Swapping your wheels is one job that is best left to your tyre dealer/garage because of the air suspension complication. It's well worth the $50!
But if you insist on doing this one yourself, here are some tips based on my personal experience:
FOR EACH SIDE OF CAR:
Use a trolley jack only on the chassis rail jacking point below the front footwell. Use a wooden block etc. to avoid damage to the aluminium chassis. This jacking point enables both wheels on this side to be raised together. Use chassis stands/bricks for jack failure protection. Lubricate the wheel studs before wheel replacement. Use a shovel etc. to support weight while positioning each wheel onto its studs.

Now this is where it gets tricky.
The air bag suspension will have reduced the cars front ride height while jacking, and jam the trolley jack under the car when you lower it. To avoid this irritation, I placed a brick under the front wheel before lowering, to retain sufficient clearance under the car.
To return suspension ride height to normal, I found it necessary to drive the car off the brick and then along the street at a speed of around 20kph.
Starting the engine and placing the car in 'Drive' did NOT raise my car's suspension ride height.

Note that suspension ride height must be returned to normal, before the the trolley jack can be fitted under the other side to finalise the wheel swap.

 

If you disconnect the battery before jacking up the car and only reconnect it when it is down off the jacks, the air suspension won't do what you are talking about. Without power on, the air suspension doesn't know that you are messing around with the car height.

 

Nice post Henry. Good write up.


I must say though..

One more reason I am happy to be switching to coils. :-)

 

The Air Suspension section of the X350 New Model Introduction Dealer Training Manual explains the suspension "Jacking Mode." It can be downloaded from our mediafire storage:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/7rdkgg...on_Section.pdf


Cheers,

Don

 

Which says, for the lazy amongst us, that the car will recognize that it's on a jack after seeing no height change after 10 seconds of attempted correction.

 

It says plenty of other things too, such as how to get the car out of Jacking Mode.

IMHO, anyone too lazy to read the Jaguar service references has no business working on an X350. These are not your typical "shadetree mechanic" cars. Knowing the correct service procedures will not only save time and money, but will help avoid costly damage to the vehicle. The manuals are readily available for free or at low cost, so there's simply no excuse not to read them. This forum is a supplement to the manuals, not a substitute for them.




Okay, I'll get off my soapbox!

Cheers,

Don

 

You get it out of jacking mode by lowering the car back down or spinning a tire at 2 mph. So, you jack it up, take the wheel off, put a new one on, and lower it back down. Seems pretty well within the scope of a shade tree mechanic to me. No need to make it sound complicated to change a wheel on a car.

Nowhere is the tendency for the stock lug nuts to round off mentioned, the most relevant part of the process. Watch out for those, or just replace them with non-aluminum capped versions when you get the chance.

 

Plenty of X350 owners have had problems after jacking up their cars. Some have resolved the issues simply by driving the car a short distance to trigger the system to leave Jacking Mode, but others have not been so lucky.

The manual also explains how to properly jack up the car to prevent stressing the aluminum monocoque construction (not the typical shadetree mechanic method).

We could just copy all the contents of the manual in a post, but it would exceed the forum word limit. Better to just read the manual. Most of it isn't that complicated, but a lot of it is not "the way we've always done it." It's better to know the differences before you create a problem that could have been avoided with just a little education.

You've obviously read at least some of the relevant sections of the manual. Why are you so insistent that others shouldn't do the same?

 

Pretty much sums it up.