Just to add something here, Blauparts has an oil change kit which contains 8 quarts of 5w-20 oil (Ravenol SFE) and a Mahle filter. Among other interesting things, they include a letter from Jaguar that states the Ravenol oil meets the STJLR.03.5004 oil spec. the letter is the second image
https://www.blauparts.com/jaguar-xf-...e-kit-50l.html

There is a 15% Labor Day savings code, this might be a good option. With the code it is 90$ oil change. which for me is $30 less than my indy, and $50 less than getting the supplies alone from the dealer.

Just my .02!

 

So...I'm potentially making the mistake of reviving this thread again hehe

Where I am in Australia servicing our cars (non current, modern Jags) seems to have entered a limbo of sorts where the main dealers think they are too old and price gouge parts to extortionate levels and the 2 independents I have tried seem not to respect the technological advancement of the AJ133 supercharged engine or treat them like the value they have.

Case in point, I've just paid $650aud to have my 2013 XKR serviced, which I will elaborate on more in a separate post, but used 5W-30 oil. The car has done 65,000km (40,000m) approx. I can't be bothered going and having the robust conversation about the oil as the outcome of these types of discussions rarely resolves anything. If they agree to change it they will likely do a rush/uncaring job anyway etc etc

I'm now paranoid that I need to get it out of there and get a 5W-20 or 0W-20 in but don't know if I'm just being silly?

 

Just bought the same kit but in 0w20, because whenever I pay - sorry, "paid," as hopefully this will be DIY from now on - the dealer to do it, they use 0w20.
Also, I feel like I read somewhere that with oil, the "low" number (5 vs 0) is not as important as the "high" number - in our case, 20. And that 0w20 vs 5w20 really isn't a huge difference. True?

 

There is a difference, but it’s important only in cold climates when one has several months with cold starts by freezing weather. In that case 0W20 will effectively reduce the engine wear.

 

today i can add to this some confirmation to this, and that you should definitely open the filler cap and probably the filter housing whenever you are draining oil via the sump plug. i have done another change and happened to find out that even if i pull the car onto ramps, shut it off, add the engine flush, then turn it back on and let it idle for 10 minutes, it is building pressure somewhere that does not dissipate as quickly as you can crawl under there and remove the plug after shutting off the car.

if you pull the sump plug first after shutting off the car, you will get a great messy minute-long fart of oil out of the drain. as air tries to balance that pressure while oil tries to pour out from gravity it literally flicks the stream of oil upwards 2-3 times per second, easily overshooting your drain pan. wish i had the forethought to record a video as i have not chosen my words carelessly, as it literally sounds like a comedically extended fart while it's doing it. in fact you might want to try this just to see it for yourself.

well, now that i've wasted all those words, i've got some additional useful information for DIY oil changes today.

XK 5.0L oil sump (drain) plugs

despite being advertised M14-1.50 this dorman part on the left does not thread into the pan even halfway. probably a quality control thing, do not use these! this oil-tite 65215 plug has been doing great for the past year and i'm about to re-use it. the embedded seal is holding up better than copper washers do on my other cars. well worth the money. the third plug on the right is the one that was on the car when i got it, unclear if it is a genuine part.

 

Okay, but on the 5.0 liters you DON'T take out the pan bolt. That isn't the way oil changes are done on these models. You did it all wrong. And messy. And harder. And took WAY longer.

 

ah, but! i didn't get any oil on the concrete, my pan is wide enough and i always use a sheet of cardboard underneath. my car was used and as-is: there is no aero panel to remove to access the sump. i have some lightweight, long and tall race ramps that give plenty of incline to drain the sump in this fashion on really any car. i got 6.5 quarts out, which is slightly more than i just put in about 50 miles ago (this photo and post was catch-up from the first "short" change a few days earlier). it did sit there trickling out for quite some time while i went and ate lunch, you've got me there. i'll probably buy a pump extractor at some point but it doesn't seem to be a necessity. i plan to keep a very close eye on that replacement sump plug. the rubber lasted one year as i mentioned but i would bet it won't last two years.

 

Thread revival time. I used a suction pump to remove the old oil from my 5.0 XKR last weekend. I only got 6.5 litres of fresh oil back in before the electronic dipstick read "full". I haven't measured how much actually came out of the car first but I kept the bottles from the new oil so will decant it into those and get an idea there. I'm wondering, is it "normal" to get less oil out when using the vacuum drain method compared to draining by removing the sump plug?

 

No you should get better then 95% which is as most as you usually get. The suction tube is located at the lowest point in the engine. Either the oil didn't completely drain down from the oil cooler or you didn't wait and resuction the tube. Remember the factory and dealers only use the suction method to remove the oil.

 

I started the car and drove it around the block a few minutes (I don't like letting them idle to temperature, takes longer so more wear and tear). I left it to stand for about ten or so minutes before starting to extract the oil - basically followed the workshop manual procedure to the letter. Not sure what you mean by "resuction the tube" though, can you explain?

To clarify, I haven't measured the quantity of oil I removed yet, I only know that I only got 6.5L back in before the electronic dipstick showed full. One of three possibilities I see here:

• I only got 6.5L out somehow, leaving around 750cc in there (besides the bit you never get out anyway)
• the car only have 6.5L in it to begin with
• the electronic gauge is really pretty inaccurate.

This is what I'm trying to work out just now. Incidentally, apart from last year and this year I've always used Jaguar dealers (and I trust the one I've used for most of that) and I think ever service invoice I've seen I've had a new sump plug, so I don't think they are all using the suction method.

 

i think the answer is yes, but the amount is inconsequential. you can test the theory on your own if you'd like: use the vacuum for as long as you can tolerate, then turn it off and undo the sump bolt. if it's normal to get less out with the vacuum, then there will necessarily be a tiny bit more that comes out of the bolt hole. if nothing comes out, perhaps its the opposite. doesn't much matter though since there's still a half quart of dirty oil inside your engine block.

 

'Re-suction'......Suck the oil out and wait a few minutes as more oil will collect in the pan and suck out some more. I just did mine and used this method. I put back a tad over 7 quarts. Any of your above scenarios sound plausible. In fact I thought I read somewhere there is a calibration on the oil level gizmo. If you remove the oil filter first, that aids in the draining and sucking process. The longest part of an oil change is turning on the motor and shutting down, then having to wait the 10 minutes or so for the oil level sensor to do its thing.

 

and you're potentially burning some of the oil in combustion, but not much.

how much goes in vs. how much comes out is a different question that you can't ascertain by objectively measuring which drainage method gets out a tiny bit extra oil compared to the other. not only does not all of the oil drip down out of the block to the pan even if you wait days, the pan is baffled; the pan doesn't drain fully either.

 

Yes, so the total capacity is quoted as 8.9 litres, service fill is 7.25 so I was only counting the 7.25. Next year I might do exactly that though.

Thanks for the clarification. I didn't do that, but if you got 7 quarts then that's a little over 6.5 litres so it sounds like I got about the same out - or rather, once I got everything I could out, it took 6.5L to get back to full. I'll try and measure the old oil this week.

That would be covered under the second possibility - only 6.5L of oil in when I came to remove it. I did about 4,400 miles between services last year and this year so that would be 3/4 of a litre in that sort of distance. That's probably not a great deal to loose over that distance for an 8-cylinder engine I guess but the oil gauge was still showing full before I removed the old oil.

Has anyone ever drained their oil with a vacuum pump, then lifted the car and removed the sump plug to see if there was much left in there?

 

Where exactly is drain plug on 5l engine? is there only one cover under the car to be removed to access the drain plug? i had fuel in oil and need to drain as much oil as possible.

Also where did you buy the correct drain plug?

Thank you for helping!

 

Drain plug? For what reason??? Oil is removed through the top, a small tube inside the oil fill under the cap. You need a vacuum pump for oil to remove the oil. It's SUPER easy to do an oil change this way. Pumps are on Amazon and eBay for cheap.
You can do an entire oil & filter change in fifteen minutes in your driveway while remaining on your feet the entire time.

 

I do have a pump and been using it for oil changes all the time, the reason I want drain oil thru the oil plug is that I had a failed injector and lots of fuel got in oil and I want to drain as much oil as possible , not sure if pump will extract more oil than draining it thru the plug...

 

I have commented on this before but I am 99% sure that both the suction method and the sump plug method remove near as dammit to the same amount of old oil.
This is because the sump plug is on the side of the sump with the bottom of the drain hole some 4 or 5 mm from the bottom of the sump and the end of the oil extraction tube is also some 4 or 5 mm off the bottom of the sump, so both ways there is some old oil left behind in the very bottom of the sump.
One thing I have done during oil changes is to pour around one litre of fresh oil down the oil filter canister hole (after removing the canister!) once the suction pump has got out all it's going to get, let that fresh oil drain into the sump (say 5 minutes) then pump it out, you would be surprised how much extra old/dirty oil this removes.

 

Suck out all you can, add another quart of some old crappy oil you have laying about, and then suck THAT out along with any remnants. Also, petrol is lighter than oil, so that'd gotten sucked out first time anyway.

 

Thanks for the extra quart of oil trick.