Bought my 2000 XKR this summer with worn out front tires and a very low front end. It was terrible to drive.........
I changed the tires, front springs and the upper shock mounts and it was still misbehaving.
Then I changed the lower shock bushings, the upper and lower wishbone bushings, the upper and lower ball-joints and the antiroll bar bushings.
My workshop did a four wheel alignment, but I am still not satisfied with the driving experience, although it is a little better than before.

Where I live, in Norway, there are bad roads with worn out asphalt. The Jag is very nervous and will follow the "tracks" on the road in a very bad manner.
Is this a build-in thing that is known by you experienced Jaguar owners, or is there something wrong that I haven't discovered yet?

 

It sounds like something is loose in the front end. About the only thing left is the steering rack. You could try jacking it up one wheel at a time and wiggling the wheels to see if you can find any "slop". BTW, great looking car.

 

Tires have a huge impact on this as well. Some tires just don't like roads with big ruts in them.

 

The steering rack and tie rods are tight. The new front tires are Goodyear Eagle F1.

 

Same tires on the rear? If not, swap them, see how it feels.

I bought new Michelins for my XJ-S (a long time ago) and the car just sucked on the highway, trammeling (I think that's the right word) and following the slightest ruts horribly. I put the OE Pirelli tires back on and problem solved!

 

Is the alignment correct to Jaguar's spec (rather than whatever the shop / machine may think)?

(As an example, it's not unknown for a shop to toe out when they should toe in & vv.)

 

Continental Control Contact at the rear, as it was at the front too when I bought it.

 

The alignment is correct for the European marked, I don't know why there are different spec in US.

Front Camber: -0:40' left, and -0:17' right
Front Caster: 6:33' left and 6:51' right
Front Toe: 0:18'

Rear Camber: -0:14' left and -0:44' right
Rear Toe: -0:08' left and -0:09' right

 

which side of the road do you drive? This is usually the reason for different specs.

 

Have you changed the front/rear subframe mounts?

 

baxtor: The XKR was imported from California to Norway early this year, and yes we drive on the left side of the road. The workshop manual has three different spec for; 1: RHD, 2: USA, Canada, Mexico and 3: ROW.

avos: No I have not changed the subframe mounts. They look good and I can't move the subframe with a prybar at all. I did find out when I changed all the bushings and ball joints that most of them was in excellent condition, and it was a lot of wasted time and money. It was all genuine Jaguar parts and they are not cheap!

 

Does your car run a staggered setup? Do you perhaps have the rear (wider) tires at the front? What’s the air pressure on your tires?

Wider wheels with wider tires have a larger contact patch and a slightly higher tendency for tram-lining. However, it is normal for these cars to exhibit that behavior on exceptionally bad roads even with a good suspension and tires. It should however, only happen in the absolute worst roads.

 

take a look under the car in the area of the rear subframe mounts. my car has over 200K miles and on inspection the Vee mounts were essentially flat. They are a bit of a pain in the butt to replace but well worth it. the effect on traming or tramelining (dont know the right word) was pretty dramatic. i think what was happening was that the flat-ness of the mount allowed slight but significant twisting between the actual frame/body above and the subframe below.

the problem area for me was that the original VEE mount was held in place with 4 #27 torqes bolts. Stripping and shearing, so be careful if you do need to go the VEE mount route. I replaced the torques with a hardened hex head bolt and good washer of the same size to replace the mounts.

There are steps that might be missing. sorry.

- maybe first see if you can get the torque bolts moving on the underside of the subframe before going toooooo far. i think one will be obstructed by the steering arms. I removed the arms for easier access to the underside rear subframe VEE mount bolts...
- remove the 4 13mm bolts from the steering rack, let it kinda hang there...
- undo the single 13mm bolt (I think they are) in the underside cone that holds the mount, sub and frame/body in place. its largely held by gravity (weight of the body of the car) and its a cone fit. not hard to deal with...
- remove both rear bolts from the X cross brace...
- I removed the lower motor mount bolts - holding the engine UP with one of those engine support bars. dont want the weight of tthe engine on the sub while changing the mounts.
- significantly loosen (but dont remove) the front subframe mount bolts after removing the brace thats in the way. reason for this is that you will kinda want to have the subframe sag rearwards so that you can slip the 2mounts into place in the rear of the subframe.
- if I remember right I THINK it helped to remove the bolts from the rear lower control arms (I cant say for sure) and you will see once ya get involved.

I hope this made some sense and might be useful...
Peace!

 

I acquired a 03 XKR with the same issue. Numerous parts and alignments didn't help. Fortunately the final resolution for this one was as simple as re-mounting two tires.

Somebody only half understood the staggered concept. They had the correct tire sizes in the proper positions; but, during the mounting had moved a 9 inch rear rim to the front left and the 8.0 inch front to the right rear. Sorting that out resoled the issue.

If you cannot come up with a creative way to measure them on the car, the dimensions are cast into the rear of the rims.

Hopefully your final resolution is equally as simple.

 

WHO CARES how it rides or steers? Just stand there and admire its beauty. WOW !
Seriously though, I'd suspect the tires first if there are no obviously worn parts. Certain brand and tread designs of tires are famous for this type of road response.

 

The Falkens that came with my 2000 XKR were great. Tried Toyos next and they were awful. Terrible tracking. All over the road. Wretched experience. Finally put enough miles on them I felt okay replacing them.

Cooper
Zeons were available in town (and relatively cheap), so I tried them. They've been good. Tracking true with no problem there. The only problem is flat spotting. First drive of the day they're a little bumpy until warm.

 

The powersteering is speed sensitive and electronically controlled. It is either too easy or too stiff at certain speeds with the OEM control module located behind the glove box I believe it is. Been a few years since. It can MIMIC BUMP STEER. I had this issue with my car even after I changed all the same parts you did. There is a fuse you can remove on the drivers side fuse panel that will only give you half of the steering assist. The power steering pump is 2 stage. You get either all or half. Removing the fuse gives you half assistance. If you got good arms, you might prefer to leave the fuse out as some have done. At speed it is exactly the same effort required. I'm talking about speeds above 15 mph. The module seems to give full assist long after it isn't needed. I would venture to say at any speed over 10 mph the extra assist isn't needed. It is needed for parking and that's about it.
I took this a step further and found the wire between the fuse and this speed module, cut it and installed a rocker switch using extended wires so I can turn it off or on anytime from the drivers position. There is a tiny USELESS square vent in the dash panel near the sunglass compartment that I removed and installed my switch there. On washboard roads, I turn the switch to OFF.
Concerning the alignment. Doing this mod may negate the fuse removal or the switch mod. The OEM spec requires different CAMBER shimming left vs right to negate the effect of driving on a road with a crowned center.. One side all the shims are forward the control arm bushing. The other side shims are rearward. Take the rearward shims and put them in the front. All shims to the front of both control arms. This will add tremendous stability, especially at high speed. I did these things to my 01' XKR vert and would not undo any of what I have shown. Has not affected tire wear or handling contrary to what others might think.

 

Thank you all for your tips.
The wheels are all good and in it's correct position.
I do have Goodyear tires one my daily driver too (225/40-18), and they are perfect - BUT those are not Eagle F1. I think they are called Efficientgrip or something like that.
I will try to disconnect the electronic steering control and test it.

The winter is coming soon here in Norway and the Jag will be parked until spring.

 

I just purchased a 2003 XKR coupe that had some 3-6 year old Michelin tires, the handling was horrible! I replaced them with some $520 full set of Milestar tires from discount tire, it now drives great. Night and day difference. I have the staggered 20" BBS Montreal wheels mounted. I asked them to make sure the 20x10 wheels were in the rear.

 

I discovered to day that I could not just remove a fuse for the electronic steering control. The same fuse are used for the climate control, and we have temperatures around freezing point these days............
I assume that I need to get under the car and disconnect it from the steering rack.