Hi Guys, The other day I treated myself to the digital versions of Jaguar World monthly subscription. While checking out I picked up a couple of older issues and the "Jaguar XK8 A Modern Sporting Icon" book.

This book has very detailed instructions for many tasks, though based on what I've read in our FAQ / Instructions they seem to complicate the jobs a bit more than expected. Something did catch my eye that I want to run by you. They discussed the longevity/reliability of the rear open differential and pretty much said that if you turn Trac Off to off (led lit) it will cause much higher stress on the differential. They indicated that this "may" lead to some premature failures.

I wanted to check in with you. How true is this in your opinion? I like to turn it off once in a while, if for nothing more than the best acceleration when making a left turn to cross oncoming traffic. Hey let's face it, it's pretty fun to see how hard you can take certain corners before the tires just start to slip a bit too. Anyway I'm sure I am preaching to the choir with that, but the last thing I need is a differential problem so I wanted to run this by you. When it's off and you give it 90% or more gas there will be wheel spin, especially if you are turning.

I"m all too familiar with the phrase "if you play you pay", but In your opinion are they just being conservative and very cautious about the wear and tear inflicted by turning it off? Please let me know what you think, thanks.

 

The XK suspension is prone to something like wheel hop when a tire is spinning (I have experienced this). This sets up banging kind of shocks to the driveline which is bad for u-joints, bearings and everything else. As I understand it, the diff failure mode is usually to break teath off of the pinion gear.

Turning off the traction control off lets this happen more readily but you can easily feel when these things are going on so IMO, it is carelessness and abuse that break things, not necessarily turning off the traction control.

 

Charlie, That makes sense, thanks.