I'll wait until the spring, I hope Akebono ceramic pads on the market by then.

 

Yesterday I said" very clever design" today I'm not so sure. I came to the same conclusion, last night, as 'Heima'. It's not smart to transfer the Catalytic Converter heat into a transmission; can't see any insulation band on the brackets!
So now I have at least 2 reasons to pass on this idea; cost , heat and a third Galvanic Corrosion between the Steel and Al .
Some Catalytic Converters can run at 2000 deg F; haven't measured my XK's.................
Transmission on my wife's XK8 was $6000!
The rumble on my car is not too bad,

Interesting subject, Adrian

 

Gaupin also cancelled my order:
I AM SORRY REYMOND BUT WE ARE A JAGUAR DEALER AS WELL THIS ITEMS IS A "CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE" TIME. I HAVE CANCELLED THE ORDER WE ARE NOT ABLE TO ORDER THESE ITEMS FOR YOU. PLEASE ALLOW 3-7 WORKING DAYS TO SHOW CREDIT BACK TO YOUR ACCOUNT.

To me, it is not worth the effort, time and cost to travel 50 miles to my friendly Jaguar dealer, then wait for the part, etc. My "drone" is tolerable.

I hope some enterprising vendor will duplicate these parts and offer them at a reasonable price. They look easy to install; and I see no problem with heat transfer. If the brackets are powder coated, then that should prevent any major/structural electrolysis.

 

Alan'

The issue isn't the "drone" man. It's the "pattern" of non responsiveness to accumulated design blunders over the years. My point is not that Jag is a singular offender.

The point is: Jag, unlike some others, can't afford the continued offense to the secondary mkt and survive. In that respect Jag is singular.

Jag has done a marvelous job on the design and initial reliability front in recent years. They have failed to turn their reputation in the minds of the general public because their secondary mkt gets creamed by service policy expenses. ie; closely held info, little to no 3rd party providers, no relief on design blunders.

You and I, like many of the folks on this forum, are members of the Jag secondary mkt. We can afford to indulge our passion. The trouble is, we are not many and certainly in no position to change the mind of John Q. Puplic.

 

My last car was a 2012 Ford Mustang, which is fitted with a well documented crappy cheap Chinese manual transmission provided by Getrag. Literally hundreds of people on the Mustang boards I was a part of had sudden transmission failures, 1st gear lockouts, popping out of gear, etc., and this was brought to Ford's attention constantly, and no responses were ever given and it was always blamed on driver error.

Then look at the issues with Toyota/Lexus's sudden acceleration problem. Countless incidents of sudden acceleration, and they were all blamed on driver error.

In these two cases, both of them involved new or nearly new cars (still under warranty) and were potentially indicative of a design/manufacturing blunder. Maybe I'm not paying close enough attention, but I have yet to hear of Jaguar refusing to address a problem with a car still under the original factory warranty, whereas other car companies sometimes refuse to do so, even with a practically brand new car. This was especially true with the case of the 2011+ Ford Mustangs.

Not to mention how easy it is to call up the Jaguar Concierge or Jaguar Customer Relations to talk to a real live person about your car issues. It always took ten calls to different places whenever I needed something for my Ford!

I think Jaguar is learning from past mistakes. Gone are the Nikasil liner problems, plastic belt tensioners, etc. Heck, the new XJ doesn't even have air suspension in the front anymore! It's progress--is that really going to kill Jaguar in the secondary market?

Who knows--I'm sure I'll change my tune when I have the transmission blow up out of warranty!!!

 

While I found this thread interesting, I also found it perplexing. My 2007 XK had the same irritating droning noise at about 1250 rpm. I simply went to my local Jaguar dealer, asked them to order the brackets and to make a service appointment for me for installation. The parts came in two days later and were installed. No fuss, no muss, no argument...and the noise was completely eliminated - there is no transfer of the noise to any other speed range. It is just gone. Now, can it be that Canadian Jaguar dealers operate differently than those elsewhere? I don't know - but there was no problem at all with a simple request which was fulfilled asap.

 

To be fair, the Getrag is well liked on the Chrysler boards and of course it was the transmission on the Supra Turbo. It is also the transmission of choice for all kinds of swaps in Australia.

 

Unreal. It would have to be a deafening noise for me to want those mid evil looking things bolted to anything I own. No way..

 

Trust me: the noise was so unpleasant that it masked the enjoyment of the car. The brackets completely remove this noise and as a result the XK has reverted to it proper character. The brackets are invisible except to one actually UNDER the car, and they do the job. Expensive, yes. necessary, yes.

Gregory

 

Wow, very glad my XKR does not do that.

 

I think some have it more than others. It is there on my XKR but I have had to point it out to passengers as it is not too intrusive. YMMV