Under the minimum is a vague term. If its JUST below but still registers on the stick, the volume of oil is not going to be the problem. Ideal its not, but the pick up would still be covered at idle. If it doesn't register on the stick, you have no idea how much oil is on it. I hope you didn't drive 3 hours with a low oil pressure light on. Also, when buying a new to you car, I would assume you checked the basics like oil level, coolant, etc before leaving on your drive? Lastly, seems kind of odd that such a well maintained car that sat for 2 years would have BURNT oil. I'm not even sure what you mean by burnt oil. If you mean dirty, thats no big deal.

Change oil. While doing so, remove the lower oil pan to make sure oil pump pick up is clean. That way you don't waste any oil when the oil change doesn't solve the problem and you need to dig further. Only thing it will cost you is a $30 gasket (i believe its NCA1730AD but check for your vehicle).

 

Thanks for your input. No, the light just started happening three days ago when I started the car while parked (I haven't moved the car since). The three hours it drove fine with no lights on except the annoying TRAC and ASC ones. Yes, I meant dirty oil. It's a very dark brown color. I asked the previous owner when the oil was changed and he said a few months ago so that doesn't make sense. It is most likely leaking. And I meant leaking from the oil pan bolt underneath the car. It probably has a faulty o-ring or it wasn't screwed tightly enough. Don't know what's making the oil that color but it's very weird. Unless the previous owner is lying and it's way older than he says it is.

 

Thanks for your reply. No, the car has not been moved since. I will change the oil most likely later today and will update y'all on what happens. Thanks.

 

Thanks for your response and insight. I'm not gonna lie, I absolutely love the car, more than I would a modern mustang or such. It's gorgeous even with all the damage. The only thing making me doubt it is if it's gonna be a good every day car or only a car I can use on the weekends with extreme care. I really need to use this car everyday to go to work and back so that's an issue (It's a seven minute drive though). Not only that, I want to be able to take this car up a mountain on the weekends (I love the forest), and I don't want to have to worry about something breaking on the way up because I'm stressing the car. I don't know. A company online sells a kit that can be used to swap the Jag engine with a 2010+ Camaro engine. Engine is around 4k (doable for me) and the kit is around 2.5k (also doable). The problem with that is that labor is about $150 an hour and it takes 80 hours to do the swap. In total it would be around $20,000 just to swap the engine. That's way too much for an old Jag. If I did that have to pay for labor I'd pay only around 6.5k which I would totally do to keep the car. But for $24,000 I could just buy a semi-new Mustang for that. But then again, I'd have a totally reliable car that I can use and even race with and not have to worry about everything. I don't know.

 

You'll need the transmission, computers, etc as well. The short version is that even if you do the work yourself, there will be quite a few additional changes needed.

Just throwing a modern engine from a different brand in is not so easy as engine + Kit= success.

 

Eric, $4k for the engine and $2.5k for the kit and $6.5k for labour is $13k. Assuming the existing engine isn’t toasted, my guess is that you could have your car brought back up to snuff - including the cosmetics (outside of a full respray) - for less than that much money and you will have a car that will take you anywhere a late model Mustang will in a lot more style.

 

The idea of the Camaro engine swap makes me think that panic is starting to set in... ;-)
Fill up with fresh oil and report back regarding oil pressure lamp. Step by step.

 

Its not panic haha. Just would want a more reliable engine if that makes sense.

 

Oil or something has definitely leaked down there.

Better view of the leak.

Real dirty air filter.

I will upload some you tube videos shortly with more information. Thanks.

 

Will I have to paying as much for repairs though?

 

There is rainwater near the battery area.

The coolant is low now apparently. It's not by the way.

There are no leaks where the car has been sitting for a week.

 

As someone who lives in another country who’s never seen your car and isn’t a mechanic I’m pretty sure I can’t give a definitive answer to that question one way or the other.

I’m not even sure a good independent Jaguar mechanic could give you a definitive answer but he could probably give you a pretty darn good indication. At that point you could choose to have everything done or you could choose to do all or some of the work yourself with some certainty as to the overall costs involved.

Worst case scenario is that neither of the above options make sense for you dollar wise or skill wise or timing wise. In that case you would at least have enough information to decide what to do with the car based on fact rather than guesswork. The first option would then be to try and sell it with full disclosure as that’s the best way to get top dollar for the car regardless of whatever shape it’s actually in.

The second option at that point would be to part it out. Parting it out will also take some time and some skill and might ultimately recover the most money albeit piecemeal over an indeterminate length of time. It would, however, seem a shame to part out what looks like a sound car.

As you have already seen, there is a lot of expertise here from a lot of people with a passion for these cars and much more knowledge and skill than I have that are willing to share what they know. Don’t discount the value of that in arriving at your final decision…

 

Here are the videos I uploaded so you guys can get a better idea of the condition of my car. Thank you all so so much for your time, help, and wisdom.


(Explaining the main issues, with some good news!).

(Engine sound closeup so you guys can see if it sounds alright or not.)

(Something new I noticed.)

https://youtube.com/shorts/WcOdkwdoDKs?feature=share (Another new thing I noticed after pairing remote with car. By the way, the car is completely off. Key is not in ign.)

(Video of the apparent leak I noticed.)

 

Where are the sensors located?

 

Sorry for the very late response to this. Thank you, this means a lot.

 

Agreed and will cost more. I'm the guy putting a 2011 L99 and 6l80e into a 2002 XJ8. Guessing kit Eric mentiioned is Jaguar Specialties. That's who I'm using. Run by Andrew, Great guy. Great customer support. Numerous times I've called him on the weekend when working on the car and he always answers.
A Gen IV LS and auto transmission with about 75k miles will be around $8000. You can go the way I went and buy a wrecked Camaro off CoPart and sell what you don't need on eBay. With fees the Camaro was $7400 and I've sold over $5000 in parts off the car. Numerous other expenses: reflash computer, after market cold air intake, custom exhaust, modify driveshaft, modify GTO oil pan, and lots of little things.
You have to do the work yourself. If you were to pay a mechanic, you might as well buy an overpriced XJR-100 on Bring a Trailer. Also, I think 80 hours is low. Maybe if you've done it before, you could do the second one in that time.

 

Clearly, this is not an option for me.

 

Just watched your videos. Engine bay looks very clean...like almost so clean that I'm suspicious the prior owner wanted to clean all the oil residue off the easily viewed places.

The oil on the dipstick loks like it might have water/coolant in it to me, but I'm not the best to judge that. It looks too light compared to what you said it was like unless this is right after you changed the oil? Have you changed the oil yet, or at least topped it off? Guessing you have not based on your comments. You can't check the oil level while the car is running. Your most accurate reading is a cold engine thats been sitting off for awhile, you really want the level to be between the two hi/low marks on the dipstick then.

From the look of it, you may have a bad oil pan gasket or something in that area leaking...maybe the oil pressure sensor or something (which would tie in nicely with the low pressure warning in my mind, but I don't know where that sensor is located...might not be anywhere near there), I don't know whats in the immediate area on the front of the motor. In the first video its hard not to notice what looks like a pretty significant pool of oil on the ground coming from under the car by the left front tire (1:16)...did you spill something there or is that from the car leaking?

Low coolant you could have a bad sensor, or an air bubble trapped in the system. When cold, open the overflow bottle and see whats inside...make sure to check for evidence of oil in the coolant as that can indicate a head gasket problem. My 01 threw a low coolant light at me, the bottle was about half full, so I just filled it up to the top and let it overflow to find its right level, haven't had an issue since, maybe you'll be lucky there. Also try burping the system to get any possible air pockets out, with the overflow open and the engine cold, squeeze the larger diameter coolant hoses to force fluid to move around the system...any air should work its way out to the overflow bottle and the level in the bottle will drop, then you top it off again.

 

Car looks good and the engine sounds ok. good that the low oil pressure light is off, although if the car is cold, it may come back on as the oil thins out.

That said, I think you need to be a bit systematic here. If you are committed to this car, which it seems like you are, I'd do the following:

1. Check all fluid levels. Oil when engine is off obviously, coolant when car is off and cold, brake fluid for level and color/water %, powersteering etc. If coolant level is low, its almost guaranteed to be a leak as these cars have 40 million hoses, all of which tend to fail after a while. The best way to test that is a pressure testing kit. If it isn't low, use chopsticks or similar to stir the coolant in the tank and to push up and down on the coolant float (front of the reservoir towards the drivers side fender). see if that turns light off.

2. Change all fluids...and yeah I mean all of them. Engine oil, transmission oil, powersteering, rear diff, coolant, brake fluid, etc. Unless you have records of this being done recently, assume it hasn't been. Also, I would grease the rear half shafts.

3. The plastic smell. The area you're looking at seems to be in the vicinity of the electric cooling fans. I'm not sure of the temp where you are and whether the fans should have been running, but a fan motor that is drawing too many amps may very well cause some plastic burning smells from that area. I would pull the fan panel (2 10mm bolts at the corners and the 2 fan electrical connectors) and see if the fan spin freely. You can do a visual inspection as well to see if you see any burnt plastic. With the fan off, even if thats not the problem, you can get a look at the radiator and see if you have some plastic debris sitting in that area or something.

4. The oil on the top of the upper pan. Could be valve/timing covers, crank seals, VVT seals, etc. I would clean this up and check it after a drive if you can see oil accumulating again.

5. Tensioners. If you don't have evidence that they were done. I would really go ahead and pull the valve covers. Its an easy job (start with the passenger side imho) and see what secondary tensioners you have. Plastic bad, metal good.

5. Looks like you have new front upper shock mounts, which is good, but also the easiest and cheapest fix for a suspension that feels worn. If its not that, you may have to dig into bushings, ball joints, or sway bar endlinks/bushings.

Thats a start. During this, you'll likely find more oil or coolant leaks and something else to do (pads/rotors, spark plugs, fuel filter, etc.).

Basically, you can have a car that runs and drives for not much time and effort, but if you want reliable and performing properly, there is a lot more to it.

 

Yes I noticed that too, it does seem a bit strange.

Not sure if you listened to the audio but I said that the oil was between MAX and MIN, about a centimeter above the MIN letters. It was also darker when cold.

I knew someone would bring this up haha. It's not from my car, the car is out on the street, I moved it a bit forward to check under where mine was to see if there was any oil on the floor. There wasn't.

I will try all this thanks. I did check all the fluids and they seem okay and full except the coolant, it has some kind of white powder inside and it's no longer orange, its a dark yellow color. Did you hear the sound the dash was making?