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I have a high mileage, 2006 registered STR which has been giving me a great deal of enjoyment over the past 12 months. If you have read my previous thread, you will know that I have been replacing the cooling system hoses as a precautionary measure. Some of them have been put off due to how tricky they are to get to but I thought I had managed to identify most of the part numbers required. My latest issue with the car caused some (initially) puzzling symptoms and revealed a potential issue with the Jaguar electronic parts catalogue. I am posting this in the hope that it might help out other owners. About a month ago my wife called me at work to say that she had a problem with the car, luckily it had happened very close to home so she had been able to park it outside the house. The steering had become very heavy, initially worse when turning the wheel to the right and there was a cloud of 'smoke' from under the bonnet ! She had opened the bonnet and nothing was on fire (!) but she said there was what appeared to oil on the underside of the bonnet and all over the engine covers. All sorts of nasty possibilities ran through my mind and I spent an anxious few hours before I could finish work. It was going dark by the time I got home so could only take a quick look which didn't reveal anything obvious, I decided to risk starting the engine just to put my mind at rest that it had not decided to throw a rod ! It started up straight away and ran smoothly, I quickly tried turning the wheel and discovered it was now very hard to turn in either direction. Sue was able to drive the Impreza (under protest !) so at least she was mobile, which meant that I could look at the problem on my next day off. On closer inspection, I discovered that a cooling pipe that runs from the thermostat housing, along the back of the radiator and to the supercharger coolant pump had come un-clipped (it fastens onto the plastic fan shroud with one metal spring clip) This had led to it springing 'backwards' under tension and encountering the power steering belt ! The belt had them attempted to cut the pipe in half, the coolant then soaked the belt and caused it to slip and which then meant that it came to a virtual halt and stopped the power steering operating. Now the fun really started ! I didn't have the time or the inclination to start 'kerbside mechanicing' it myself, the hose looked a pain to get at. Couldn't drive the car so needed to get it recovered to either Kendal (my current Jaguar dealership) or Bolton (my previous Jaguar employers) Luckily our Jaguar Master Technician has a proper twin axle trailer and a nice Range Rover to pull it (the 'vans with windows' do have some uses after all !) We are currently in the midst of building our new showroom so space is really tight at work, not really an option to leave it on site for any length of time to further complicate matters. It gets worse ! Tried to find the correct part on SNG Barratts website, nothing remotely resembling it anywhere, tried cooling, engine and any other section that might possibly show the hose without any success. Not a problem I thought, the parts guys at work will no doubt find it in a jiffy ? Unfortunately, not so ! They had exactly the same problem as me, it seems that 2006 STR's use a different thermostat housing to earlier ones and have the downward facing outlet as shown on my pictures. At this point I decided to do a bit of lateral thinking, the supercharged 4.2 was used in the XJR until 2009, two years after the STR ceased production. Back onto SNG Barratts website to study the XJ parts catalogue still no joy ! I eventually located the part number, C2C2469, showing as an X350 air con hose ! Possibly I am thick and everyone else has already found this part number but it came as a great relief when it arrived and was the elusive coolant hose. The big cat is now back on the road, marital harmony is restored, the Impreza is sat sulking on the drive and all is well with the world ! Happy days. Hope the part number helps someone out ?

I love the STR to bits so just keep sorting out whatever goes wrong !

Hi Jon Yes that hose looks different to mine, 2004, mine uses a standard tension hose clip looks like they updated them to a push fit one and retaining clip I tried make a list of all the hoses on my 2004 STR and it took me ages find all the part numbers I wist they did a kit with a full hose set for them, or even better a silicone hose set, that would be great fit and forget next year I going to replace the valley pipe on mine, it had one a few years ago, so should be ok for a while when i change the valley pipe, I going to go with Evans waterless coolant, I use it in my other car and dirt bikes and its brill it never boils over, it lasts for years and years and there no pressure, you can take the expansion cap off while the fans are running, nothing happens, no water no pressure cheers Joe