The Voices

Resistance is futile !

Hi Russ, how can I stay away ? 'used' Jaguar world is addictive ! They are such good value once they get older and higher mileage. I now think I need a cheap X350 XJ of some kind as well, there is a 200,000 mile XJR on Autotrader at £3250................................................ or a 3.5 V8 SE for £1500..................................................................................... Both look tempting ! My new company car is the XE V6 'S' so living the Jaguar dream at the moment ! I really should get a job with Jaguar..............oh wait................I already did !

At some point, I should do a list of all the part numbers that I have found so far, might help keep another one on the road !

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

I work for an independent Jaguar / Land Rover dealer and we have a company car 'opt out' scheme which works very well. My mileage is 40k pa, so I usually need to change car every three months so that they remain 'saleable' mileage wise. For the previous three months, I was running an F-PACE 2.0d 240ps Portfolio which was a very nice car but saloons are more my cup of tea. The figures stacked up on a new XE 3.0 V6 'S', the 2018 model year has the 380ps engine instead of the 340ps used previously. I figure 'what the heck', for three months I will take the pain of the fuel bill. Went for Caesium blue with jet leather (should have gone for jet / light oyster ?) I know I am biased, having been with Jaguar since 2002, but what a car ! Driving it brings a huge smile to my face every time. The performance and handling are exemplary, I drive a lot of other cars and I have to say it compares favourably with any of the German 'sporting saloons' Mine has the optional 20" alloys, I would probably go for the standard 19"s next time, just to help out with some of the potholed roads I have to drive on. It is no M3 (hopefully an SVR version at some point will sort that out) but in terms of practicality and driveability, it really hits the spot ! I have now covered 3,500 miles in it since early September, best fuel economy was 32.9 mpg on a reasonably sedate 55 mile run (worst was 12.5mpg on a rather less sedate journey !) Averages around 27mpg on my 55 mile 'A' road trip to work. Purrs nicely at low RPM but with a bit of an air of menace, open the taps and it howls ! Just a pity that almost no one knows about it, another of Jaguars best kept secrets. I don't think that they are bad value for money, the customers should be beating down my door !

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 ?

Never existed, photo shop special ? Looks like they used a Mercedes as the base car rather than the XE.

XK SS ?

The Mk 1 XR2 sticks in my mind but like a lot of cars, I think 'rose tinted spectacles' are at work here ! My first 325i was the first 'proper' car that I owned, dolphin grey with sport Recaros and 15" BBS cross spoke alloys, spent most of its life sideways. Went through 4 sets of 'branded' tyres in 60k miles ! The 96' JDM Impreza 5 door was awesome, paid £1k for it and was the fastest £1k I have ever spent. Current STR is one of my favourites, remember selling them new and promised myself one 'one day', everything comes to he who waits. High hopes for the new company car, XE 3.0 V6 'S' 380ps (due September if everything works out)

Just realised, I completely missed three Saabs !

Hmmmm.......... 79' Fiesta 1.1L Opel Kadet 1.3 (Vauxhall Astra MK1) Skoda Estelle 105 (lasted a day, head gasket went) Ford Escort Mk3 1.6 Ford Cortina Estate (for a day,car was breaking in half due to corrosion) Austin Allegro Ford Fiesta 1300 Sport Ford Fiesta 1300 Sport (donor car for the above) Ford Escort MK3 1.6 Ghia Ford Fiesta MK1 XR2 Citroen BX 1.9D Citroen BX 1.4RE Rover 416 GSi BMW E30 325i 2 door BMW E36 325i 4 door Peugeot 306 1.9TD Sedan BMW E30 325i SE 4 door Fiat Croma 2.0 BMW E30 325i SE 2 door Subaru Impreza Turbo wagon Peugeot 306 1.9TD Sedan Subaru Impreza WRX 4 door Rover 220 Coupe BMW E36 325i SE 4 door Subaru Impreza WRX JDM 5 door Subaru Impreza STi Type UK Subaru Impreza STi Type UK 'Widetrack' (current) Jaguar S-TYPE 2.5 V6 Sport auto Jaguar S-TYPE 'R' (current) Probably some that I have missed ! And a Jaguar company car every 3-6 months for the last 15 years !

Correct 'pink' coolant is available from Eurocarparts ready mixed in the correct 50/50 ratio. Usually about £10 for 5 litres when they have a voucher offer running (which is most of the time !) I think the total cooling system capacity is 8 litres but can't promise ! Shouldn't lose all the coolant though if just swapping the header tank.

The 'cigar lighter' type jump starter should be able to start the car or at least power up the electrics so that can get into the boot ? Sounds obvious but make sure the other car is running, you may need to leave it for a few minutes to get a bit of charge back into your battery before attempting to start it. Might be the solution if you are not confident messing about getting a 12v feed to the starter motor or the terminal under the wheel arch ?

As others have mentioned: Possible failed 'o' ring on the bleed screw, failed pressure cap and the plastic 'spigot' pipe next to the bleed screw is also notorious for cracking around the bottom edge ? The coolant on the radiator and sponge looks like it has come from the leak on the expansion tank, also worth looking at the underside of your bonnet for staining to see whether the coolant is coming out under pressure when hot and then dripping back onto the engine ?

Very pretty ! Reminds me that I should consider giving mine it's annual bath !

All S-Types from 2002 onwards had the phone buttons but not necessarily any phone capability. It needs either the Motorola car phone mounted in the centre armrest (not the Startac used in the MK1 S-Type !) or the bluetooth module. If you press the buttons (with the radio switched on) and the display says 'no phone', you don't have bluetooth. The other giveaway is to see if there is a microphone mounted on the drivers side 'A' pillar, it looks like a minature computer mouse !

Not added to this thread in ages ! Had a few things sorted in the meantime. Ordered a replacement 'new old stock' door latch to replace the OSR one that was not working. Andy went to fit it and pointed out that the part number on the box was correct but the part was a NSF door latch ! He lubricated all of the latch mechanisms and check straps and now all of the door lock work as they should. I decided that I would also order replacement coolant hoses to start replacing as many of the original ones as possible due to the deterioration I had seen. This was time consuming as Jaguar have some very strange descriptions for what a hose is called and what it does ! Rear parking sensors were doing strange things so took a chance and ordered some cheap ones from ebay, sold individually at less than £10 each. Whilst Andy had the car for a preliminary look to weigh up how long it would take to fit the new hoses and sensors, we noticed a leak on the gearbox oil cooler pipes. Had to leave the car with him as we decided it was not a good idea to drive it until he investigated further. Not very popular with Sue as she had to drive the Impreza instead, I did get a few 'Brownie points' by letting her use the new F-PACE company car for a couple of days when she had long trips to do (cheers boss !) Ordered the cooler pipes, advised that the part number I had which was C2Z11606 (supersedes XR856184) was only for the NA V8 not the 'R'. Duly ordered the C2Z11607 part number, which I was told was for the supercharger version. Took the parts over on Saturday morning for Andy to fit them, new gearbox sump / filter, sleeve and replacement gearbox oil as well. We got the leaking pipes off to find out that they were not the same shape as the C2Z11607 that I had ordered ! This presented me with a dilemma as the car was now immobile on a main dealers ramp being worked on as a favour from my former employers. Being Saturday of course made it worse, we checked national dealer stock for the 'other' part number, part was in stock at Jaguar but none at dealers. No parts delivery on Sunday so car would be blocking a ramp on Monday morning when the workshop re-opened. Options were to refit the damaged pipes to be able to move the car a short distance or see if the new ones could be persuaded to fit ? The two pipes are only held together by plastic clips so we were able to separate them to make comparisons easier, I should have taken some pictures but I was too stressed to think about it. Luckily, only one of the two pipes appeared to be a different shape, the other one had some different bends where it goes up to the radiator. Andy suggested that it could be a 'modified' design taking a different route around some of the other pipework, subsequent investigations seem to indicate that the part number in question is for the 4.2 SV8 XF. To cut a long story short, we managed to get both pipes into place and clipped back together without any major bending or twisting (I was terrified of creasing or compressing the thin walled aluminium tubing) Gearbox refilled, new sump / filter and sleeve and everybody lives happily ever after. New rear sensors fitted, work fine but have a much shorter range than the originals, only start to bleep when you are quite close. Ran out of time with the coolant hoses so not all of them were fitted, apparently one of them at least is easier with the bumper off ? Still loving every minute, goes like a train !

Adaptive cruise currently shows as a £1,460 option on the XF configurator ? Must be a 'glitch' somewhere if it is showing as a no cost option somewhere.

I now have the 'yellowstuff' front brake pads fitted to match the rears, very impressed by the results. Pedal feel is improved, 'bite' from cold is fine and the car feels to stop better. The replacement intake pipe has arrived as well. Fitted it last week and car feels a bit smoother, may just be my imagination though ! I now have a rear door that sometimes does not unlock however, so need to investigate at some point.

Link below to a set of four replacement 'flush' valves and the adaptor. Dirt cheap compared to the other ones listed. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391636200742?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

That looks grrrrrrrreeeeat ! (pardon the pun)

The majority of X100's will have fallen in bits due to corrosion by then ! Slight exaggeration, but make sure you have a really good look under the car if you still want one in 12 months. I can remember standing under one that was up on a ramp in the workshop and thinking 'that underseal looks really light coloured ?', I pushed it and discovered that it was actually the rubber backing on the carpet behind the drivers seat !

You could always buy the plate and use it as an excuse to buy a nice STR ?

Thanks Russ ! Looks better on my car than the 318i that donated the plate. There are stacks of number plates on the DVLA site that are STR related for not much money. Anything that actually has 'JAG' costs a fortune though. As an example, I thought of S400 GRR as a bit of fun, it is up for £250 including fees !

I work at Kentdale Jaguar in Kendal and live in Nelson near Burnley. Been ironing out a few minor issues before any modifications, now seems to be running sweet. My Impreza is getting neglected as the STR is so much 'easier' to drive.