In my LHD 1988 when wipers are switched off they remain on the left side in front of the driver. I have seen other XJS with wipers switched off that remain on the right side in front of the passenger. What is the right position?

 

The problem is inside the wiper motor assembly I believe. When switched to off, the motor should continue to run until it reaches the "park" position. If I'm not mistaken, I think this is a relatively straight forward fix.

 

There is no right position, the parking position from the factory varied entirely randomly.

 

Here's a thread discussing it: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...4/#post1461630

Key problem is not so much right or left, but where they park, usually 4-6" off the bottom of the windshield, blocking the view. It's an easy fix to park them lower (see my post above). First thing I fixed on my '94.

It is kind of head-scratching when I see pics of old Jags with the wipers parked right in front of the driver's field of view. Even the video of the Walkinshaw XJS shows him racing with the wipers blocking his view. I mean, tons of money sunk into making a viable race car, and they couldn't fix the wipers.

Padre

 

After researching this last year I can say that for the most part, up to 1993 all US (LHD) parked on passenger side. Facelift cars (1994-96) park in front of driver.
It has nothing to do with the wiper motor used but simply which direction/side it is facing when connected to the motor spindle.
I converted mine by loosening the spindle bolt, rotating the motor 180°, tighten the bolt back, and done.
The only additional step is to swap your wiper arms for the ones that have the proper angles. I posted a tutorial with pics for doing this.
It's all in how the main linkage is connected to the rest of the assembly.
You can make any XJS wipers park on either side by disconnecting the motor and rotating it 180° and re-tightening the bolt.
It all just depends on what year model and what country the car was bound for as to which set-up they used. Being that all 94-96 (facelift) models park in front of the driver on the LHD cars, I can only assume they were just using the set-up for which they had more wiper arms for, and being a European car they had more of that set-up so the last 3 years of productions used those parts...I guess to use up what was already made and on hand in the factory.

You can't just change the park orientation, you'll need the correct arms too because they are angled depending on which side they are meant to park. You could just use the straight arms and it function & look fine but the angled ones are proper. Keep in mind, the same wiper arms were used on the series XJ6 cars so they are a direct swap! That is what I use on my 1996 XJS.

 

I noticed a while back while searching images and for-sale listings, before I got my blue kitty, that 1994 was the first year that the US XJS wipers now parked on the driver's side. Earlier models parked on the passenger (desirable) side.

I have a 1996 so they parked on the US driver's side (as I believe all 1994-1996 models did).
Noticed I said 'parked'.

I changed it. I brought home a 1992 coupe wiper assembly+arms prepared to swap the whole thing out to have a set up that parked on the passenger side.

Well after getting the donor assembly all cleaned up and lubed, and then taking mine out, I noticed there is one bolt that mates the metal linkage transmission to the motor. I recalled someone else here or the other major forum saying they reversed theirs by adjusting the linkage.
So I loosened the bolt enough to disconnect the linkage from the motor spindle (it is a splined shaft like the main arm spindles but smaller), and then I rotated the linkage 180 degrees, pressed it back onto the spindle and tightened the bolt back in.
Re-installed it back in my car, tested the rotation, it looked good, so reinstalled the arms+blades, and VIOLA! Wipers that park on the passenger side, and perform a complete (but now reversed) wipe pattern, and was able to keep my original assembly!
One thing I noted that was strange, the '92 assembly washer spray jets have the one wide opening that sprays a fan pattern, my '96 had the two tiny holes that spray 2 jets each. The fan spray pattern is superior so I popped out the little adjustable metal spray heads (size of pencil eraser) and swapped them with mine. Now I have the most ideal set up!

All you need to do this on your car is to get hold of a pair of earlier wiper arms (or a set from the UK from a car that parks on their driver side) that have the correct angle on them for parking on the passenger side, and to take out your assembly and unbolt, adjust 180, then reinstall.
A fairly easy modification to have the setup like I now have, that I see others here may want to have.

Willing to lend any help or advice on doing this to anyone who wants to attempt it. Very easy to do, took me about 45 minutes.
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'88 is unlikely to be Electrolux wiper setup, (changeover was around '89) in which case a lot of the advice concerning '93 and "94 models will not be relevant.

 

Jaguar engineers determined the direction/position of the wipers using a complex algorithm that involved tossing a shilling coin each time, I believe.
Funny about those jets. Mine's a 1992 with the two separate jets. This is also probably a Jaguar shilling issue....
Mine's a Japan-market 1992, but the wipers park on the passenger side thank god. I would like them to get lower, however. Might check out Padre's post....

 

My mistake! I didn't notice the original poster was asking about an '88 model! It likely has the older motor/gearing/assembly setup which my advice and instruction would be useless for. My apology!