Hi All!

A couple of months ago after a very cold night (-10 C) the shifter on my XJ8L 2000 was very hard to move to D. When driving, it wouldn't shift to 2nd gear.

After the car got warm, the problem stopped. Tranny fluid was low but saw no leak. After refilling it, the problem disappeared.

Now the problem is back - hard shifter, won't shift automatically when engine/tranny is cold. The fluid is full. Sometimes shifting to Manual releases it.

Any ideas what can cause this?

Thanks!

 

Do you mean shifting down to "4"? If so, it could be a stretched shift cable. My stretched cable caused similar symptoms, staying in 1st gear when cold, unless shifted down to "4", when it would shift normally (except for 5th gear obviously). None of these symptoms exhibited when the transmission was fully warmed up.

 

yes, shifting to 4. this sounds exactly like my case. I will check tomorrow. Thanks!

 

Mikin, do you have an update?

 

The weather got much warmer, so the problem did not return.

The few times it did get stuck, shifting to 2,3 or 4 gear released it.

So I'm waiting for next winter to fix this

So far my guess is the shifting cable, but I didn't even open it up.

 

I had same problem with 2 of my xj8's tried adjusting shift cable did not work ended up putting new shift cables on both cars that solved problems with both of them. no more tight or erratic shifting cars run better like new. the only place I could find cables at a decent price was Terrys jaguar. they do not make cable anymore so you should act fast while you are still able to get one jrb53