I've got a 2014 XKR with roughly 45k miles on it. I bought it about 2 years ago with only 35k miles on it. It's my daily driver, and I absolutely love this car. A little while back, I was leaving the house and got a "coolant level low" warning. I whipped it around, parked it at the house, and checked the coolant level. It was well below the MIN mark. I topped it off and went about my business. I checked it periodically and found that the level is still dropping enough that I have to keep topping off the coolant. I smell coolant when I stick my face in the hood vents when the engine is warm. I've never seen a drop under the car.

The car isn't, currently, in my possession thanks to a kind citizen who was "not paying attention, looking down, and by the time I looked up, it was too late." When I get the car back from the body shop (hopefully, this week), I intend to start looking all around for signs of coolant to figure out what I'm up against, here.

Now, having said that, I know the water pump is "when, not if" it needs to be replaced. I also know that the guy that did the PPI happened to be the guy that had been maintaining the car in the state where I bought it. He said that the car was in great shape but that it needed to eventually have the "y pipe replaced" because that hadn't been done. I also know that when I start trying to get into the car to see what's wrong, I should expect that numerous 10 year-old plastic hoses and parts are going to basically self-destruct.

So, here's my real question. I know that there are metal upgraded parts that can be had for this car. Is it worth replacing everything I can with metal to avoid the issues that plastic will ultimately bring in the future, or do you folks recommend sticking with the latest OE parts? I'm looking at something like this kit from ebay or this other kit from euro-amp just as examples. It looks like the ebay kit will have me removing the SC, so I'd probably take the opportunity to replace the oil in the thing while it's out. Anything else I should be looking at while my ride is torn apart?

I'm handy, but I'm not a mechanic. I have mountains of tools including torx, etorx, metric everything, and 1/4 through 3/4inch torque wrenches. Is this the kind of thing I can DIY, or should I enlist the expensive help of a professional? FWIW, I've had the entire front end of my 2004 Sprinter van apart to do a water pump replacement, and I'm very detail oriented which sends me down many rabbit holes to learn everything I can learn about a job before I actually do it.

I would love to know your thoughts on this. Thanks for your time.

 

. Not all replacement parts are metal. Most are still plastic. My car (2010 XK) at 13,000 miles had a leak which turned out to be the front crossover pipe. I already replaced the water pump years before. Two years ago I decided to bite the bullet and had every single plastic pipe replaced by Jaguar. It was expensive but I’m more confident now I have at least a few years left before I’ll have to do it again. Do yourself a favor and use OEM parts and replace everything you can afford. Not sure the metal parts are the way to go… you’ll need to check that out. Good luck and let us know how you make out.

 

Can you give me a rough idea of the cost to have the dealer replace the parts, as you did?

Many thanks.

 

In a word, Yes it is better to replace the plastic bits (JLR) with the Metal parts, Ali Express, (Chinese) etc, or the newer JLR metal parts for the AJ133/126 engines.
Have a look a the XF/XE forums and google/YT lots have done it.

The Chinese parts are OK just need cleaning up for casting flashings and boring out to the correct size on the rear header manifold, and are a fraction of the price of JLR or third party suppliers.
(I would still replace the seals and O rings with JLR or reputable Viton supplied O rings)

What tends to fail, are the:

Water pump weeping from tell tail,
Front CW Y- manifold pipes, seams, or the connections into the engine entablature.
The thermostat housing seal,
and the rear CW header seams.

The Vee holds about a litre of CW leakage which on level ground can evaporate away without spilling or leaving the engine under tray.

Prepare for the replacement of the CW pipe 1/2, (I think) under the supercharger with re-enforced silicon hose to the rear CW header, as preventative maintenance. (Never heard of one go But since in there.)
The CW vent line back to the expansion tank. The small bore plastic pipe can get old and brittle. (Run it all in re-enforced silicon hose)
Review the Supercharger Isolater replacement as preventative maintenance as well as the Supercharger Oil change.
Review dressing up the supercharger casings when its out, on the AJ126 there was still rough casting marks and seams showing which I dressed up smooth.
Allow time for cleaning the air cooler, and the back of the inlet valves of oil and carbon build up.
Check the utilities, supercharger belts, and Idler gear. for dry bearings. Just be careful some of the tensioners, idler sit of plastic location bushes on the bolt, which rock and give the impression of worn bearings.
Clean the throttle body and butterfly of oil residue. ( There will be a surprising amount of oil from the PCV going into the air side)

The job is manageable, review the previous YT, posts from google, manual etc. for Supercharger removal. rather than let an unknown play and charge for your repair pleasure.
I didn't replace any seals joints while removing/replacing the Supercharger, air cooler etc. (apart from the 2 x air inlet crush joints)

Your money your choice.

Good Luck.

 

Hourly rates have gone up since the last few years. Then it was about $225/hr. Today, I'm not sure, but surely over $300 per hour. With parts, and excluding water pump(which should be replaced again anyway) approximately $3,000+ at Jaguar.. I spoke to about 5-6 independent shops before making my decision. Some said outright they would not be responsible for any "collateral damage" as most plastics could be brittle. I went with the dealership because the master tech that did my job had done numerous cars with the same system and at least I had 12 months of a legitimate warranty. Unfortunately, this job is more of a maintenance procedure which will probably need to be repeated depending on how long you own your car.

 

Go with metal where available. I replaced all of my plastic parts and hoses when I had the supercharger isolator changed under warranty. Don't forget to change the transmission and differential fluid.

 

Metal parts are best. Think about it for a minute?
Why would Jaguar at this late date (2025) release the front cooling pipes in Aluminum? Why did they just release the plastic bleed screw with a brass version?

Plastic is ONLY used because of cost. Imagine how many millions of dollars Jaguar would have saved on warranty costs and the massive damage to their reputation if they had just went with metal from the beginning? Note they did and then swapped back to plastic for another round of blown up engines because of the failure of plastic cooling parts.

They obviously recognized their mistake (No matter how late that was!) because they then released metal versions again. What is weird though is these new parts have only LR part numbers?

Since the SC is coming off please change the PCV diaphragms as they are cheap and easy to do now. They are a pain if the SC in on because I have done it. Not a fun repair! RKX has one's with a better elastomer that I have installed.
PCV Improved Diaphragms

Yes to the SC fluid change. Just use the old standby ACDelco SC oil. It's everywhere and a great product. Be aware that you will not get out as much oil as you will need to put back in. Can't explain it but every blower I have changed oil on is this way. How does the oil even get consumed? I don't know.
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Do they currently have OEM metal cooling pipes for non supercharged XKs 2010-2015? If so, how many different parts are availabled? Are many of the cooling parts still only available in plastic? The last time I looked there were only a few available even for the super charged version. I understand the front crossover, thermostat housing, and rear crossover are the biggest concerns. Are the parts available only made in China or are they now OEM?

 

Not sure boca about the non-supercharged jags. mainly all i see is for supercharged.

I just wanted to point out that Jaguar did it correctly regarding the front Y pipes initially. from the onset of the 5.0L supercharged model in 2009 to at some point in late 2011 the AJ133 5.0 S/C engine initially came with METAL pipes. My 2012 XKR was made sept 2011, and it came factory with metal Y pipes. To this date...knock on wood!... only coolant leak was from the horrendous water pumps that plagued these cars from 2009 onset up and through 2015/2016-ish. If you buy a water pump now, it usually is good for the duration and rarely leaks - meanwhile the early ones leaked within 5000 miles. The water-pump to oil cooler tube also was an issue and that has also been improved with an aftermarket aluminum one as well.

It was brought to my attention last year that Jag right at the end of production of ICE cars with superchargers started back up with metal pipes and you can get these metal pipes with JLR branding - though they are expensive!

Loth

 

Hard to say as even Jaguar OEM parts are made all over. I have seen India and Poland as well as China. So you need to forget the China stuff because all the manufacturer's source parts from China.

Yes the metal pipes are mostly aimed at the SC engines because there were so many more made. Just a matter of the size of the market.
As Lothar52 posted above. JLR started out with metal pipes at the front of the engine then went to plastic.
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Both my 2010 supercharged car have metal Y pipes and top pipes as standard, worth checking your car too as I don't know when they switched the plastic on the SC cars. NASP cars were plastic from the start.

You'll need to pressure test the cooling system from cold but my money would be on the water pump. It's easy to change, and I'd change all the hoses in the area at the same time.

Next most likely source of a small level drop is a weep from the ridiculous heater manifold that attaches to the back of the heads.

If that Y pipe had gone you'd know about it, it's pretty dramatic.

 

make sure the coolant isn't making its way into the engine oil sump otherwise it will destroy the engine and that will cost you half a years wages or write your Jag off because it's 12 years old !!.