X308 secondary tensioners

[realmusic21d387]

Hi guys, is there a list of vehicles that have had the secondary timing chain tensioners replaced.
My xj8 has done 54k miles but no record in the service history if the work has been done.
I didn't know of Jaguar kept a record of which vehicles had been done.
Thanks,
Ivor

[BrianG]

The short answer is 'no'. Jaguar do keep a database of essential service actions carried out on individual vehicles and to contact owners of any essential safety upgrades. The database is usually accessed by main dealers to check on a particular car when it is in for service, where they will check its history to see that all the service actions are up to date. Changing tensioners, or even the dreaded Nikasil bore wear failure, would not be considered as cause for a required service action (or even a recall action) unless failure happened during the factory warranty period. Note that even rebuilt engines replaced under warranty for Nikasil problems were still supplied with the original type of tensioners.

For cars that did not have an engine failure under warranty, changing the tensioners would very much be down to a knowledgeable owner to get this work done, either by a Jaguar dealer, or by an independent dealer as I had done. Jaguar dealers can usually see all a car's service records carried out by other main dealers; dealer changed tensioners would therefore be visible for a particular car, but not if this work was performed by an independent garage.

Unfortunately, if you have no supporting documents or receipts to show that this work had been done on your car, the only sure way to find out is to lift one of the cam covers and see what you have. You need the latest metal-bodied tensioners. If you need to change them don't forget that the lower primary chain tensioners, while less of a problem, should be changed as well.