NIKASIL KNOWLEDGE

Q: I’ve been looking at Jaguar XK8s and heard plenty of talk about ‘the dreaded Nikasil’. What exactly is this? All I know is it’s a bad thing and something to do with a cylinder bore coating.

A: The Nikasil – or Nickasil – was a process which applied a nickel-silicone coating to the cylinder bores of an alloy engine in order to make them hard enough to run without liners. It was widely used by both BMW and Ford/Jaguar but here in the UK the high levels of sulphur in our pump fuels at the time tended to erode the coating. This was compounded with lots of short journeys where the engine never got the chance to warm up. Both BMW and Jaguar replaced many engines under warranty and on the XK8, from engine number 000818-1043 in August 18, 2000, steel liners were used instead which avoid the problem. Most of the original engines were changed under warranty but if you find a car which missed out then it will most likely be fine now since our fuel has less sulphur in it.