Just wondering about this one. Certainly most of us are aware that the X308 autobox ‘sealed for life” is simply not true. It does require a proper flush now and then. Even though Jaguar and the workshop manual don’t seem to mention it.

What about the Supercharger? I have looked around the forum. I see some posts on other models. What the view of our S/C guru’s. Does the supercharger need an oil change / flush. If so, how often and how do you go about it. It’s not exactly easy to drain the oil without taking it off the engine I think?

Thanks Jeroen

 

hi I know you will see lots of discussions and debates on the forum I can only say it doesn't hurt to change the supercharger oil .
​​​​​​i did twice.

just go to your GM dealership and buy two bottles of supercharger oil and you can change it either yourself or I'll pay a mechanic to do it.

​​​​there is screw facing forward on the SC unit. You need to suck out the oil and refill. That's it.

 

I have seen about 10 superchargers in the last years, 8 of them on X308's, 2 other Eaton's on 2 SLK's.
All in the range of 60.-120.000 km.

Oil is always hard to judge, but considering the little amount of it, and the high temperature fluctuations, a regular change surely is beneficial.
The fresh oil surely looks, feels and smells better than what comes out of the S/C.

But an other issue should be the OEM coupler, located in the snout.
7 out of 8 were cracked or broken, it is just a bad design, manufactured in the same plastic fantastic way as our tensioners.
Good thing is, they can;t really cause mayhem, but they will get noisy.
There are very good replacements available, only downside is that the S/C has to come off for it.

 

I have changed sc oil to my car twice. First time as it has not been changed ever. Original organic stuff smelled BAD and was turned to dark as expected. New oil is clear. After about thousand km's I started to hear noise from sc. Turned out that the coupler was wore out and front snout bearing was bad and back bearing cups were almost bad.

Replaced the coupler with fixed one. It certainly made sc more noisier. Especially at low idle. It sounds like the unchangeable big bearings are bad. But they arent. It is just the fixed coupler + engine uneven run(as every engines does) at low idle speeds what makes the sc straight cut gears teeth clash. It sounds good and louder at WOT.

When I took out sc. Found out that egr was loose, egr pipe seal was leaking badly and big air leak from vacuum hose and broken pcv pipe + couple other things.

 

I guess you mean fresh oil smells relatively better. That stuff smells awful, old or fresh.

 

Hi Jeroen,

I posted some photos of the supercharger oil change on an X350, which is similar to the job on the X308:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...6/#post2124439

Note that the drain/fill plug requires a 3/16 inch Allen-hex bit, not a metric one, unless your plug has been replaced.

Cheers,

Don

 

I can recommend Powerhouse SC oil kit. Kit includes syringe and thin hose what fits nicely to between casing and sc gears.

 

That's very true ... it is all indeed horrible, to such extend that I seem to have it in my nose for the at least a day ....