Well, Jag season is almost over here in Canada. Maybe a top-down tour or two to look at the fall colours, and then Mr. J will hibernate in my garage again for the winter. After two trouble-free summers though, I can no longer ignore the fact that he left the factory in 2000 WITHOUT the 'good' cam-chain tensioners. Since there seems to be no central Jag Warranty registry to find out if he was ever updated under warranty, and I am not the original owner, I guess I will have to do an exploratory. I can remove the cam chain cover, do my little Snoopy dance if I see the red metal one, and button him back up, or; see a plastic one and prepare to get down and dirty. In browsing through the older posts many times, I seem to recall a particularly thorough step-by-step of what comes next, but that damn 18 year old Scapa that I use as a browsing aid seems to have made me forget to ear-mark it for future (like, NOW ) reference.

Any advice? Encouragement? Sympathy???

 

Save yourself the trouble and trade it for a 2003+! Or better yet, get a 2005+. They changed the body styling a little in 2005 and I think it looks better.

 

The FAQ Sticky above has the links to more than you need to know about changing the tensioners. The secondary ones are a very simple job that I did with a $10 set of Ace Hardware sockets plus a 10mm Allen wrench.

Just think how proud you will be to come back and say 'I did it'.

 

Uh, Rev. Sam, should I just wheel it to the dump, or would someone like it for parts?

 

Agree completely with Sam. Sell it to me for practically nothing before it costs you an arm and leg and move right past a Jaguar and get an Aston Martin.....now you're talkin'!!!! BTW, you'll need BOTH arms and BOTH legs to drive that AM...it's a beast!

 

2000 Models rock!
Brian

 

But of course!

 

All I can add is do it now. It's only a matter of a couple hours of getting to know your car a little bit better. You can use Ford parts and save money. My '99 had both upper tensioners cracked and one broke apart by hand after I replaced them at only 65,000 mi. Good thing I took all these posts seriously. Same with waterpump and hoses. Great bunch of people here and you should definitely learn from their experiences.

 

I also think the 2000 model is the best! It still has the slender non-JUMBO airbag seats and the scoop driving lights. I also like the rounded body lines up to 2004 I think, before the lower cladding, but the 2000 is my favorite and the first year for the XKR in the good ole' US of A!!