I'm calling upon the collective wisdom of the forum here. I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out why my ride quality has deteriorated so much. I don't have any clunks or rattles or noises of any kind, just a really harsh ride especially with these horrible Los Angeles roads. I feel every bump in the road even on new paving. I've replaced every bad suspension component and bushing; almost everything is new in the front and back. I got new softer tires, which did make a small difference. I have no air suspension faults of any kind. The rear shocks are original and the fronts are a few years old. Could they just have lost their damping abilities without having any leaks? I read all these threads talking about how nice the air suspension is, and I think to myself, really? I've always hated the ride quality of this car, especially compared to the old Series III XJ6s I used to have. And now it's gotten really bad. I see all these grandmas driving these cars and I wonder how they can stand the harshness. My girlfriend's Infiniti G37S has a softer and nicer ride. I can't even call the jag ride "sporty", it just feels old and broken down, even though all the suspension components sans the springs are brand new.

I'm seriously considering the coil over conversion because how could it possibly be worse? Or would getting brand new air springs all around be the ticket? I had another x350 before this years ago and I'm pretty sure the ride was a lot better. I wish I could test drive and compare new air springs to coil overs. Any and all thoughts are most welcome. I need help because I just don't enjoy driving this car anymore and that sucks.

 

Im assuming your talking about your L in your signature. I owned a base model XJ and it road great, earlier this year I bought my XJR and the ride is a lot harsher than that XJ I had. I made comment about it on here and I was told (as I am sure you have heard also), tires and size of the wheels play a big difference. Either way sounds like you have done a ton of things to yours and its still not satisfactory. Maybe the coil over way is all that's next. Im sure someone else will chime in and hopefully you can get something figured out. I know I have relinquished myself to just realizing my R is a sports car first and a "Jaguar" second.

 

Yeah that's one of the reasons I've stayed away from the xjr over the years. I have standard 18" wheels with Pirelli p7s, which are excellent tires. Quiet and more comfortable than the old p zeros I had. But I can tell the harshness is not from the tires but from somewhere in the car itself.

 

Does this mean no codes found in SDD? SDD does allow you to enter symptoms and searches for possible related faults; hence my question. Hopefully other experts will chime in with guidance.

 

I too, have what I consider to be a rather harsh ride, and what's more, it seems worse than when I first bought the car when it was on 30k miles.
I also have no faults flagged, and the car, although a Sport is now fitted with the Comfort air springs in an attempt to soften it up a bit. Where the harshness seems to come from is very small road undulations, like rough tarmac, and also ridges and sunken man-hole covers. Large bumps and undulations like our UK speed bumps are OK, so a bumpy road but with smooth tarmac is OK, but broken up surfaces are not.

My car is on 98k miles, and recently I needed new front wishbone trunnion bushes on the curved arms. Everything else is the original so I have a theory that gradual wear in trunnion bushes passes more vibration through to the car. I also think that the subframe bushes may well be past their best even though not failed. The front bushes on the front subframe are "Hydrabushes" and the rears have voids to, (in Jaguar's own words" "provide optimum suspension refinement".

I had thought the CATS system was not switching the dampers to "Soft", but I did a check the other day, and with the engine off, the suspension is very hard, and with the engine running, the suspension gets a lot softer.

Clearly I am not wanting to replace all the suspension components, it is too expensive, so live with it at the moment. The car have never failed our UK "MOT Test" (roadworthiness test), so everything is within limits.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the SDD. I should clarify by saying I have no ASF warning lights or leak symptoms of any kind.

I wish I could say my car handles any kind of bumps or surface ok, but its all terrible. I can still feel every bump in a brand new road.

 

I'd like to hear from those who have done the coilover conversion. I'd like to get an idea of which brand and which version has the smoothest ride possible. Arnott or Strutmasters? And I believe they each have different versions or models available.

 

Harsh ride is subjective. My XJR is plush when compared to a previous car I had. It was a Mini Cooper S with coil-over suspension. Felt like I was riding on shocks made out of solid granite. One big pothole and you could swear you needed an organ transplant.

 

Of course my Jaguar is a magic carpet if I compare it to my MG TF !!

 

The air suspension absolutely hammered over bumps at speed. My GTO felt like a luxury car in comparison. It's not why I went with coilovers, I had another failure much later, but it is one of the reasons why I made the decision. I haven't regretted my decision yet.

 

Totally agree on the air suspension over bumps. Has always been terrible, especially the rear. I have to slow to a crawl to safely drive over speed bumps. I've gone ahead and bitten the bullet and ordered the Arnott conversion kit from Rockauto. Should be here by Friday. I'm excited! There's no way the ride quality could be any worse than it is now.

 

I have the Strutmasters kit and predictability over the air suspension is much preferred. I'm sure you'll be happy with the Arnott kit as well.

 

hi XJ8JR & Torrid,

would you be so kind as to ballpark the cost of your respective suspension kits please?

Cheers
fab

 

The Arnott kit on Rockauto came to around $1200, but I paid extra for 3 day shipping.

 

I think that's what I paid for the Strutmasters kit too. They are typically pretty competitive with each other.

 

I know it's stupid, but the thought of having those red and yellow shocks on the car turned me off from Strutmasters, even though you'd rarely see them.

 

I've noticed the red springs in the right lighting before, but I'm glad the yellow is completely hidden when installed. That and the rear struts are dark green.

 

The Arnotts were delivered a day early so I'll tear into it tonight. Very excited!

 

I hope I don't regret saying this but my 07 base model which just turned 100,000 miles always gets compliments about the ride from people who ride in it and now I hate driving my wifes Mustang even if I can put the roof down.

 

That's funny, I always get the opposite. People always comment how they thought the Jag would have a nicer ride than it does.