Has anyone come up with an inexpensive 'nose job' that I can use to protect the now heavily scuffed (by previous owner, honest) under the front bumper. After I make the repairs and repaint, if I can't find something suitable off the shelf, I envision something in black UHMW poly about 2" x 1/4" thick or less, preferably segmented (although I can DI,Y if necessary), and applied in, say, 6, 8, or 10" lengths (for replacement purposes, should I ever be guilty of driving across a curb gully) from wheel arch to wheel arch, and using countersunk screws to hold the strips in place. That's the general idea, but I would love to hear other solutions!

 

Your lucky you are not in Los Angeles. The streets are intended to be the "storm drain" system so there are often deep troughs at street intersections or at driveways leading to streets. As **** as I am I have found it impossible to avoid scuffing up the underside of the front bumper. I have also thought it would be worth applying some sacrificial robust self-stick strip of metal or something to deal with the scuffs.

Doug

 

I am not even sure what mine should look like; it appears to have been removed partially by force and finished with a sawzall, by the previous owner. I had planned on using garden edging, the black vinyl type?, to replace what should be there, secured with plastic rivets into pre-drilled holes. I wish I knew what it should look like, people are not in the habit of photographing the underside of the vehicle, but I imagine it is a sort of air damn as well and I will follow the shape of the saw cut to replace mine.

 

The way the UK Pound is to the US Dollar at the moment, might be worth buying a new complete undertray :
Front bumper undertray for Jaguar XK8. HJE6484AB | eBay

 

Were you talking about the undertray (valence) or the bumper itself? The undertray will do nothing to protect against scuffing up the underside of the bumper.

Doug

 

Doug.
Not contradicting, but the part in my link is under the front bumper, so must give some degree of protection.

 

I see the P.O. was quite fond of dragging people around under the front of her car (at the time), and all they had to hold onto was that undertray, as it is seriously grounded away to the point that the circles at the side are no longer circular. Before seeing a decent picture, not a drawing of the undertray, Thanks David, I had thought that 'rubber' piece was a lot longer and directed air flow up through the front bottom of the nose into the heat exchangers. Is there any type of hose that is intended to be connected to those front 'Oval' openings on either end, to direct airflow to the engine bay?

 

No - nothing as sophisticated as that ... just half a dozen or so plastic rivets hold it to the "nosecone".

 

The year of mine (2005) and I believe also Atlastajag has the deepened nosecone. The undertray is set back somewhat from the front of the bumper leaving the section immediately below the lower opening vulnerable. It is this very front underside of the bumper that get scuffed and scraped up in my car.

Doug

 

Sorry - hadn't appreciated the different design for the "younger" cars !

 

Scuffing isn't inevitable. It depends on how you drive and the roads you drive on. Do you think you'll be scuffing it again after you repaint. If not, can you just fill it and/or smooth it out as may be needed when you repaint?

BTW, when I had my silver 99XK repainted a few months ago I asked to have a small amount of metallic added. Unfortunately, they didn't account for the light absorption by the particles and the final job was ever so slightly darker than the original. Not a big deal, but if you look closely, the body is slightly different from the wheels now as they weren't repainted. Just something to be aware of.

Jay
99XK8 Coupe

 

OK, first, the comment about the different radiator opening arrangement on the 2005 XK8 is correct, but it goes even farther than that: at a recent show I got to looking at a 2003 that was parked next to mine, and the road clearance was much less on mine - more than an inch by hand measurement anyway - so the 2005 lower radiator opening wasn't just a rearrangement of the area available on the 2004. For a while, I pondered about my 19" Atlas wheels versus the '03's standard, but then it seemed that the axle height would be maintained by the reduced sidewall height of my tires. Anyway, after filling and repainting, I am going for thin rubber rectangles (for individual replacement) held on with 3M DS tape; thin because any significant thickness will reduce the height still more.

 

Take a look at Rhino lip or just google universal front splitter. They are a small tape-on bit of rubber, should do the trick nicely

 

Thanks for thinking about the problem. I have considered the various 'lip splitting' rubber sponge profiles, but given that the area between the lower edge of the bottom radiator opening and the beginning of the engine cladding looks like a war zone, anything put under there would have to be regarded as entirely sacrificial, and that lip material isn't exactly cheap. More to the point, it would project below the 'strike zone' and reduce the already minimal clearance significantly. I am thinking that something less than about 6 mm or 1/4" would be the max thickness of a suitable 'wear strip'. The notion of small sections of, say, 100 mm or 4" was to make the inevitable strip damage easily repairable.
It has been previously commented that this sort of damage depends on the driving as well as the roads. However, I have not yet encountered a problem on the open road; this has to do with aggressive US rain channeling road edges that have to be crossed diagonally to avoid damage. Hitting the kerbing / curbing used as a stop in parking lots is a skill the driver can soon acquire. In my 2005, I may be able to reduce the number of hits but I doubt I can prevent them all.

 

The street drainage channels in LA are horrible. When I first met the previous owner to buy the car, he warned repeatedly at how low it was and that you needed to drive on a sharp bias when encountering any dips/channels/transitions from driveway to street, etc. At the time I owned a 1995 Corvette which certainly was much lower, overall, than the 2005 XKR so I kind of scoffed at this. I rarely had scuffing problems with the Corvette and, moreover, there were little steel skids that extended below the underside of the front nose for added protection. Of course on my first test drive of the Jaguar I did not leave the guy's driveway at a sharp enough angle and embarrassingly had minor contact with the street and apologized.

The thing is that the car itself is not that low (compared with the Corvette) but the front nosepiece (on the 2005/2006) is extremely deep, and without any protection such as the skids I had on the Corvette. Hence the problem.

If I drive in such a way as to to try and avoid scuffing, I become a motoring hazard and frankly must look nuts to other drivers. I virtually have to slow to a crawl and approach any dip at a sharp angle. Not a very practical way to drive in LA.

Doug