My coolant level was a little low when I checked last week on my 'new to me' XK. I figured I would top it off some. Drove it about 30 miles since then.

Yesterday I took it out for a 20 minute ride on the parkway and when I pulled into the garage back at home it smelled like coolant.

This morning I go to check to see if any leaked, and floor is bone dry. I check under the hood and see this below - Not sure how it would either come out of there or if something worse... Car drives fine and no issues except it smelled a little like burning coolant fluid. Also when checking the reservoir this morning it was slightly below the MIN again. Could I have filled it a little too much ?

 

So while digging around there I noticed that a hose to the left of where I circled above, looked a bit chafed or as is something had nicked it and looked a little oily around the edges. Decided to take to cat out for a quick spin and started to smell it again within a few minutes. Pulled into the driveway and noticed a trail of orange liquid !

Opened the hood ( bonnet ) and removed the cover. There it was !!! I steady stream like a water gun of hot liquid shooting across and soaking the area in orange fluid. A LOT of fluid coming out - such a small tiny cut shot out roughly a half gallon of fluid !

I traced it out and after some research its the EGR inlet valve hose (Part : Cooling-Water Hose AJ811761 ).

I was able to cut off the part that was gouged when attaching the connector clips ( likely cut when replacing the thermostat or some other component by the previous owner ) since it was about 3/4 inch from the end. I refit the hose for now, even though it has a tighter bend now coming out of the connector, it still holds. I wanted to test it out, put in about a half gallon of coolant to bring the level just below MIN to test. Drove the car around for 5 minutes to get it to warm up. Checked and no leaks were now present

Called the local Jag dealer and they would not be able to get the new hose ( $11 ) until Monday morning. Probably won't be driving the car around this weekend anyhow, so I'll report back next week.


Part #4 from diagram below :

 

Cool, good job on finding the problem.

 

Yeah... hopefully it'll help someone else in the future too if they come across something similar

 

07 doesn't help 10 which has coolant smells regularly. Never found my issue after 3 years.

 

Maybe the cabin heater core has a very slight leak?