Last month purchased a Certified 2017 F type with 12K miles. Thought this was a no brainer, low mileage and an extended warranty in the USA. Drive it home from the dealer and low battery light is on. Take the car to a local dealer and battery is replaced, get home and low battery light is on again. Take the car to another dealer and they find a loose cable, all is good so far. This dealer pulls up service history and finds there has never been an oil change since new. The Certification requires annual oil changes. This was a leased car for 3 years and was never serviced or had a recall notices addressed.
The selling dealer to me did change the oil and attended to recalls just before sale to me. I have driven the car 1000 miles and just changed the oil and sent it out for analysis. Test results show very high Aluminum, Iron and Copper content. Selling dealer will not respond and Jaguar of North America closed my case. I did put $5000. of purchase on a credit card so I have some leverage. On some other forums, the car manufactures will chime in when there are problems, don't know if that is the case here? Not new to Jaguars, my E type owned 50 years and have a 1999 Xk8. To pursue in court makes no financial sense.
Glenn

 

How does your filter look? I'm an oil change fanatic, changing every 2K because oil costs half a tank of gas. But 12,000 miles doesn't sound that bad even to me. Although I changed the oil off schedule, my last new BMW didn't flag the need for the first covered BMW maintenance plan change until 16,000 miles.

You might want to do a double change to flush the oil better - change the oil, drive a 100 miles, change it again - before deciding you have an issue.

You might consider adding something like Amsoil engine flush right before the first change of the double.

After all that maybe send another sample to compare.

 

What concerns me is that this car was used for short trips around Beverly Hills as per data on GPS.
Don't think it ever hit the highway. Filter looked fine but that was after 1000 miles after its only oil change.
Oil was very dirty and analysis was high for metalic content. I assume because of trace amounts of oil left behind.
Will do another oil change soon if oil appears dirty. Engine flush products scare me for use in a close tolerance modern engine.
Glenn

 

First you need to determine if there is a problem. While 12K, 3 years and lots of short trips is highly alarming, the oil might have been adequate not to cause damage. Do a scope, see how much sludge is inside valve covers, intakes. If lots of sludge - you have a cause to ask for remedies. If not, do an engine flush and move on. Your car has probably an equivalent of 50K miles of wear, but it still good for another 100K.

 

Look at the results posted in the oil analysis thread for comparison with yours. Initial change for me showed elevated wear metals but they've stabilized nicely and things look quite good. Maybe run a couple of thousand on your new oil and send another sample?

If the documented criteria for certification were not met, that's something to take up with the dealer and JLR. Not sure of the details or your now-closed case with JLR, but it seems worthwhile to get the inspection report from the certification.

 

If it only had the one change it could still be metal from break-in too. If you vacuum the oil from the nipple under the oil cap it only takes 5 minutes to change and you don't have to mess with the bottom of the car or worry about stripping the drain plug.

 

Also, be sure to fill it to almost the top of the electronic dipstick, since the middle of the OK range is actually a full quart low.

 

If it was driven normally during the 3 year lease, it could have been driven 12,000 miles between changes all three years in a row. I think his car likely has less wear than normal for its age, and is probably not much different than a typical 12K car. I am not one to go 12K miles between changes, but most leased cars probably do.

 

Another thing to consider is that the oil changes may have been performed, but not registered in the Jaguar system. Did you look at the carfax history and see if anything was in there? Maybe it was serviced at a non-jaguar dealer and not logged.

 

Tricky proposition, as you also have to be careful of the dreaded overfill warning. Depending on ambient conditions I've seen my car read overfilled and just above halfway with the same amount of oil in the car.

Seems unlikely since oil changes are included for free at the dealer on 2017 models. They would have been eligible to get it done once a year regardless of mileage, but sounds like they just didn't care because it was a lease.

 

Add a little at a time just like a physical dipstick. Easy to pump a few ounces back out.

Once a year generally equates to 12,000 - 15,000 miles between oil changes, at least here in the States. It's hard to say they don't care when Jag's recommended oil change interval is every 16,000 miles.

IMO manufacturer recommended long oil change intervals and recommended light oil weights are designed to induce wear, minimized included service costs, and to avoid heavy EPA manufacturer fleet mpg fines. They are not to help the customer extend their car's life, just the opposite, really. Imagine the board room horror if most cars lasted twice as long.

 

Or per year. They don't recommend going without an oil change over 12 months even if you don't 15k miles on it in that time.

 

Right. Its still 16K miles between changes, meaning an F-Type could go 16,000 miles between changes three times in a row and be in full compliance with lease requirements. And continue that 16K/year change interval every time and call themselves 100% scheduled maintenance. Point being, 12K miles is not that far out of whack.

There are still brand new 2018s on autotrader that have no in-service date to begin covered annual oil services. They could hit ~3 years and 16K miles and be considered on schedule.

 

Leasing = Don't be gentle, ist a rental

 

My friend serviced his Range Rover lease at the service station right next to our train station in town. Was easier to drop it off there and pick it up at night after getting off the train than going to the dealer 20 minutes away. Not sure whether he had free maintenance, but the convenience was worth the money to him.

 

Please post your oil analysis.

 

Oil degrades with both miles and time. Neglecting your oil change will result in increased internal wear and sludge.

Factory oil fill happens at the factory when the car is manufactured, then car spends time on the container ship, on the dealer lots and is eventually sold. At that point "fresh" oil is anywhere between 3 to 12 month old. In the case of OP's car, someone drove 3 more years on that oil.

So what happens to that oil? It no longer lubricates as well as it should, incurring extra wear. It is more oxidized, it has more contaminants, and as a result it doesn't flow and respond as well to heat. Does it mean that the engine will fail? No. However, it does mean that these low miles were very hard miles, because for the last two years the oil was too old to properly do its job, hence it would have internal wear comparable to much-higher mileage car.

 

Carfax did not show any service records. Engine oil analysis was consistent with not having any oil changes for three years.
Oil changes as per Jaguar are required once a year or 16K miles. Jaguar includes free oil and filter changes for three years.
Jaguar dealership service dept. located very close to lease owner.
Oil analysis results. Aluminum=17 normal=9 Iron=31 normal=18 copper=12 normal=3
Normal would be for an oil change at 16K miles. This analysis was done after 1K miles
Glenn

 

So, yes, the car should have had annual oil changes. However, given the low number of miles on the car (respectively for the age), I doubt there was any serious damage caused by that lack of maintenance. It's definitely a downer that it appears the previous owner didn't treat the car a little better but I don't think you are looking at an engine that going to seize up on you in 30 days.

 

The beauty of a 12K car is there's not enough miles to seriously abuse the factory synthetic. I would like to see more changes, I change oil at least twice as often as most people (every 2K) but I would buy this car in a heartbeat for a couple of reasons:

• Beverly Hills lease (same as my F) implies a more mature sedate driver, even if less conscientious.
• Lower than factory change interval on miles. The calendar change seems self-serving from the oil manufactyrer perspective - I checked the bottles I have and none have a use-by date.
• Our V8/ZF revs a lot lower than most sportscars, so the miles equates to ~half the engine revolutions, maybe a third if comparing to a 9000 red line screamer.
• The analysis is likely still reflecting some break-in metals.