guessing it's not $3600)

 

Yeah, it definitely would have been BS if the engine has stuck intake/exhaust valves.

What exactly on the spark plug absorbs fuel that it fouls them? Fuel is full of detergents that clean engine parts.

 

I had a similar issue on my XFR a while back. It turned out to be a low charge on my battery due to it's age. I fitted a new battery and it's been fine for over 8 months.
I hope it's a simple as that for you.

 

Sorry to hear of your experience. I don't use the dealership's service because I just can't trust my local dealer's service. They screwed up twice just on the airbag recall for the XF. Luckily, I've found a good trustworthy independent mechanic nearby and have been using him since my S-Type.

 

Quick thought 1: believe everything that Brutal says!!!
Quick thought 2: "low charge on my battery due to it's age", very possible. These cars come down with all kinds of daemons when the battery starts to go. So 8 years, it could be time...
================================================== =
You dreamed of a big star -
He played a mean guitar -
He loved to drive his Jaguar...

So welcome to the machine

 

 

Yeah, I already said it was not the valves.

Replace the plugs when gasoline gets on them? That's flat out wrong. Once the gasoline dries, it doesn't cause any problems with the plugs, and since gasoline is volatile, it dries pretty quickly. You do not need to replace the plugs if gasoline gets on them. Just dry them off with some compressed air, or wait for them to dry in the cylinder. By they time they complete any work on his car, they will be dry.

I don't know where you people come up with these things. The certified tech I can understand. They are pros at coming up with BS stories to fleece customers every day. Just watch the undercover YouTube videos to see them in action. But the rest of you, SMH.

 

Heh heh, yeah, right. And then if one of the plugs remains fuel fouled and causes a misfire the customer screams bloody murder on every internet Jaguar forum he can find that the mechanics were idiots and should've replaced the plugs as part of the job ! Damned if you do, damned if you don't. You'd never catch me reusing old plugs, thus inviting the opportunity of getting my face melted. It ain't fun; I don't like it.

Yeah, there are plenty of bad players in the car repair business. I spent 30 years in that trade so there's not much that would surprise me. But, there are plenty of good ones, too. In other words, they're just like their customers: some good, some bad

I've found that when I paint with an over-wide brush I always end up splattering all over myself. Never fails. But that's just me. Perhaps you've never noticed the splattering when it happens.

Cheers
DD

 

 

Thanks all for the input, and the discussion. Finding consensus, it seems, is a bit brutal. No pun intended. But for those playing along - an update here.

I spoke to multiple mechanics who work on Euro cars, unfortunately finding mechanics that work on Jags newer than 2005 not so easy it turns out. Nevertheless, they offered their thoughts. I scoured the webs some more info. I visited the dealer yesterday armed with all of this and the feedback here. Oh, and of course I spoke to my Jaguar USA case manager who shared with me the dealer's response about my car to Jag USA. Here's a summary of the conversation.

Me: "I've spoken to a few other mechanics, and they have suggested there could be a number of causes for my failure and it's not necessarily bad injectors. Including forgetting to put oil back in the car"
Dealer: "No oil wouldn't have caused this - you would have had other problems"
Me: "But the car has only been driven a maximum of 5 miles since it left your hands. In any case, I need to understand what course of action you've taken to diagnose this failure, and why you think replacing 4, if not all 8 injectors, coils and plugs is the way to go. It's highly unlikely that all four of these failed at once, instantaneously, and only on one side. It seems to me that while you guys were working on the car when it was here that something could have gone amiss. Loose harness, grounded wires, loose vacuum tube...Why wouldn't we start there?"
Dealer: "You don't have any of those issues, we checked. No bad MAF, no bad O2...
Me: "You checked those? I only see on the paperwork where you tested the high-pressure fuel pump"
Dealer: "Your car didn't throw codes on any of those"
Me: "Seems Jags are notorious for not throwing codes. In fact, looking through my service history there have been 2 separate occasions since owning this car that I've received the RP warning, only to bring it here and you guys can't replicate it and there are NO codes thrown. So you can't tell me that these things aren't the source if you haven't, in fact, looked at them specifically." Anyway, what about the possibility of low power from a depleted battery?"
Dealer: [Blank stare]
Me: "A similar issue from an XFR owner was resolved with a new battery."
Dealer: "There wasn't any such indication of this being a problem. This happens - the injectors are stuck open, I don't know why" - I actually believe this.
Me: "Well low-mileage wouldn't cause this" [This is actually what he told Jag USA] "and if it did and was such a common issue wouldn't there be a TBS on the issue?"
Dealer: "I didn't say common, in my 28 years in the business I've only seen this on Jags maybe 3 or 4 times. [WHAT!?!? - then how the $#(*^ are you so sure of yourself???] "But I guarantee if you weren't in here the day before to get your brakes done you'd be right back here today with this problem"
Me: "I guarantee I wouldn't"

And that concluded my joyous day with the service manager. So now I'm just waiting for JAG USA to get back to me...

I looked through my entire code history when I got back and found two things that seem interesting. One is an error code threw while they had the car for the brakes ( four miles before the injector failure) and the other has no mileage associated with it, but a 66% chance that it is related to my problem. A quick search on U0122 and this is what I found:
Typically the causes for this code to set are:

• Open power or ground to engine/powertrain control module ECM/PCM – most common
• Open in the CAN bus + circuit
• Open in the CAN bus - circuit
• Short to power in either CAN bus circuit
• Short to ground in either CAN bus circuit
• Rarely - faulty control module

Now, I'm not a mechanic. But it seems to me that between other mechanics mentioning to me "grounds and electrical issues", and the forum members mentioning "battery and electrical issues" and how I'm reading the causes of this U0122, that it seems likely that there is an issue with the electrical. No?

 

Forgot the pics of the error codes... Interestingly, there's a Jag TSB for the C1129 code that calls for disconnecting and reconnecting the negative battery cable as part of the fix. Hmmm

 

I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, but you can't just replace one injector on the AJ133 V8, they have to be replaced as a matched set of four for each bank. This could be why the dealer is telling you "all four injectors need replacing" and it could be that only one of them is dud.
Also, if if you haven't got it yet, you can download for free a copy of the 2010-2011 XFR Workshop Manual from my Dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bet26xniua...kshop.pdf?dl=0
99% of it and 100% of the engine contents will be the same for your Supercharged.

 

Another thing no one has suggested yet is that if you have a sticky injector, you might be able to get it unstuck by putting Sea Foam into your gas tank. If that really is the problem, it's just grime keeping it from moving freely, and Sea Foam does a good job of clearing that grime.

Change your battery as well, just to tick that box. Could be a cheap fix instead of them replacing the whole drive train, "just to be sure you don't have any more problems."

 

All good thoughts. I do plan to replace the battery as suggested. My concern with running any type of cleaner through the tank at this point is if all four injectors are really stuck open, and fuel is dumping in as a result, then I could do more damage to the catalytic while the "cleansing" tries to work. And if the oil is being tainted by this free gas flow as has been suggested above by Brutal that this could cause additional issues.

Bad news is that as mentioned before finding a mechanic that will work on Jags later than 2005 (that isn't booked solid into next month) is tough, to say the least. Anyone hear of or know of results of a service called yourmechanic? Supposedly certified techs that come to you with 12 month guarantee on work performed

 

Curious Les if this low charge threw an error code or if there were any other symptoms prior? How did they determine this to be the likely cause?