199 Jaguar XK8 help.. Transmission? Display errors?
 

Hello,

I have recently purchased a 99 Jaguar xk8 off an auction with 117,000 miles on it. I immediately fell in love with the car and for the price I got it for I am willing to spend some money on it. However, recently some problems have arisen that I have no idea what to do with the terror of spending money on something that it's not broken. I am planning on changing a couple of things in the car including valve cover gaskets both sides and replace the transmission fluid which I believe would solve the problem I am currently experiencing but after reading several threads about i must say I have no idea what to fix now.. So the problems I'm currently having are:

Transmission.

Sometimes when I put the gear to Drive. The car would start but it acts as if it won't change gears, for example, If I kept going forward it would just rev higher and higher. What I noticed is that when that does happen the gear won't light up as if it is not in Drive. In order to fix it I have to keep switching to another gear and back to Drive until I see the light go on. Which becomes a pain in the butt in daylight. The other transmission related problem is that there are times when either on Reverse or Drive when it will just lock up and jump which also comes with a thump sound.

Display error messages.

Yesterday I received a display message telling me that my coolant level is low. This morning I put in just enough coolant and went on my way. About 2 hours later when I took a break from work to get some coffee my check engine light came on. Fearing that I did something wrong with the coolant I immediately took it to the shop, told them what happened, and asked if they could flush my radiator and fix that check engine light. At the end of the day when I went to pick up my car, the mechanic told me that the scanner was telling him that there is some wiring problem, he checked my fuses but didn't see any problem with them and told me to bring it tomorrow in the morning so that he may work on it. Now this is when it gets weird when my car gets turned on I received three messages: transmission failure, stability failure, engine safe mode on. He turned my car off and on about three times and the messages were gone, except for the check engine light.


Heat & Smell

And the last thing in which I'm curious about is that my car gets really hot around the feet area on both sides as well as the plastic in the middle where I select the gears. Any thoughts?


Last problem is silly but I was wondering if anyone knew how to remove it. The inside of my car smells like grease, like the inside of a grimy mechanic shop. Tried sprays and everything but nothing works.


If someone could attempt to help me or guide me in the correct way I would really appreciate it. I am really happy with my purchase and would like to get everything taken care of so that it may ride smooth and nice.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Jaguar! I love mine also.

Transmission: The ZF box has a couple of known issues, even admitted by ZF with tech bulletins. The valve body experiences wear in the piston bores that provides high pressure to the clutch drums. Most specifically the 'A' drum failure which is the ultimate result of the pressure spikes caused by valve wear. The symptoms match your description. Valve body can be changed without removing the transmission. The 'A' drum is a bigger investment requiring removal of the transmission.

Error messages: The first thing to check is the battery condition when you get strange messages that change or go away. This car is very sensitive to voltage below 12.0v. A free charging system check at a local auto parts store is the first thing to do even before you take it back to your tech. You might want to review the thread on code readers (https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/g...oved-**-33347/) as many of us have them. The ELM327 OBDII to BlueTooth converter along with the TORQUE software will give you a full function reader for less than $20 . . . if you have a smart phone or computer with BlueTooth communications.

Heat and smell: By warm do you mean air temp or the floor/console surface? Blend door problems occasionally dispense unwanted warm air into the cabin. Surface temp needs a little more information. As far as the grease smell . . . checked under the seats for french fries? Maybe someone spilled some oil.

'Search' some of the above terms and review the links in the 'How to/DIY' sticky at the top of this forum and come back with more information.

Can't help with the others but I agree that the error messages are likely from an old battery, at least that's what I'd try first. Jags are very sensitive to voltage and if the voltage is just a little low, they start throwing codes.


Mark

Test point,

Thank you for the very helpful response! I will look online and see if I find those parts you mentioned and have them replaced. I will also replace the transmission fluid as well since I've been told it must get changed every 90,000 miles so I imagine it's not a bad idea.

Regarding the heat problem, I do feel it as if it's coming from the rug looking material that your legs rest on when you're driving and like I mentioned before, by the plastic right where you change gears.

I will stay up all night researching all that you advise to me to do and if you have any other tips and/or suggestions I would gladly appreciate.

Thank you all!

Heat near legs, sounds like it's coming from the transmission which you know you have issues with, someone else would know more, this happens with the heat/ac off? Perhaps getting the work done and see if it still present.
Smell - I recently read a post where they recommended a 'bomb' of the car, that worked fairly well. As said though I'd pull the seats and ensure nothing is living down there, when I pulled mine to fix the headrests I found the previous owner was very fond of chilllets
Low Coolant - how much did you add and did you see how much was down when it came back on? The probe is pretty sensitive to minor drops, the coolant went somewhere, leak? Or if the coolant level is ok, check the probe seating in the bottom of reservoir