I bought my car in 2010. I am fixing oil leaks around the transmission and front timing chain so I took the cover off and was shocked to see plastic tensioners. I have the invoice from 2009 that they were replaced. Is there any chance that they replaced plastic for plastic in 2009, or did they pull the wool over the eye of the last owner.

 

Oh, i just did a bit more research and i thought the top of the tensioners were supposed to be metal, but i now see that the old ones were all plastic, so I do have the metal ones.

I am surprised the plastic on the metal ones and those plastic blades last so long.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a chain guide or tensioner "face" made from anything but plastic/composite. I think metal would wear and generate metal contamination of the oil

 

You would need to do more research but I've a feeling that when I replaced my tensioners with the final version many years ago, Jaguar had changed the design from brown plastic friction pads to white plastic friction pads. Yours are metal bodied so have the internal spring and will presumably be fine but I changed my metal bodied ones to the latest version whilst I was there.

Richard

 

The tensioner is fine. Time for coffee. The previous owner completed this task. The new type looks similar. The chain saddle is always plastic.