My Cobra is almost sold so I am searching for a XJ6 X350 and I have found one (2007) in Victoria (I am in NSW). Should I go ahead with this I will certainly get a mechanical inspection and if all is basically OK then we are off and running. BUT, I have been reading in this forum about the issues with the air suspension.
Question 1
Is there something specific I can ask the inspecting mechanic (he/she may not be a Jaguar mechanic) to look for ?
Question 2
Does the air compressor or air bags fail suddenly to the point of not being able to drive the car? or do symptoms occur that allow the car to be still driven ?
Thanks in advance, Bob

 

Look into the sticky's at the top of the front page

 

I did check out the 2 "stickies" but couldn't find out what to check apart from alarms coming up. So if there are no alarms then it is safe to assume all is well?
Bob

 

The air compressor gradually loses its ability to pump air due to wear of piston or cylinder. When it fails to charge the reservoir within a time specified in the ASM, a fault code is generated, and you get a fault message displayed. Early compressors failed within the warranty period, usually around 35k miles, but later ones were much better. In my case, in 2010, I bought a 2003 on 30k miles and had to have a compressor at around 34k miles. The later compressor was still on the car when I part exed it and the car was then on over 100k miles. My second X350, a 2007, bought in 2016, had no trouble at all with the air suspension.

The air springs have a seal at the top which can leak gradually, so overnight the car sinks down. The car levels itself if one spring leaks so it's quite difficult to find the leaky spring. Front springs give the most trouble, nobody knows why. The actual spring diaphraghm can blow out suddenly and this means the car will need recovering as it wont be possible to drive it normally, only at a crawl to get you off the road to wait recovery. This however, is fairly rare.
In the US, there are coil spring conversions available but legality of these is not proven in the UK, and may not be legal in Aus.

The real Achilles Heal of these cars is the short life of some of the suspension bushes, and also the lower bushes on each spring. These latter are cheap to buy, but the fronts can be problematical to fit due to the securing bold seizing. Some shops wont give a quotation for these, just an estimate. Rears are reasonably simple to do.
Short life suspension bushes are those on the rear lower wishbones, and the front wishbone trunnion bushes on the front "banana" arm. Essentially, if you run one of these cars, you just have to get used to suspension work every so often. Don't let me put you off owning one, as they are a very fine motorcar.

 

Hi Bob
The compressor tends to wear out gradually but can be replaced or repaired-not a big job.

An air strut can go "BANG' and collapse which may mean you need a tow truck.

Again not a huge job to replace but you may need an impact driver to undo bottom bolt.

Can I refer you to my recent post on this forum?

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ective-242974/

I am on the Mornington Peninsula ( 50 mins South of Melbourne CBD).

Are you looking at a Jag with a replacement engine and $6 k spent on it by any chance?

Cheers

BTW If you buy an x350 you will love it.

 

Thank you gentlemen for for replies and your comments have eased my mind as it appears fixing the potential issues is not too hard. The car i am looking at has 118,000km's under its belt so it most likely has had work done on the air shocks and may need a second refurbish/replacement. If there are no records of this is there something to look for apart from the obvious drooping of the suspension? I am asking this as the car is interstate and I am not prepared to travel (Covid) I will have to engage a mechanic to check it over for me.
Bob

 

Bought a 2006 XJ6 two years ago and I am very happy with it. While looking for one I saw a beautiful car for sale in Tauranga. Asked the seller to get an AA check at my expense.. Best $ I ever spent. It needed new air suspension at the rear plus new bushes and such all round. Checked the cost of doing the work and it was over $7000 NZ just for parts. Amazing cars but when they go wrong.....

 

Thanks Meirion,
I will be in contact with you when I sell my Cobra re your X350. I had a mechanical inspection done on the Cobra and it came up trumps but I have heard nothing from the guy who paid for it and was keen on the car.
Bob

 

My X350 was recently written off in an accident & I replaced it with an X358. At a bit over 130,000km, I anticipated that the front struts would need replacing, & so I negotiated a price based on that extra expense. I live in Adelaide & the car was in Sydney, so I also had to buy sight unseen, except for a lot of photos. The car was mechanical inspected but the strut fault was not picked up. I replaced both front struts with original equipment Bilstein’s at around $4,400. Arnotts air struts would have been about $1,000 cheaper, but I opted for the originals. These are magnificent cars & I have found them to be reliable, except for the air struts. The other alternative is to change to Arnotts coil springs which work very well.

 

Hi Bob
Sounds like your buyer may have changed his mind.

I have seen the Jag you are looking at and can tell you that it has been for sale

for quite a while (months) and they say "no offers".

You may want to consider ignoring that.

 

Thanks Merion, I have discussed the car with the dealer and the price IS negotiable, but first loose the Cobra.
Bob

 

Regarding air suspension, it can fail to the point of throwing codes. But more likely might go down "overnight" and pump back up when you start it. "Almost normal".

How to tell? Dunno, unless it's a dealer and you can sneak into their yard before the sun rises and they start all the cars up. Mine can go down ovenight/week sometimes, but not so much as I'd call it faulty.

For me, 90k km. Unless it gets worse or a strut/bag poofs, a very slow leak only wears out the compressor a little bit more. A certain level of leakage is "normal" (well, that's my own opinion). I fretted myself silly until I learned to live with a....Jaguar.

 

In the original technical notes for the X350 published in 2003.5, Jaguar advised that small leaks were to be expected in view of the air pressures in the system. I was given a copy when I went to a JEC seminar in, (I think) 2012, on the X350s shortly after I bought mine. It was actually held at the Jaguar factory at Castle Bromwich.

Of course those people who ever had a Citroen car DX or CX will be familiar with the car flopping down overnight and getting up in the morning when the car is started !

 

Mr. Bob -
I'm owner of a 05 Super V8 bought 3 years and 20,000 miles ago with 134,000 miles. I paid 7,200 $. I don't do my own work but have a great and reasonably priced mechanic (90/Hr).

I'll be brief for once. Had I known in reality what I know nor through experience, I would not have paid over $5,000 for my car, especially given the generally low prices of vehicles that have been well cared for or had all the neglected maintenance performed.

Mine had an intermittent suspension fault lite on at purchase. In addition it had worn bushings front and rear, uneven wear on the front tires, bent rims, and alignment issues. I did not have a pre purchase inspection. I don't think it would have mattered, I love the car and bought it away from where I now live.

Over the next 2 years I fixed them all, but started with bypassing the ECATS air system. I wanted to drive the car, not continue to fix the same problem multiple times.

Now that all is resolved ride wise, the car drives like no other, even w/o the air. The only irritating thing is that even after doing all the suspension work and replacing the air shocks with Eibach springs (1,000$) my car rattles over a light rough road so commonly encountered in daily driving. Frustrating but not a deal breaker. The car is finally safe to drive!

And even my American car loving Mustang / Chevy / Dodge Truck driving mechanic now loves my piece of Euro-trash.

FCP Euro sells an entire rear Lemforder kit for $500, and the front parts- wishbones, upper and lower control arms, tie rods, sway bar links, etc are about 1,000 total also Lemforder ar FCP Euro.

My car also had a frozen front caliper, and refurbished were not to be found. So I ended up spending on new calipers, slotted rotors, and Akebobno pads. The aluminum calipers were $700 EACH, so that was a big ouchy repair.

The other big thing to look for is coolant issues, hoses condition, coolant smell, as this is a common issue and can ruin a car. My supercharged version did ultimately have a coolant leak in the "Valley Hose)(underneath the S/C - hard to get at, so costly to repair. The day it happened I drove it on HOT over 2 hours, then again that same day in the same condition 2 hours home. From the comments on this forum, I may be the luckiest Jag owner on earth as my motor should have been damaged.

I do believe that this over heat caused my heater core to get clogged so I now have uneven heat flow even though the auxiliary water pump and door actuators have been replaced.

This last heater core problem is very common as well. My car heats, but flow is uneven. And along that note - I hear it gets HOT in Stralia from time to time, so make sure the car blows cold. Mine didn't this past summer but now that the actuators and H2O pump are fixed I'm hoping its better. It did cool during our very extended hot weather this fall in O-H-I-O.

Get the car checked out and don't buy it if a lot of regular maintenance has been neglected. I have not had to do anything weird repair wise as many people think Jags have oddball problems. I just had to do more neglected maintenance than I thought. It is very expensive to play "catch up" whether you do your own work or not so be prepared to wait for another better example. There are lots of great values out there - a few of which are listed on our forum!!!

And even after all this - I'm looking for an XJS. Jags bite really hard. Be careful out there!

Best Regards
Mike D.

 

AND - the way in which my air suspension failed was gradual. Intermittent suspension fault light, then losing air over night, then taking a long time to raise in the morning, then finally going into super low rider mode - with the fault light "car too low" - meaning it's on the ground.

Not very much fun to get over a driveway curb and in position to tow. Not to mention sitting in my mechanics yard and then garage bay space (which he teased me mercilessly, about charging for the space) while I ordered and waited for the Eibach's), since the car really could not be moved.

So don't let it get to that point if you have that trouble.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Thanks for all that info Mike, I am about to research the cost of buying 4 new air shocks so I have an idea of costs if Ifind a car with suspect shocks. I watched a You Tube Video on changing them and it doesn't look too hard.
Bob

 

Still doing more research on the air suspension and it seems like the conversion to coilovers maybe not a bad idea. Is there a distributor for Arnotts in Australia?
Bob

 

None at all in Australia seems rather odd to me.
Lot of bikes, and cars, in a country as large as Australia.
Missing a lot of potential sales there.

 

I wish to make a complaint! This car what I purchased not 3 years ago...[Parrot sketch]

MOT must be watching Fraser's comments, as I just failed MOT on front lower suspension bushes. At 89k km or 55k miles.

It is said by many professionals here in NZ, that the national agency is getting very tight on Warrant of Fitness aka MOT. Or listening to Fraser

Fortunately it's covered by my 3 year mechanical warranty with just a few months to go. Though the excess is about half the cost of the job suggested at $NZ600 ($US440). I don't care what the final cost is, I just pay an excess of $NZ350 ($US260)
I spoke to a Jag Club member who had his air suspension repaired under a mechanical warranty scheme. Other than that, is it worth it? Not really. Barring a major disaster, the insurance company made more than me in the end. But I was Happy and Care-Free! (until Fraser predicted what would happen!)

 

Dumb question. Are all XK8's air shocks? Just bought an 2000 XK8 but also own a Lexus LS430. We all replace failing air shocks w/ good mechanical shocks. Minimal difference in comfort and a BIG difference in price.