When I bought my 2002 XKR about 2 1/2 years ago, I purchased it from an elderly owner's daughter with a 2" thick folder of every service, every recall notice, every trip made to his local Jaguar dealer over the 7 years he owned the car. The car had 60,000 miles, was in nearly mint condition (a scratch on the passenger side and curb rash on the wheels), and so, I dangerously and stupidly assumed that over the 7 years and 60K miles that the XKR visited the Jaguar dealership (no service was done outside of the dealership), that the tensioners had been upgraded to the metal ones and the chains replaced. Unfortunately, I did not verify this or look through a couple of hundred pages of paid dealer invoices until a little over a week ago (and 45,000 miles later), when I went out to start my car and was greeted in the first tenth of a second of turning the key with a blood curdling gutteral sound that I knew spelled trouble. The engine never engaged as I shut the key off within that tenth of a second, and I had the car towed to my independent mechanic. Upon opening up the engine, we found driver's side upper tensioner broken in pieces, broken timing chain, and a heap of trouble. Later in the day, my mechanic told me that after pumping air into the cylinders, he felt that there was a good chance the valves had not been bent and that I might have dodged a giant bullet. However, he would not be able to test until we had replaced the tensioners, chains, etc. I ordered the whole kit upper, lower tensioners, chains, seals etc. from Christopher's, had it sent overnight, and it arrived Wednesday afternoon. This morning I received the call that I was praying for that everything went in fine, it started up and ran perfectly, no codes, no lights..., and I'm on my way to pick it up now. While not an inexpensive repair, it was certainly better than replacing an engine. I was stupid and lucky, two words not generally used in the same sentence. Those of you who haven't heeded the repeated warnings laced through so many posts on this forum, to check and/or upgrade the tensioner/chain system, you're living on borrowed time. I can't believe I was so stupid (and lucky)!

 

All to familiar story around here with sadder results. I'm glad you didn't have a further problem. I don't think an engine replacement would have been necessary though. The bent valves can be replaced. Your story did remind me of another S-type around here that snapped the chain but did not strike any valves. That owner was lucky. I remember another car that came in my old dealer and the chain was actually holding on by a half link. Came in running but noisy.

Glad to hear your story has a happy ending.

 

You must have done lots of Good Things in your life to get away with that.
As you say, normally things are normally much worse than you reckon.
Good news.
Now get on your knees and pray for long life knock sensors!
BTW - worth putting your XKR details in your signature for quick reference.

 

Very lucky escape!

Graham

 

It was your lucky day!

 

Lucky. See if it lasts. Go buy a lotery ticket.

 

So how can you tell if your tensioners need upgrading? my XK8 Coupe is a July 2002 and I have all the sevice records etc, but there's no mention of chain tensioners being replaced, the car had just done 60,000 mls. I just thought that by 2002 all those problems had been sorted...duh!

 

Hang on a minute. You say it was a 2002. Were the original upper tensioners the plastic or metal tensioners?

If they were the metal tensioners, then that would mean that there is no final cure for the tensioner problem and they must be watched even after upgrading from the original plastic.

 

Tberg..please help the forum out and post a picture of your damaged tensioners.

 

Yes please do.

The engine build cut off date for the plastic tensioners was August 13 2001, a 2002 MY car could easily have one of those engines.

 

Ahhh.. between the nikasil cutoff and the plastic tensioner cutoff it gets confusing.

Hopefully, Tberg sorts us all out with a manufacturing date for his vehicle and the type of tensioner that disintegrated.

 

Do you have a 4.0 or 4.2 engine?

The 4.0 with VIN numbers between 001001-A24195 have the must be replaced tensioners!!

The 4.2 was introduced sometime in 2002, but I believe it was later than July.

If your VIN number ends in A30645 and higher you have the 4.2 engine, 6 speed transmission and later tensioners.

 

In the US, unlike the UK, the 4.2 engine did not appear until the 2003 model year.

 

I am still not quite clear about who should be monitoring the tensioners.
My vehicle is a U.S. import in 2003, is a 2004 model XK8 with the 4.2 engine. What are the latest model tensioners made of ?? and
would my be one that should be monitered ?

Stan I
( stainless )

 

You're golden Stan, as far as tensioners go anyway. :-)

 

Just had mine checked both secondary tensioners have cracks in them going to have chains ,tensioners and guides replaced on my 98 xk8 with 78k miles looks like I got to them just in time.

 

MY 2001 XJ8 with 105,000 miles still has the original tensioners. My question is -- Is it a forgone conclusion that the tensioners will fail sooner or later, or are their a lot of examples out there that we never hear about that are still going strong at 150K and beyond? Do driving habits and service intervals have an impact on longevity? Just wondered (and hoped).

 

It's pretty much a forgone conclusion. Or at least a bet with really, really bad odds.

Never make a bet you can't afford to lose.

Besides, maybe you can use the Lincoln LS parts and get them on the ex-employee discount

 

Whats the best place to get those tensioners replaced? I have a 2000 xkr and as far as I know the previous owner (my uncle), never got those done. And does anyone have a rough estimate of what that work would cost? I'm only at 49k miles so far...

 

joy, vin a03722. early car. dammit