So I've hit the first obstacle in reconditioning my car - a part which Jaguar appears to no longer stock. I've contacted about 10 online Jaguar dealers as well as my local dealers. So the question is, what do you guys do when it comes to hard to find OEM parts?

 

Scour second hand markets and/or OE/OE equivalent parts. It's hard because these cars aren't mass produced.

 

Do you have part numbers / what parts are we talking about? Its true that some parts are more difficult to obtain, but so far I was able to get all I needed, sometimes with some waiting time.
Chris

 

I do have the part numbers and have actually been able to "order" the part from 2 places. They do follow up a day or two later and let me know the part is no longer "stocked" with no ETA on when it might be available again. My history with Jaguar tells me this means "Good luck, we won't be selling it"

 

That's just supply chain and mfr issues. I had that for rotors I ordered in the summer. Couldn't find at any dealer, were on back order with no date available given. Took about 3 months and then they finally turned up...

Someone posted on here with similar issues for a hub last week.

But search around for alternatives online.

 

Ahhh good point. I guess I'm not used to them accepting back-order purchases.

 

I'm confused. What parts are we talking about here? And what year and model XF?

 

Recent example - C2Z25697 is not currently available and has no ETA

But I've found over the last few months that things like the cover for the brake reservoir in the cowl and the lower grille surround on the XFRS bumper are also unavailable.

 

I believe there are European laws in place about how long manufacturers are required to stock/sell spare parts for cars (maybe 10 years?), so despite Jaguar not being as high volume as (e.g.) BMW, usually the existence of these should offer some protection against this sort of thing for manufacturers that sell cars in Europe.

It's not infallible though, when I was living in the UK I had a Peugeot 406 Coupe that was about 7 years old that needed a new front windscreen and the trim surround piece was still "sold" by Peugeot, in that you could go into a dealer, and order one, but the story from the glass fitter was that it was basically on permanent backorder and he knew people that were waiting months for it. Personally I thought it actually looked cleaner without the surrounding trim so opted not to bother.

I've found a couple of discontinued parts for the XF with no replacement - one that springs to mind is the metal-bodied VVT solenoids, which have a different connector to the plastic-bodied ones used on the Range Rovers (aftermarket ones e.g. Dorman follow this pattern). A dealer eventually advised me to go to the used market - fortunately Jaguar sell a conversion loom referenced somewhere in a TSB that allowed me to use the newer connector type with my existing loom.