Hi, I'm a new Jag owner (got my XKR 3 weeks ago)

Today my engine overheated and I got the warning lights. In fact it got so hot that I could hear popping under the bonnet and immediately stopped and turned the engine off. I assumed this was very bad and I hope no damage has been done.

Some questions to help me fix the issue!

1. What exact coolant should I be using in a jaguar xkr 2007 4.2 litre? Can anyone link me to coolant I can buy?

2. If I put a small bottle of drinking water in it (because the coolant was empty, I was stranded and it's all I had!) is it likely that I've caused any damage or will it be fine?

3. What do you think my best next steps are?

The obvious one is to fill up the coolant but my partner seems to think she saw a puddle underneath my car when I drove off for work the other day. This suggests some kind of leak. I am not mechanical at all so DIY is not an option. Should I:

1. Fill it back up with coolant and see if it leaks, if no = problem solved, if yes...
2. Take it to a mechanic and have them assess the cooling system to see if the radiator/thermostat/water pump needs to be replaced?

Thank you for reading, sorry for being so inexperienced, it's probably an obvious mistake and easy fix!!

Hayden

 

Hopefully you didn't do damage but it doesn't sound good. Did you drive the car after the warning light came on. Is it now in your garage and if so is their fluid on the floor under it. I don't think your problem will solve itself. I would fill it with water and wait to see if it leaks out. If it does then If you can't fix it I would have either a dealer or who ever does your work have the car towed to their business and see what the problem is. It could be the thermostat housing or a broken hose or the water pump. Don't drive it until you find out what the problem is. If you fill it with water and start it up and it doesn't make a lot of noise then look for water coming out. Do not run it longer then maybe 2 minutes. You may also only have a belt broken but I doubt it. Also look to see if you have white smoke coming out of the exhaust pipes. If you do then sorry but you will need to open your wallet. Good luck.

 

After the warning light came on it was left for approx. 2 hours, which is when I put in a bottle of drinking water and drove it home (10 minute journey). It's now sitting at home and won't move until I've seen if there is a leak or not.

Is there a chance that it simply had no coolant and overheated and will be fine once I've put coolant in it? Assuming there is no leak in this situation.

 

Unfortunately you should have filled up the coolant system with water before driving it for 10 minutes. Hopefully the system was not completely empty. Was the overheat warning light on when you drove it home. Was the engine making any loud noises. Go out and fill the car with water and let it sit and see how much water leaks out. I do not doubt that you have a leak only don't know how bad it is. Just fill the reserve tank and see what happens.

 

The engine light was not on for the duration of the journey home. I think the bottle of water was enough to get it home. I will do that tomorrow as it's gone midnight now and let you know the results! Dreading it to be honest. Just about emptied my pockets for the car, not looking forward to the repair bills coming up.

 

I think there is a low probability that the coolant simply disappeared and everything will be OK after putting in coolant. You probably have a leak somewhere and need to find it.

First, look for a broken fan belt on the front of the engine. If OK then I would fill it with distilled water. See how much it takes. How many liters/gallons? Start the car and see what happens. If there are any bad noises or water gushing out, shut it off right away. Let it run 30 seconds or so if it seems OK. See if there is any water dripping from underneath. If no, put paper towels under the car and let it sit for an hour or so and check for water leakage.

Let us know what you find out at this point. If all looks good you will need to purge any air from the cooling system and make sure it is full of coolant. I will need to look up instructions on that. Then you can take it on a SHORT drive and repeat looking for ANY water leakage or overheating.

If at any point it is leaking I think you need to have it towed to a shop.

 

Holy cow, do you suffer from head in sand syndrome? Did you just expect the light to go off on it's own? Have you not read the dozens of threads about how critical it is to monitor the engine temps and when the car says it's overheating that it's already too late?

Doesn't matter at this point, straight water from the tap or a convenient mud puddle.

There's a 1% chance it'll be fine and a 99% chance your mechanic of choice is going to perform buggery on you.

3. Fix the car and sell it to someone with the ability to maintain it. Buy a nice warranted Civic or Focus and forget this bad experience.
Sort of sorry to sound harsh, but these cars are pretty unforgiving and demand a diligent owner. In order to maintain the emissions standards they need to heat up very quickly. The service manual describes the cooling system as high velocity low volume meaning it moves a little bit of water quickly. Low volume also means it heats up quickly and has little reserve when it springs a leak. The noises you heard was the engine overheating the oil and either losing viscosity or clearances opening up until parts start to rattle. Check the oil for fine metallic 'dust' in a good light (just look at the dipstick).
If I were to venture I guess I bet the cooling line from the thermostat tree to the throttle body blew out. It's the most common one and will puddle behind the engine.

Don't worry about belts unless you find water leaking up there. On mine the blower belt cut one of the hoses and I thought it was a water pump. The other belt drives the water pump and all other accessories so if it goes, the power steering goes as does the charging system.

Good luck and expect buggery. You might get lucky but I doubt it.

 

I'm assuming you're not 16 and this isn't your first car, here...

If you don't have the wherewithal to either look in the owners manual or do a google search for the proper coolant type, you most likely have no business dicking around under the hood. I doubt you even know how to properly burp all the air out of the system, because you seem to think that refilling it after a leak is going to magically fix things. If you want to learn how to work on cars the easy way, go take a college class or two. If you want to do it the hard way, buy a clapped out Civic and go have fun. If you want to do it the really hard way, stick with what you got because you're in way over your head. You'll eventually figure it out after many, many mistakes.

Take it to a mechanic, and after they've quoted you thousands and thousands for the engine you probably cooked, I'll give you a couple grand for it.

 

Thanks for the comments, despite 50% of being insulting my lack of intelligence. Haha. Ok, of course I googled and read lots about this, including the handbook, but I like to make a post as simplistic as this to get people's raw ideas as well. Anyway, after filling it with water and watching it drip out on the driver's side (UK) I'm presuming a hose or water pump break. Time for a mechanic.

 

Since you are dripping on the UK driver's side, it could also be the reserve tank that has the leak. That plastic tank is prone to failure, usually where a hose connects, or it could have cracked elsewhere.
Good luck.

 

Phoned Jaguar, getting it towed to their workshop on Monday to be looked at. Hopefully a relatively easy replacement/fix and not something like the valley pipe which is a ******* to get to as far as I'm aware.

 

Ever so slightly over the top there pal. I've owned this car for three weeks and I've been reading all sorts of bits about it, including the handbook. Yes I was an absolute idiot to assume the coolant had just magically vanished but I was in a state of desperation!

Why would I expect the light to go off on it's own? Surely you read the fact that I turned the car off immediately and went straight to looking at the coolant and realised that was the problem? I allowed the car the cool back down for a few hours, shoved some water in it and drove at incredibly low RPM home (short journey) in which the engine did not overheat and the light did not reappear. Sure, probably better to have got a recovery car to get me home but I took that risk and it seems fine.

Oil is fine, no dust. No white smoke from exhaust, just a hot engine and no coolant and like you said, probably a burst cooling line as the water instantly leaks into a puddle after being put into the tank. Getting it taken to a garage to have it diagnosed and repaired. Luckily the car is under warranty and the garage have agreed to pay for the new tubing or water pump or whatever the actual cause of the leak is.

I don't think I need to go back to having a civic just because I am not an instantaneous expert on this car. I will learn over time and hopefully not make such stupid errors in future. I will be more diligent now with the maintenance of this car. Ironically, I asked before in a thread "can you monitor the temperature in an XKR? Because I can't find a visible gauge" and the advise given to me was that the XKR simply doesn't need a gauge because it's mechanics are superior and that I will only get a warning if it is TOO hot. Which I did.

Anyway, thanks for your insults, but equally thanks for your advice it was helpful to read your last paragraph :-)

Here's to hopefully a relatively easy tubing repair and fingers crossed I didn't cook the bloody engine.

 

I don't like to pick nits but how the above is written it appears that the light came and you kept going until bad noises were audible inside the car. The rest of my reply was based on that. Hopefully it is simple. I'm still surprised you haven't looked into it yourself. A cheap dental mirror and flash light are wonderful tools to have.

My Lincoln LS with the Jag 3.9 has legendary cooling system problems. It even comes with a gauge that if it goes slightly above level or the fan runs at full speed the car is overheating. Once my son took it from me one morning on the way home from work one cold morning it overheated and went into 'reduced performance' mode. No steam or smoke, just a little white mark where a hose had been steaming off for some time. He got lucky, left it cool down for 30 minutes and got it to the next exit and bought a gallon of premix at Walmart.

Our cars are 10 years old. I'd recommend removing the engine cover and hanging it on a wall somewhere. Makes it much easier to see what's going on. Make it a weekly ritual to pop the hood and take a looksie under there. I do when I'm getting fuel. It helps keep the demons at bay.

 

I absolutely will do now. In my head I had made it a monthly ritual but it has become weekly very quickly!!

I see what you mean now, the way I wrote it did seem like that yes.

 

Consider it tough love. Intelligence is a measure of the capability to learn. Knowledge is a measure of how much you've learned. You can do one of two things here. You can either go get some Jell-o pudding cups and coloring books and cry about it in your safe space, or you can get motivated to expand your knowledge. Your choice between the two is indicative of your intelligence. If you chose the latter, start reading a LOT and take some classes, and take everything you read on the internet with a huge grain of salt unless it's either backed by an official source or is directly from said official source. There's plenty of guys that will present their dumbass opinions as fact and will lead you astray.

 

Mate, you are alright. It can be sorted quite easily. Sorry about the tossa that sold you this car.
They dont do this often, but its the one known weakness that should have been addressed by the previous owner.
Ignore my mates on this forum, you and your car will outlive them all.
However, take note and learn about cars, this sort of a car is not for those just starting out.

 

Despite the intense drama and overreactions created on this post, it was simply a burst hose underneath the engine - which turned out to be an easy and quick replacement job. The car was undamaged anywhere else, including the head gasket and general engine area.

Thank you, I learnt a HELL of a lot about this car with this problem as I ended up spending countless hours watching youtube videos and reading guides on various parts of the car.

I was simply shocked as I had JUST purchased the car and didn't know much about it when this happened and turned to this forum for all of the answers before looking anywhere else as that seemed a sensible decision at the time. How I was wrong ha ha. I'll stick to Google and actual mechanics next time!

Cheers
Hayden

 

Watch some nature documentaries; big cats like to tussle. Jaguars are named after big cats. Jaguar owners bought a car branded after big cats. Its not much different with people that have Jaguars; although I do most of my fighting at the kart track rather than with a keyboard.

Enjoy the XKR. I bought a broken Porsche and used it to learn how to work on cars, did not need to go to school. I enjoyed it.

The only mistake I see that you have made, is it is wiser to spend 50% of what you have available on your car. If something goes major, you can fix or replace. Hopefully you can soon put yourself in that position to have that amount saved whatever the UK market may be.

There is an XKR I really want to buy right now, but I am not as I couldn't run the same less than 50% rule for at least a year.

 

That is good news, you didn't have to morgage the house!:-D

 

Dont give up just yet.
If you were some geyser who couldn't find the gas cap release, they would have helped you for days.
Or if you had been more American in your approach and started the bargain by blaming Jaguar for having world's only rubber hose that deteriorates over age, there would have been the requisite pity party.
You were too genuine, but that does pay in the long run. As it just did.

Thank you for reporting back what the problem was.