DIY Servicing:
Jaguar X-TYPE 2.5 petrol
Rob Hawkins finds out how North Wales Jag Centre services the bargain-priced Jaguar and why many of its common problems are uneconomical to fix.
Many all-wheel-drive Jaguar X-TYPES are firmly in the bargain basement of saloon cars. For less than £1000, you can buy a four-wheel-drive executive saloon with a V6 engine. Any similar specification from the likes of Audi and BMW will be much more expensive.
Sadly, these bargains have a multitude of problems. Perhaps the biggest killer of any X-TYPE is corrosion of the sills. The sill covers may be able to hide most of the damage when you’re looking from the outside, but peer underneath and you’ll be able to see their true condition. And if you dare to remove a sill cover, not only should you be prepared to find corrosion, but also to replace all the fittings, which usually break.
The corrosion doesn’t stop at the sills. The rear lower suspension arms can rot – particularly spring pans, which have been known to crumble, resulting in the base of the coil spring pushing through.
Fluid leaks are another major headache, ranging from the engine coolant (luckily it’s pink, so easy to spot) to the power steering fluid. Some are economical to fix, but anything connected to the transfer box usually means hours of hard labour.
If the engine oil sump is leaking, the sensible solution is to remove it, clean the mating surfaces and refit it with a new gasket. On the AWD X-TYPE, removal of the sump pan requires the transfer box to be detached, which adds another five hours to the job. The transfer box can also leak and, if you are willing to live with this, then it is sensible to check the level of oil inside it and top it up. Trouble is there’s no access to the filler plug. Instead, as Matt Norbury of North Wales Jag Centre has discovered, it is possible to force oil through the more accessible drain plug. The transfer box should hold half-a-litre, so Matt forces 550ml into it in the knowledge that 10% will be lost down his arms and into a drip tray!
The majority of the service jobs are straightforward to conduct, the only exception being the renewal of the spark plugs, which involves removal of the inlet manifold, but luckily the plugs should last for 100,000 miles.
We last covered a service of the allwheel-drive X-TYPE in 2009 and also ran a front-wheel-drive project car in 2015, so the theme of this DIY Servicing focuses on the typical problems that can arise and, in some cases, how to live with them.