If your indie is saying fluid drain & refill plus filter/pan change that is a good idea but you'll find some horror stories about flushing the tranny. Do some more searches on the ZF to be sure.

 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Agreed with pwpacp, sometimes flushes move gunk around in the wrong direction and crap gets stuck or broken loose where as it wouldn't otherwise. Nothing good will come from a "flush".
Stick with a drain and refill.

 

Sorry, used the wrong terminology, changing the fluid and servicing.

 

My '04 XJ8 used to do this and I was disappointed to find that my '07 XKR did it as well. Clearing the gearbox adaptations got rid of it for a bit but it always came back eventually.

In the later part of my ownership I flashed the TCM with the firmware for the GT3 XKR and that seemed to improve things.

I was relieved to find that my '10 XKR is fine.

 

Just wanted to follow up on this in case it could be helpful to someone else.

There is a thread in here titled "Zero Tolerance" where another member described issues he found related to a weak battery and one of his issues was the same occasional hard downshift while slowing to a stop. The issue went away with a new battery.
I changed my battery a few days ago due to the typical head unit symptoms described many times here on the forum and after installation of the new battery, along with the head unit working beautifully, so far the down shifting has been very smooth when rolling to a stop. You guys would all know better what could be going on but I just wanted to relay that I've noticed the same thing. I was working off the issue being related to the "ZF lurch" that I researched here but maybe it could have been the battery causing some glitch with the trans computer??

Side note...I took my old battery back and they tested it and found voltage and CCA were very strong and the battery was doing more than necessary. I let them know it took about 10 seconds for the head unit to come on after start up with that battery. Once the new battery was installed the head unit came on immediately upon start up. So, just to restate what has been stated over and over here, when any glitches come up suspect the battery.

 

Although you have a new battery, odds are that it isn't fuly charged. Many battery retailers just let them sit on the shelf until they're sold, without being hooked up to a charger. Get a CTEK MUS4.3 battery maintainer from Amazon and leave it hooked up until it goes to Stage 7 and the green light turns on. It's easy to attach it to the remote battery terminals in the trunk.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...lation-107738/

 

Disconnecting the battery would also have cleared some of the adaptations which may be why the down shifting is smoother now.

 

Thanks, I didn't think of it but could well be what happened.