I would like to get service records for the 97 Xk8 that i bought last week. The car fax report shows that the car came from a dealer in GA and has changed title several times between GA, NC, and SC. My thought is that if I can find out where waranty work was done, I can call those dealers and get non-warranty records. If anyone can help, please let me know. I think I am most concerned about the timeing chain tensioners and the cylinder liners as I have read that these can be major issues on this car.

Thanks in advance

 

It's going to be difficult. You can only get information from the dealer that has worked on the car, so you have to know what dealers the car has been to. This also assumes that all work was done at the dealers rather than independent shops. Since your car is a '97 it will have Nikasil liners unless the engine was replaced. Check out the XK8/XKR FAQ that is stickied at the top for more information on blow-by tests and how to tell if your car has a replacement engine.

 

Any dealer can produce a complete warranty work report based on the VIN. It is a little sketchy in that it only reports the primary part number, date, miles. That report has no personal information on it so it should be available if you ask nicely.

Repair orders have personal information of the owner and will not be given out without a release from that owner.

The best way to tell if you have the metal tensioners is to remove one or both of the valve covers and look. Not a difficult job and you need to learn to love your car.

 

I just tried to get my complete history at Jaguar of Omaha and they could only give me the work they did on the car (which I already knew about since the dealer I bought it from had Jaguar of Omaha fix a few things they could not) Maybe it has to do with the age of the car? Or maybe the service guy I talked to didn't know what he was doing (Jaguar shares service desk workers with Mini/BMW/Mercedes Benz/Land Rover at that dealer)

 

Get a carfax report then call the dealers that are listed. They'll tell you what kind and weight of oil they use etc.