flay - good point. I also thought the later cars supposedly had that problem remedied...

Mike - I will fly down to Florida and replace your cam gaskets myself if you will pay me $916! ...Actually, I shouldn't be flippant. Dealerships cost dealership prices, and I absolutely love our local dealership. Great service and customer relations. I just can't afford it.

Let us know what the transmission shop says!

Scott

 

Everything happens at once! I borrowed my mother in law's 03 S-Type and returned the rental car -- now the S-Type won't start, had to re-rent the car and left the S-Type at the rental car company -- will figure out that problem tomorrow! The towing company that I'm using to get the car from the Jaguar dealership had a problem with their flat-bed truck today and are hoping it's back on the road early tomorrow morning!

As soon as I can, I'm getting the XJ8 to the transmission shop to see what he has to say. If I don't like what he says, I'll have it towed somewhere else, maybe to my house! I can rent the car for a while, no big deal, but I'd like to get the S-Type repaired soon since it's actually my car and will have the title to it in a couple days! Two dead Jags at the same time, what's the chances?

Now I'm off to the S-Type section to see if I can get some help with getting that one back on the road....Happy Hallowe'en!!!! Maybe this is all just a nightmare?

 

Scott -- I'd bet you'd replace my air filter for $100 while you're here! LOL

About the only thing that really gets me about the dealership list is the coolant -- it was just replaced in May when I had the t-stat tower replaced by an indy. I doubt that the coolant is discolored! Anyway, it's nice to have the list of things that need to be done, I'll work on the list at my leisure, doing what I can myself and having my mechanic do the ones I can't. I don't mind paying Jaguar $149 for the diagnostics, it gives me something to work on in my spare time!

 

flay, later models with the 6HP25 do not have the A drum problem. I believe that's the X350. It was probably available in England in '03 and the US in '04, someone correct me please if wrong.

 

It's for the X308 for sure "The stiffened input shaft/A-clutch drum was introduced in November 2000 at transmission serial no. 355863 ....."

"For example, the Range Rover (L322) was fitted with the 5HP24 from its introduction in March 2002 (until the 6-speed replaced it in 2006) and never suffered from the A-Clutch drum issue. It had been well & truly sorted by 2002."

I really hope that Mike's problem is not the A drum.

 

Today I'm hopefully going to get the car towed to the transmission shop.

As a side note, I was speaking with an indie mechanic who works on Jaguars quite regularly (I know this for a fact), and he told me that Jaguar's estimate of $2,500 was very reasonable! When I asked him is he did transmission work, he said "Yeah, we do everything!" Then he proceeded to tell me that if the transmission work isn't done exactly right, I'd have more trouble with it later, so it's important to make sure the person who does the work knows what they're doing. I got the feeling he was trying to convince me to let Jaguar do the work. Ok, so he's not getting my business, but I thought it was an interesting response to my question. I think he was covering his rear in case I had the car towed to him and he found out that it was more trouble than Jaguar told me. Jaguar insists that they can't really tell what's wrong until they "get in there" because there could be internal damage that they won't know about until they "get it torn apart." Quite frankly, that's what worries me the most -- their insistence that there "could" be more work to do but won't know until they have my car all apart and can't get it out of their shop! I'm not interested in giving them a blank check, so off it goes to a transmission shop. As I said before, if I don't like what the transmission shop says, I can always have the car towed to my house while I ponder my next step. Always nice to have this luxury!

 

Well looks like the alleged "stiffened" a drum in later serial # 5HP24 not so tough after all, here are the pictures of mine at 156k miles totally failed drum. I also noticed it had the older 9mm main pressure regulator valve and not the 10mm, I noticed what seems like a bit of dark grey paste goo when I removed the valve so perhaps this is what caused the drum to fail. As you can see its the newer one with the dimples on top. Motorcarman what do you think?. I left this old one at my friends school for "educational" purposes as I replaced it with another good used one.

 

Hey Jane- this sort of proves that the A-drum is a symptom, not the problem. That must have been a LOT of pressure to do that kind of damage...

 

I DO have a question though- how long did you drive it (miles/months) after the first sign of a problem?

Trying to figure out the length of the death spiral.

 

Maybe one of the moderators can make a poll, with year and mileage of the car when the A drum failed.

 

I think there is a poll for that already- I am more interested in how long after the symptoms started did it go.

 

I bought it in July 2012 with 150K miles and shifting perfectly until september when all of a sudden while leaving work it kinda just went into neutral while leaving the parking garage and got the gearbox fault,JJ

 

Funny how ZF stiffens the drum and leaves the old style pressure regulator valve in it,JJ

 

Jane- interesting... so it happened without any warning?

 

That's basically exactly what happened to me -- drove fine for 40k miles and then all of a sudden...

I have it at the transmission shop but he won't be getting to it until Monday -- I'm in no hurry, so I said take your time and let me know what you think whenever you get around to it.

In the mean time, I had to have my other car towed to a garage to get fixed!

I'm back to driving a rental car!

 

Yes no warning at all shifting buttery smooth when I got to work at 9 AM then went to crap at 5 PM that same afternoon even before exiting the parking garage, just softly lost drive engagement, then of course would do the bang into 5th if I revved it enough,JJ

 

In my original post I meant to say I replaced the entire transmission with a good used one not the drum, just wanted to clarify,JJ

 

Your car is 2001, 2000 in Europe... what month/year says the sticker on your car's door? The specialist says the new drum come in November 2000. For sure they didn't throw away all the old valve bodies, but used them till the end of the stock.

 

Build date on mine is 03/01 so not too early a model I would say, I dont have the trans serial with me but I had checked and it was past the number with the new updated drum, like you said maybe they threw in an updated drum with an old valve body,JJ

 

I am leaning toward doing that, but will wait for the verdict from the transmission shop on Monday.

Where did you get a "good" used transmission, and how did you know it was good? I'm looking for a reasonable alternative to throwing a lot of money at this car, but I do want to put another 100k on it if possible.