I have a 2001 XJ8. While driving the other night the 'engine coolant low' indicator came on but the temp gauge remained normal. I pulled over and the car died as I stopped. Popped the hood and discovered that the radiator hose had come completely loose from the inlet so I had lost all coolant. The car has 115,000 miles and prior to this it ran perfect. Now it has a knock, runs very rough, and the check engine light is on and the 'restricted performance' light is on. I've always wanted a Jaguar and this is my first one. Situation kinda' sucks but oh well, here we are. I've never had a car react this way after overheating so I'm not sure where to start and some of you guys seem quite knowledgeable on these beauties so I'm all ears if anyone would care to comment. Thank you in advance!

 

First of all do not do anything without replacing the coolant,hose & letting it cool down . Have your engine codes pulled, it can be done for free @ any chain auto parts store IE Pep Boys, Auto Zone etc.

 

Welcome to the forum, I think.

The temperature gauge is totally useless for detecting overheating. It reads midscale until about 230F then quickly shoots to the red when it's too late. In your case, the catastrophic lose of fluid left the sensor high and dry, so it didn't even know the engine overheated.

The noise and rough running are probably due to dropped valve seats, common with severe overheating. If the engine can be saved it's going to be a lot of work and expense.

I would not run the engine again until a compression check has been performed.

 

Here are the codes: P0300,P0301,P0302,P0304,P0306, P0308,P0332. I know that all of these are basically saying that there are misfires detected in most of the cylinders. So can anyone tell me what the issue(s) are likely to be, based on this being brought on by overheating? I can do the work that may be necessary, but is it worth it or should I just drop another engine in it instead of repairing this one? Thanks

 

Have you checked the compression? I would at least pull the heads before replacing the engine.

 

Hi erslade,

You don't want to run a knocking engine any more than you have to, but I agree with RJ that a compression test will be informative.

You have misfire codes for the front cylinders in both banks, and for all the rest of the cylinders in Bank 2, which suggests you should test compression on Bank 2 first.

Do you see any white smoke/steam coming from the exhaust that might indicate head gasket failure?

P0332 indicates a problem with a knock sensor (KS), its wiring, or its contact to the cylinder block. One possibility is that coolant contaminated the KS electrical connector, but another is that one KS is reporting multiple misfires but the other isn't, indicating a problem with the silent sensor.

Cheers,

Don