I just got off the phone with a service rep at Byers in Columbus OH he said that he has never seen an XKR with tensioner failure?: Is he

He's full of it.

I don't take everything dealers say as gospel. When my tensioner went south on my 97 they told me the motor was toast, they would need to order a new motor, they based this without even looking at it.

Some time ago I talked to a Jaguar Tech here in Germany, he told me on early V8s without VVT (that means S/C and 3.2) the upper chain rarely gives a problem.

I changed tensioners on a 2000 XKR a week ago. They were second gen and the bodies were beginning to crack.

Don't Judge him to quickly, early XK8 cars outnumbered the XKRs substantially, so by shear mathematical chance it wouldn’t be unusually he would have never have seen a XKR with an issue (in real life the Rs’s suffered just as bad as the 8’s in %).

You also have to realize here in the US we didn't get an XKR with an AJ26 engine. The first US cars were 2000 model year. So I have to actually agree with him as we never had an XKR come in with broken tensioners.

So if you bought one you wouldn't bother to check it out?

That's really the question here isn't it?

You are asking a different question. I responded to the comment about tensioner issues on an XKR. I have never seen a tensioner failure on an XKR. If it were my own car I would do upper & lower tensioners, water pump, all coolant hoses & a few other things just as preventative maintenance. All of which I have done to my car in addition to many many other proactive repairs. But again to restate my response I never saw a tensioner failure on an XKR.

The JF board has seen failures on 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen. AJ26, AJ27, NA and SC.

That about covers the territiory.

In addition to my previous post, the tech said this from his personal experience.
Which may be just coincidence...
He said the VVT puts more stress on the upper chains.
No doubt the tensioners themselves are as good or bad on S/C or N/A engines.
I would replace 1st or 2nd gen tensioners without question!
Stefan

OldDoc I hear ya, Your not near a good mechanic and not comfortable pulling the valve covers to check. I'm orig from ohio and now NY. It's really super simple pulling valve cover to check and any reasonable mechanic can do it i'd do the passenger side it's the easiest and some here have reused the gasket and seals so there is no cost. the people here are all sharing experience and like it or not the tensioners are a poor design (gen1/2) and will fail whether we like it or not. Some drive many miles without, others not so much and fail (recent post ). The question you have to ask are you willing to absorb the cost of a new motor if they do fail, often the result (yea a plastic piece breaks and my engine goes!) peace of mind goes a long way..hope your decision works for you

One example of not changing the Tensioners:

Paul,
That picture is scary and brings home the reason we all need to replace those plastic tensioners. Thanks for posting it!
Did the engine jump time? Was there internal damage, i.e., valve into piston?
Thanks again,

How many miles RJ?

Miles do not matter it is age and heat on the plastic tensioners.

I don't know. I copied the picture from another source.

Well, I've seen an XKR secondary tensioner failure, and it was on my car! I was fortunate in that the second I started the car and heard the blood curdling noise before the engine even turned over, I shut it down. The fact that the timing chain broke and jammed not allowing it to turn over saved my valves and allowed me to escape catastrophic engine failure. Replaced primary and secondary, all gaskets, the whole shebang. Don't let anyone feed you anymore baloney.

They most definitely do! I did my tensioners at 68k miles and there were big cracks on each. I was on borrowed time. These are great cars, and this is such a fixable issue, it's dumb not to just take care of.

I did mine at 52000 miles, passenger side crumbled in my hand when I removed it. It's not a matter of if it will fail, but when. It's the same tensioner on the XK8 as the XKR.