The car needed a little work that's above my skill level when I got back from my trip (Touchscreen and Adaptive headlights both are resistant to the Usual Fixes).
Two weeks ago today (Monday), I call first thing.

My beloved service dept with awesome techs: "Well I can schedule in for Friday 4pm but honestly we won't get to it. How about next Monday?
ME: Great!
I drop the car off last Monday AM.
ME (to my longtime service advisor): so, honestly.... how long?
SERVICE ADVISOR: I could say Friday, but probably next week.
They send me on my way in a shiny black E-Pace loaner. NOT a fan of the E-Pace, ends up. Kind of an underpowered dog.
On Friday, a phone call...
SERVICE ADVISOR: Just checking in to let you know we haven't been able to take a look at it yet.
ME: No worries. Love the E-Pace!
Today, Monday, end of day....
ME: ...anything?
SERVICE ADVISOR: I'm trying to get someone to take a look at it by Wednesday.
ME: OK,all good, but.... that will have been ten days since I dropped it off for my "appointment."

We chat - ends up they have only two techs left who are really knowledgeable about the XK's - and I think one of them is on vacation. And this is a LARGE Jag/Land Rover/Rolls/Bentley dealer in Los Angeles. They've got at least a dozen bays.

I'm in the wrong line of work.

 

Next time ask them how much a tech gets paid =]

 

My tech told me that he's making a lot more than when he was a lawyer, but not as much as his brother the plumber.

 

Sadly this’s becoming much too common. My nearest main dealer went through a massive expansion and had a house cleaning at the beginning of this year. The 20+ year veteran staff replaced by all new front to back with zero knowledge of the JLR brand to the point they only want to work on vehicles 5 years old or newer. I’ve a friend in franchise dealer management and he said this is happening with all brands. Costs less to have a young novice than a tech who's been at it for years.

 

What bugs me about this process (and it's not unique to auto repair) is that, I don't understand why other customer's jobs are more important than mine? My money is just as good as anyone elses. I don't have a bad attitude. I'm kind and understanding. I pay my bills on time. And yet my job gets pushed back over and over, presumably because of some other shiny object. Why is my job never the shiny object?

 

I would get told "oh that's old" when I'm trying to buy parts for 10-15 year old cars. I think as the cars age, good independents are a better resource than a dealer. As you see here, and I have seen on X150, X100 and X308 forums, there are extremely skilled techs that post on this forum. I think most operate respected independent shops.

I learn a lot myself and buy the pro tools just on the basis of not wanting to deal with nonsense like this.

 

you must got a warranty on your XK or something cause they NEVER give me a loaner when working on my car,and they be working on it for atleast a couple of weeks or months too smh

 

That's weird, I get a loaner even when they are just doing a tire change!

 

My local Jaguar Dealer is also a BMW and Mini dealer. My X3 has a recall and it's going in tomorrow and they aren't giving us squat; but its been that way when I did pay work one time on a previous e38 740i there too. Never bothered trying for one with the Jaguar since they seem almost disinterested in doing work on mine so I did the work myself.

 

That's pretty dope.They never give me 1 even when I need it.I think it's cause i take my Jag out of the state i live in when ever i need work done to it cause I don't have it serviced in the same state i got it registered in because the dealerships are super far away in my state and I live right on the line of where North Carolina is on the border of Virginia.So I take it to NC to have it serviced sense it's not so far from me and I think I remember them telling me that's the only reason they couldn't give me 1 all because I'm from a different state

 

It seems you are mild mannered so with that they know they can put you off without any issues. That way they can get the aggressive type off of their backs and get their cars out the door. Start being assertive and see what happens.

 

to tell you the truth,I think mechanics should make the same thing RN nurses make and I think they make around $70,000 a year or more cause automobiles break down entirely more than people that fall ill with health issues and the hard work mechanics have to do to fix them back each time is like surgery and you have to know exactly what you doing in order to fix it.You need your automobile to do everything in your daily life and the sad thing is people don't care about their health much to even prevent themselves from going to the hosipital.Stuff that's breaks down on a vehicle can be prevented if it didn't break from wear and tear.Human bodies can recover themselves,a vehicle can't!Which means your vehicle will never work again if a mechanic don't know how to fix it back and the human body is the same way if you don't have a successful surgery.Both sounds like they deserve equal pay and mechanics shouldn't have to protest about this.It's the governments fault,cause they'll rather pay health care workers and don't appreciate that automobile that gets them back and forth to work everyday and wanna pay mechanics dimes and nickels to fix it back for them everytime it breaks down instead of also having them government funded like they do health care workers.i'm an Aquarius just like MLK so i'll go full Martin Luther King when it comes to expressing equal rights and pay or anything that's not considered equal when it's just as serious

 

Sorry but mechanics now days don't repair cars they just replace parts called out by the OBDII. As far a pay goes you know what it is when you go into that career. As far as your discussion on hospital workers it does not interest me nor does the equal right issue.

 

Yeah, that. I've seen 'mechanics' recommend coils and injectors because there was a vacuum leak. If it isn't electrical, they are totally clueless.

 

I have to say that when I had my car towed to the dealer they did an awesome job of diagnosing the exact problem. They told me the valve seat on the number 6 cylinder had come loose. If I had towed the car to my house it would have taken me countless hours to figure that out. In fact, I probably would have assumed it was something electrical, searched for something electrical, and eventually had the car towed to the dealer.

It cost me $721 to have the dealer troubleshoot the cause of my problems, but it was worth it because I don't think I would have ever thought a valve seat would come loose.

 

I assumed you must have had a OBDII code maybe calling out a miss on cylinder #6. If you did the 1st thing I would do is pull the plug and look at it. Next would be compression test. That would point me at a valve or ring or cam problem. If that's how it was diagnosed then pulling the SC and looking into the port would show the valve seat issue. By the way did the put the SC back on knowing you needed to pull the head. Did they ask you if you wanted it reassembled .

 

Hmmm.....

- never thought about the warranty aspect of this but yes, I do have a warranty. I'm the one person here who's got a terrific warranty (I call it my Miracle Warranty)--- which runs out in FIVE WEEKS. So yeah, they're gonna fine-tooth-comb the car, and this will be the last hurrah for the Miracle Warranty. The last time I brought it in --that whole cooling fan sensor/assembly/shroud replacement- I think it had to be shipped from the UK so I had a loaner for like three weeks (base-model XF).

- yep, in matters such as this, so much of it is who you deal with. I may have been a bit of a jerk the first time I brought the car in to this place years ago because, among other things, I mentioned the license plate light wasn't working-- they checked it, said it was a module, and wanted some $ to "reflash it," and I basically said how stupid do I look (don't answer that), so they said "you're welcome to try to fix it yourself." Which of course didn't work. I sheepishly brought the car back in a few days later and they very nicely did the reflash while I waited and I never had that problem again. Ditto when I had the annoying TPMS warning when I was SURE the units needed to be replaced. Nope. Fixed and haven't had a problem since. So I pretty much trust them on everything now.

- don't know about anyone else here, but I am now fully of the opinion that the E-Pace is a dog. Which, considering the E-Pace, is a disservice to dogs.

 

FYI: Thinking about Reverend Sams valve guide issue: while my car's there I'm having them do the air-intake-carbon-clean. This will be the third time they've done it and I'm sure they overcharge but again something I'd rather not do on my own. Worth it? Who knows?

 

If the car is out of warranty, loaners are provided at their discretion. Every marque and dealer I've had, has provided one but I know some don't.

 

Might want to ask how they do it. Some just spray a can of cleaner as you could do yourself, others have sophisticated apparatus and procedures as specified in the workshop manual which are vastly more effective and complex.