OK, long story but the engine cover got broken in half. New one is around $140, used somewhat less. I'm attempting to JB weld it, which hopefully will work.

My question is this, other than keeping some crap off the top of the engine, are they really necessary? My Jag mechanic says not to loose any sleep over it.

Any opinions? Thanks

(Quote from another auto blog: "I have a 2018 Jeep Wrangler with a 2.0 Turbo. The engine cover is factory labelled as "engine aesthetic cover".)

 

Agreed, cosmetic purposes only. And they can hasten the degradation of hoses and plastic parts by trapping more engine heat and increasing the engine bay baking factor. That said, I have always kept them in place....

 

Thanks. Thought as much and half the engine seems to be plastic.

My bad, seems like this has been covered before, so I'm gonna leave it off and hope my engine is louder!!!!

 

Most engine covers are really an anti-DIY device. When I was a little kid, fixing your own car was pretty common in our blue collar neighborhood and every weekend, our fathers would be at one neighbor's house or another standing around drinking a beer and offering unsolicited advice while one of the men fiddled with a carburetor. Then in the 80s, along came computerized engine management and you had to have the diagnostic equipment like at dealership to "read the codes" along with a plethora of "special tools" to unscrew "torx" fasteners and so forth. The dealerships found the way to make money was not through selling cars, but through convincing everyone that their late model car was too high tech, that you couldn't possibly ever fix it yourself. To add to that illusion, by the late 80s and into the early 90s, they started adding additional covers over the engine and other components so that when you opened the hood, it was not obvious where the broken parts were or how to get to them. Its mainly to discourage you from trying. On top of that, they could add an additional hour of labor for removal and installation of said covers.

Now that said, there are in some cases covers that are designed to direct air flow for cooling, to protect electronics from excess heat or prevent a spinning pulley from spraying oil all over but you should be able to tell by examination and logic if a cover really is serving a necessary purpose. I.e. if it's obviously funneling air through the radiator, if its got a layer of insulating material on the back side of it, or if its caked with grease on one side, then its probably there for a purpose.

But I wouldn't just discard them even if they serve no mechanical purpose. I've been restoring vintage Corvettes and the most difficult task is often finding good, used, original parts. We can purchase most everything for a Corvette from China now, but we get zero points for a reproduction part. At least if we have the original part glued back together, we might lose 10 points for being in really poor condition, but we don't lose all 20 points for it being a Chinese copy. I don't think Jaguar concours judging is as strict as Corvette judging, but the ideal is the same. If you want to leave engine covers off for your own convenience, that's fine, but don't throw them away, even if they're broken. Box them up, label them, put them in a safe storage and then very important, remember to put that box in the trunk (boot) when you sell your Jaguar in the future. Somebody like me, attempting to restore it in another 20 or 30 years will be glad you saved those engine covers.