I got in my XKR today after sat for a few days. The engine started knocking, I was oh no! Power steering was heavy. I stopped checked the oil, it was half way so I topped it up, restarted and nothing no knocks. I let it sit for a couple of hours restarted and again nothing. It has never made a noise before. Its got 65k and FSH. Very strange, any ideas

 

Yeah, you did about 100k miles of wear in one minute because of low oil.

 

Define “half way”. Half way on the knurled part of the dipstick or half way on dash display?

If it was low, why? Too long / too many miles since the last change? or a leak? Or burning?

Don’t let that happen again!

 

Is it the power steering oil or the engine oil that was half-way? I'm guessing power steering as the engine oil has nothing to do with the power steering being heavy.

Richard

 

So your telling me that ive lost 100k miles as my oil was half way down on the dipstick, no oil light on. I topped it up with just a litre of oil that i lost 100k miles?. I have never heard such a ridiculous comment. And your a veteran member. God help us.

To the others out there the car made a rumbling for a few seconds after starting and sat for a few days, the dipstick showed what I would call low as it was just over half way, my garage has a very slight incline. I topped up with just 1 litre of oil, as I said there has never been a red oil light on, it has never done this since or before..
I have had a oil and filter service and pleased to report the mechanic said there was no metal in the oil which defunks the idiotic comment that was made about losing 100k miles, mechanics words and not mine. Dont shoot the messenger.

 

it showed just over the hald way mark on the lined part of the dipstick. I have oil changes every year, I only do about 6k per year. I have just had a oil service and the specialist said there was no metal filings in the oil, it was clear. Its not burning oil and I have no oil drops in my garage. I will be getting the coil packs and plugs changes as it could of been a misfire as the engine ran rough for a few seconds as it was not running on all 8.

 

I have a few antique and modern classic cars. I "try" to drive each for a good long exercise circuit at least once a month. Summers I may do a different car show every weekend, but life gets in the way and so sometimes it has stretched to as much as three through the winter months but probably every six weeks on average. Odd things happen when a car is not used frequently. Sometimes after its been a while, it takes a few seconds for the fuel pressure to build or automatic chokes and other cold-start mechanisms to engage and they can stumble for a few seconds till they get going. If there's hydraulic lifters and or variable cam timing, you can get a tick from the valve train till the pressures normalize. It seems like an eternity. Unless its sat for a very, very long time, there's still going to be some oil between bearing surfaces and in the oil rings (I'm no engineer, but there's surface tension, capillary action and other good physics going on) plus many modern engines are designed to feed the bottom end bearings first so they don't get damaged. Its easy to imagine all sorts of bad things happening inside the motor, but I think its usually more my runaway imagination.

Yes, there's some excess wear at cold starts. An engine can go half a million miles or more if its being driven 100 miles every day like clockwork, but when its going 30 miles at a time, once a month, yeah, you probably got to expect its going to need a rebuild in more like 30K. But at that rate, how many decades is it going to take to rack up another 30K? Thus, one cold start incident should not be a cause for panic. Sounds like you're not driving your Jaguar a lot, but its all relative. So what if you're not going to earn a Guinness world record for highest mileage Jag. Don't think about that because your family or the authorities are going to take your keys away long before it needs a rebuild anyway.

 

I think the sarcasm got lost while crossing the pond.

 

A knocking upon start up........not all oil filters have check valves!

 

Halfway on the lined part is not low, especially if you checked just after shutting off the engine.

 

You need to be really careful with oil changes on the AJ V8s, you said you had an oil change - why was it half way down the dip stick when you checked? min to max is 1L its usually like this for all cars - 1L from max to min so it looks like you over filled.
I changed the oil myself last year - you need to do oil checks on these engines each week as a matter of habit

 

Thank you for your informative reply

 

sounds like a pully or power steeering pump or idler was knocking
not your engine