My first Jag is an XK8

[Billroot]

I've alays wanted a Jaguar but it's taken early retirement from the corporate world beofre I've bought one. I took a deep breath and bought a 6 year old, 47kmile XK8 from a main dealer. £19,000 with a year's Jaguar warranty. Stunning in metalic green and goes like the wind. Good job I had the warranty - a few months from purchase the ABS warning light came on occaisionally. The dealer diagonsed an infrequent ABS electrical fault and changed the entire ABS unit - total cost to the warranty - £820! I have read that the water pump and timing chain tensioners should be changed on these engines. No sign of this having been done looking at the 'clean' service record. Has anyone got any advice on whether I should get this done before the warraty expires?

[GrandTourer]

Hi Bill, welcome to the forum.
I would definitely recommend to have the waterpump replaced to the latest model, which has come down in price from over a £100 to about £52. The old pump's plastic impellar used to disintegrate with the bits blocking flow path etc. causing rapid overheating. And that can be a very expensive result. The coolant quantity in these cars is, by design, very small thats why they warm up very quickly. The downside of this is that you don't get much of a chance to stop and 'cool it down' when it overheats.
When you get the pump replaced it is always a good idea to change the thermostat, its not vey expensive. The same applies to the two heater pipes who run in the 'V-through' of the engine. Its a few quid extra but better save than sorry.
By the way, my car had done about 70Kmiles at that time.

Let us know how you get on.
Cheers, Karl

[Sharfrs2]

Welcome Bill. My water pump failed after 65,000miles. I was fortunate in that the whole impellor came off the spindle and didn't break up and i was able to stop very quickly.

As for the timing chains, GET THEM DONE, as even the second generation fail. Had all the tensioners/chains and guides replaced with 4.2ltr spec items for £1100 at a main dealer.

[Billroot]

Thanks for the advice. The issue for me is that my car has a Jaguar used car warranty till July next year. If the water pump or even the timing chain tensioners give up before this, I'm pretty sure I'm covered. Shelling out up to £1000+ to have the work done just in case doesn't appeal much. In any case I'm wondering just how common water pump and timing chain issues are on these engines. Is premature failure a certainty?, if its say 1 in 10 then I can see the point of getting the work done as a precaution, If its 1 in 100 I might well take the risk.... Is there any way of checking to see whether the work has already been done? There are no entries in the Service Record other than services. When the Dealer replaced the ABS unit recently he did not record it in the service record either so I guess this must be common (non) practice. Views and advice appreciated.

[mike020150]

As long as you're confident about the warranty, not changing the secondary tensioners and pump makes sense. However, failures are quite common. No doubt Jaguar knows how common (during the warranty period) but would be distinctly unwilling to real said information! If you want to sleep soundly, the best advice is to start saving for next July. There is no guarantee these components will fail but when they do, in many cases the bills are very expensive (we talking thousands here - from £2k to £7k). Prevention is always better than a cure. Mike.

[Billroot]

On water pumps, I've just read Bob Bate's article in the lastest issue of the magazine. As I read it, the only XK8s that need precautionary pump replacement are thoose up to VIN 028000. As mine is A03410 I seem to be OK. However I've found the Assessment part of the article a little obscure (at least the quote from the Jaguar service bulletin is). Have I got this right?

[XK8UK]

I would budget to definately change the water pump and thermostat regardless of whether you think they may be ok on your model, for the cost of them about £60 for the pump and £18 for the stat plus the anti freeze and an hours work it just isn't worth the chance of leving it mine broke up and the engine overheated though fortunately with no further apparent damage (3years now).
Unfortunately the timing chain tensioners are a catch 22, they also need to be changed but as this is a job that costs a lot more to do (I personally would not do a part job here only have the complete set of primary and secondary chains and tensioners done), around £700 to £1100 depending on who does it, it is a lot to lay out but much less than a replacement engine at over £7000.
So in the words of the well known film 'Do you feel lucky'.

P.

[george100]

hi grand tourer my cars a 2000 xk8 con with 53000 on the clock with full jag sh dont know if tensioners etc have been chaned do i need to do that cheers

[BrianM]

My secondary tensioners went at 56000. Luckily the chain only jumped one cog so the engine was OK. I would definitely have the secondary tensioners and chain replaced as soon as the warranty runs out. Same with water pump and thermostat(did mine at 75000). Why don't you ask the previous owners about work done on the car? You can get their names & addresses from the DVLA(£5) as I did.