Hi Everyone! I've recently come into ownership of a beautiful 2019 Jaguar XJ R-Sport and I absolutely love it! As part of routine maintenance, I changed the oil along with the engine and cabin air filters (which were absolutely filthy and looked to be original to the car). Now I'm stuck with a weird issue. Anytime I turn the AC on there's a weird creaking noise. I thought it may have been the filter obstructing something so I reinstalled and checked for any obstructions but nothing. I recorded a video and attached it below. Anyone have any ideas what this sound is? Seems to originate from close to the cabin air filter housing and its driving me absolutely insane. Does anyone have any thoughts or pointers for whats may be going on?

 

Well, 😂 that certainly is something And I can see how it may drive one crazy.

Have you tried taking the filters back out completely and leaving the housing empty temporarily to see if it makes a difference? What band of filters did you use?

Mike

 

That's the first thing I did. Pulled the filter out and tried to cycle the AC. Same issue. No change in pitch/volume/intensity with filter in or not. Found the part number off the OEM one that was previously in there and it was a Mann filter so bought the identical replacement off Amazon ( ). I also put the OEM filter back in and that had no effect either. Very bizarre!

 

This might come from one of the blender door actuators. Try adjust ariflow to windshield, foots and wents and listen if same noise is heard. Next cold/hot and finally internal circuit.
If you have 4-zone then also foot/up and hot/cold for the rear as well, since the bleder doors are in front for rear ducts.

 

Thank you @Vasara!! That seemed to do it. Cycling through the various modes seemed to finally fix it. Video attached. Really appreciate it and hope it sticks. It was driving me absolutely insane!

 

Great! Thanks for sharing.
I hope the noise stays away.
It was really odd noise.

 

Good repair and I hope this does not become a common problem. Getting to those blend doors is no fun.
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Unfortunately it’s back What I notice is that it’s only when I turn the AC on and off. No sound when switching the air position. What’s weird is that once I turn the car on if I move the air through all its positions and then turn the AC on then it seems to resolve for a bit. Weird and running out of ideas as to what it could be. Will look at a parts diagram today.

 

There are Cold / Hot mix blend door. By sympthoms you wrote, that is the one making the sound.

 

Could it be a bad bearing in the fan motor? Or is the fan hitting something like a loose piece of insulation or plastic flopping into it when the air direction/pressure is right?

 

You got me curious and boy oh boy will it be fun to determine which blend door is making the noise!

Here is the HVAC control box inside the dash board. I was shocked at the number of blend doors on the X351! My old STR had maybe 4 blend doors.
These cars have 13 blend doors or now they call them "Stepper Motors". Same thing.

Drivers side of air box.



And the Pasenger side.




Don't know if Jaguar changed this over the X351 lifetime so take these diagrams with a grain of salt until you check the setup for your year of car.
Also don't know how hard it is to get to them for replacement.
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Sounds to me like a problem easily fixed with the radio. 😂🤣 Getting in there is not fun.

 

@farm-jag exactly!! 🤣🤣 One of my passengers said "hey, whats that noise?" and I said "let me show you the power of the meridian sound system" LOL. I think @Freddy J is right because its too correlated to me changing the filter. Sound started immediately after I changed the air filter and the filter was absolutely filthy. Would be insane odds if the blend door failed the moment I did that somehow, and probably should've played the lottery that day. In a few weeks I'll try and shove a borescope in the air filter box and see if I can find any material in there and post back.

Thanks all for your thoughts, sounds like this is a we're not touching this for now problem.