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Hi all! Thought I would drop a hello to the community, I just recently became the keeper my first Jaguar, this lovely 2002 XKR Convertible with 36K original miles and already appreciating the impressive volume and quality of knowledge on this site - if it wasn't for resources like this, owning these cars would be about 10x more expensive and frustrating I am sure.
I am trying to go through the car baselining as many unknowns/maintenance items as possible, as I have the slightly rarer problem of an old car with low miles, so there are things that break (cracked/perished hoses) due to age, and other things which I technically don't need to do until 50-60K (like trans oil change on the Merc 5 speed). Car has good history, had all its servicing done on time, and is a model year 2002 so should already have metal tensioners (and as soon as I get it up in the air, will confirm for certain, haven't been able to sight the engine number with my borescope yet).
Aside from mechanicals, I'm also chasing down a few interior rattles and irritations, and on my to-do list:
Drivers door window switches are loose/rattle. Would like to fix that, not yet opened up the door/pulled the card to deep dive why they are loose. Will try to avoid buying a whole new module.
Drivers seat cracked/worn/bare left bolster where the seatbelt rubs against it. Would like to re-cover the top half. I've upholstered my own seats before, although Im not great with a sewing machine, if I can get a new seat skin I can install this myself no problem.
Drivers door car - leather trim inside the door pocket is loose, I think the door card was re-assembled incorrectly at some point.
Alpine tweeter on drivers door - yeah you guess it, torn - already sewn and glued this, and found a plastic fastener that works to re-attach it so that's done.
Missing hose spacer in engine bay for, I think, keeping coolant and intake charge hoses on the left side of the supercharger from rubbing on each other. I don't like hoses that rub, so I need to figure out what that's called/part number and sort that.
Get it up in the air and check all cv joints, boots, suspension components, drive shaft etc for any tears, leaks, bends or things out of the ordinary, as well as the engine and trans. A few years of messing on the mx-5 has got me a lot better at this.
Track down a cowl cover screw cap in Quart Metallic, ideally (I dont want to rattle can a black one, itll probably look rubbish)
Sort out a bluetooth option and come up with an elegant replacement for the factory satnav. I've been doing a lot of research on this and I'm heading towards a fairly elegant, OEM-look solution that I will post a build thread on once I get started in earnest. I've done "restomod" bluetooth additions to multiple vehicles before myself and I am pretty confident on this piece.
Alignment - already done! I like cars to go in a straight line with the steering wheel centered, I know, the nerve.
Some dash trim panels not aligned correctly - clearly been removed before, and having already taken apart once, clearly the previous tech had not replaced all the trim clips properly, and broke one of the retaining pieces on the dash itself, so I have some fabricating to do there.
My previous car owning experiences have ranged from beat-up old peugeot 306s, various Hondas and Toyotas, 2000 Mazda mx-5 (still have this, I love how it looks like a baby XK lol). The MX-5 especially I have cut my teeth on doing serious maintenance on myself and will be keeping, and one of my reasons for getting an XKR is to have a very nice comfortable 380bhp armchair that the significant other enjoys being and and can haul enormous amounts of luggage, so I am now free to go full idiot on the MX-5. Accordingly, I will not be doing any stupid mods to the XKR and keeping it mostly stock, that's what the Mazda is for. I'm comfortable with doing my own maintenance up to the level of changing a clutch, dropping a subframe, replacing suspension/shocks, exhaust headers, intake manifold etc, but I'm not yet at the strip the engine down and rebuild it level yet, and I still gotta learn to weld.
And for anyone wondering about my use of English... I'm a Brit living in the US for about 10 years now so I meander between US and British English in a sub-dialect I have dubbed "mid-atlantic w#$%er" or "mid-atlantic d-bag" depending on who I am talking to.
”…….. is a model year 2002 so should already have metal tensioners…..”
for what it’s worth, I have an ‘02 XKR, VIN ending in A24583. The tensioners failed under the previous owners reign. It can happen at 30,000 miles, or 130,000 miles.
And it will spoil your day / week / month or year.
it might be worth an actual engine internal inspection to be sure you have what you think you have. It’s not that complicated to remove one cam cover for a good look.
I’ve only had my XKR four years / 61,000 miles, so I am certainly am not in position to give complicated advice, but there are two things worth mentioning that have substantially helped my XKR be reliable:
1) keep a battery tender, brand of
your choice, on the car whenever it’s not being driven overnight or longer. The car has aging wiring and circuits, all creating more resistance to electrical current flow than the ECU can tolerate. Having the battery at 100% all the time will effectively banish the electrical gremlins .I use the Delran Battery Tender Plus. Others on the forum like the CTEK. Either one will do the job and not over / under charge. For me, one particularly nice feature of the Delran Battery Tender is the metal case. I’ve run over it 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years. Durability helps in my garage.
2) Drive the car as much as possible. These cars do not like sitting. My car is my daily driver and also gets a very good workout of a minimum of 100 miles, at least weekly.
Welcome and enjoy your new car.
Z
PS
I wouldn’t wait any longer to change the transmission fluid. That goes double for the supercharger fluid, rear end lube, coolant, and bleed the old brake fluid out too.
Welcome to Jagland, the home of the best support for the coolest cars
I know the feeling. I bought my 2003 XKR almost a year ago, and I'm working on getting everything up to date, plus trying to drive it as much as possible. Unless you know that they have been done recently, here are some things that you probably want to consider doing, and then get it on a regular maintenance schedule:
1. Automatic transmission fluid
2. Power Steering fluid
3. Supercharger oil
4. Differential gear oil
5. Fuel filter
6. Coolant (at a minimum)
7. Coolant system (pumps, hoses, thermostat and housing)
8. Flush Brake fluid (at a minimum)
9. Brake pads, rotors, caliper rebuild if necessary,
10. I second the idea of the battery tender. I have them on all of my car, mower, etc.
11. Better ground strap for the battery (Mine already had one)
12. Spark plugs (Easy to do. I recommend the NGK Ruthium). Oh, and no anti-seize on those. NGKs have that built in.
13. Hydraulic hoses for the top.
That should keep you busy for a while.
I noticed the similarity to the Miata. The Jaguar is the same height and width, but 2 feet longer. You also have considerably more HP in the Jaguar.
Thank you; I am thinking at this time, I need to purchase some tools for doing upside-down oil changes (i.e. a pump to put diff/trans fluid up into transmission things) as at this time I have various vehicles I like to occupy my spare time with and being able to do those changes myself helps keep costs down.
I do have dealer service history for the vehicle for all jaguar scheduled items and I have inspected pads and disks/rotors and all have plenty of life left in them currently, so i will leave them be. Brake fluid is similarly in excellent condition. I'd have to go check if its every actually been changed though. The last service included rocker cover gaskets so I know there was a leak from there, but so far its dry. Trans is similarly clean/clear no sign of previous or current leaks, but presumably also no sign of a change ever.
From inspecting the battery/trunk electrical items and hydraulics, everything looks immaculate/original, which means I may just be waiting for the pain to begin lol. The previous owner mostly left the top down in the garage and didnt actually operate it up and down that often, but everything operates correctly right now. My intention is to make this my daily driver for now, get it baselined and then start focusing attention on a more extreme project for the miata. I have a garage for it with my next door neighbour, who very kindly lets me use 2 of the spaces in her 3 car garage for free, so it doesn't need to get baked in the sun/soaked in winter. I also have the luxury of not needing the car to work every day, I have other rides if needs be. Are the hydraulic lines on the top generally an age thing, environment, or just straight up number of cycles they have gone through? Does the convertible top hydraulic fluid ever need changed?
Interesting you list the ground strap; when i inspected the battery compartment, the negative strap looked like a pretty hefty chunk of admittedly uninsulated braided metal - is that the problem piece, or evidence of replacement?
Spark plugs I will pull and inspect and check gap and replace if necessary; I gotta go double check the history too, most everything has been done on time with this car as far as I can tell, but I am learning that there are undocumented maintenance items to capture on these as well.
Thank you all for the pointers!
Battery tenders/trickle chargers are already on order, as I will be laying up various cars at times for longer periods and seeing as I've already discovered 10 ECUs in the thing and it has actual procedures for resetting the windows let alone everything else, I dont think unhooking the battery will be a trivial process. That said, I have electrical Items I will need to do on it, and seats to pull which means de-energising to safely unplug the airbags, so I'll have to go through the reset procedure in due course regardless.
This is certainly a faster car than the mx-5/miata (although not so much as I expected, but its partly perception and partly gearing and all the stuff I've done to the Miata to make it a bit more brisk... it also runs out of gears at 110 mph whereas the jag carries on to warp speed) but so far its so bloody refined I havent felt much need to be a hooligan in it. If I find a big, empty enough piece of concrete/tarmac at some point I will try pushing it to oversteer/lose traction while turning to get the feel for that and the open diff, as the miata has a torque sensing diff and is incredibly communicative, whereas I get the impression that in the jaguar everything will seem Lovely until it Isn't. Also the whole poitn of this car is to have a lovely relaxing top down time in it with occasional ridiculous bursts of acceleration when it sparks joy.
The convertible top's factory hydraulic hoses seem to deteriorate due to a combination of age and heat. Keeping the car in the shade definitely helps. Aftermarket hoses from Top Hydraulics and a couple of other suppliers are a great improvement over OEM so if / when you face this job, go aftermarket. Top Hydraulics can also refurbish your rams if they begin to leak. The green-colored hydraulic fluid (Pentosin CHF 11S) typically does not break down. If your fluid is not green in color, you may have the earlier stuff which tends to gel so you will want to change it to CHF 11S fluid sooner rather than later....
I believe my research showed about mid July 2002 was the point where the final tensioner change took place. You can track that through your VIN. I may still have thst research and I'll check when I get home and share if I do.
Amazon can be your friend for tools. I have a Solar (brand name) battery tester that I check all the cars monthly. It will detect a battery that is going bad before you have trouble cranking it. Much better to change it in the garage than on the side of the road.
Amazon also has a brake fluid tester, to let you know the moisture content of the fluid. I have a theory that high performance car manufacturers recommend biannual fluid change because water in the system boils at a lower temperature than brake fluid. Still, if you are on a regular schedule of every 2-3 years, that $10 meter isn't required. I think you can do the same with a voltmeter.
I have an AC vacuum pump. I just rigged a 1 gallon glass jar with brass fitting to use to collect fluid. I used it when I changed the differential fluid in my Jaguar. Really nice, because you have both hands free to move the hose around and get it all out. Looking forward to using it for brake fluid and coolant flushes.
Before I bought a Jaguar, I did a lot of research. They seemed to have electrical gremlins which were always caused by a bad battery. I figured it was a poor ground. I thought I had seen other cars with a lesser ground, but my car has the unshielded braided cable, so I guess that is factory. My bad. I just learned something today.
Spark plugs are cheap. RockAuto.com has the MGK Ruthium for about $9 each. The dealer may charge up to $30 EACH for the regular plugs. They don't need to be changed often, like 6-digit mileage, but it's a cheap way to treat your baby well.
When you reconnect the battery, the only ECU that you need to reset is for the windows. The ECU for the gearbox will clear after about 15-20 minutes (I forget) as it learns how you drive. As a new owner, it's probably a good thing to reset that and let it learn how YOU drive.
Thank you; the cutoff date for that i've seen referenced is august 13 2001 for engine build dates, but I've also seen it stated that in the US all model year 2002 cars (which mine is) have it. I gotta find the actual engine number to know for sure if I f'd up I guess (not that plastic is the end of the world, just another pain in the bum I thought I'd avoided). Is there any way of getting the engine # from the diagnostic port (out of intellectual curiosity at this point as much as anything else)?
Welcome throwback ..good idea to put where you live in your details so we know to talk in $ or £ and C or F.
When photographing cars always turn the front wheels towards the camera it makes the car look more powerful.
HAND
Last edited by Pistnbroke; 07-11-2022 at 01:39 AM.
Thank you; the cutoff date for that i've seen referenced is august 13 2001 for engine build dates, but I've also seen it stated that in the US all model year 2002 cars (which mine is) have it. I gotta find the actual engine number to know for sure if I f'd up I guess (not that plastic is the end of the world, just another pain in the bum I thought I'd avoided). Is there any way of getting the engine # from the diagnostic port (out of intellectual curiosity at this point as much as anything else)?
The information I found pinpointed tensioner change to mid July in 2002 strictly using vin number. Production dates seem to be all over the place. Vin is specific.
Received wisdom is that the changeover date is August 13, 2001 - i.e. engine # 010813 00:01 onward.
The MY2002 introduction was in July of 2001. As engines must of necessity be built some time before the car is assembled, VIN isn't a reliable indicator.
Member zray has a MY2002 that suffered failed tensioners (or they had been replaced).
100% certainty requires either documentary proof of replacement, or a look under the cam cover(s).
As I do not yet want to move 3 other cars to put it up on stands right now... I think i will have another go at finding that engine # using my borescope. I realise I was looking on the wrong side of the block last time.
Welcome to the forum. Great color. Another much simpler solution to the hydraulic hose issue is disconnect them and convert to manual latch lock/unlock using an allen wrench. Member Gus also has a pressure regulator. If I understand correctly, it reduces overall pressure thru the whole close sequence and to very little as the top approaches being fully closed. Hopefully I got that right. It's on my list of things to do. The forum is a great source of information on these cars and there are some very talented people in here.
07-08-2022, 04:51 PM
My first Jaguar, my first post
