Hi,

Although I had signed up some time ago, this is my first post. I am currently in the market for an older XJ8/R or XK8/R as I had an accident involving a deer in which my last car, a Mercury Marauder, was totaled.

Anyway, I am a do-it-youself kind of person and have always admired Jaguars. I have read a few threads and have a decent idea of what to stay away from but I wanted to get some opinions on cars fitted with the 4.0 V8 from the 2002 model year. I know that 03's seem to be safe--as far as cam tensioners are concerned--but I can't figure out when Jag rendered the problem. I see a few good deals on 02 and older models but I am reluctant to pull the trigger because of this.

Any insight would be great.

Regards,
Matt

 

Welcome to the forum redmerc04,

Good to have you with us.
Head on over to the tech sections and ask, but IMHO you should check any 4.0 engine for the tensioners unless you have cast iron documentation that they have been done.
Enjoy the site.

If you haven't already done so you should add your car details to your signature to help others to help you.

 

Welcome to the forum Matt,

The tensioner issue was only resolved for certain in the 4.2 litre engine with steel tensioners.

Many earlier 4.0 litre models have been retrofitted with later tensioners but only a small proportion of these with the latest 4.2 litre steel ones.

I wouldn't believe it without an invoice and photographs! Use this as a bargaining chip to drive the price down.

Good luck.

Graham

 

Thanks for the warm welcome and the advice guys! I certainly will conduct some more research into the timing chain tensioner issue. I always was under the impression that 2003 XJ8/R's would have steel tensioners because Jaguar rendered the issue that same year with the introduction of the 4.2 in the XK line. Looks like I have to do some more research!

I guess that I should mention that I am located just outside of New York City, and that I am looking for a car that is within a day's driving distance.


I don't exactly have a car to add to my signature as the one I have is totaled. However, it was an 04 Mercury Marauder, dark red, with a full exhaust (cobra manifolds, X pipe, and Flowmasters), 4.10 gears, tune, K&N CAI, underdrive pulleys and many other bolt on mods.

 

Hello Matt,

welcome to the forum!

I own a 2002 Daimler V8 and luckily I'm able to answer your question.

The chain tensioner issue has been fixed in all V8 engines produced from August, 13th 2001 onwards. From this date on the metal chain tensioners have been built in. All cars produced in 2002 and later should be safe. The engine in my Daimler for example has been built in January 2002 while the car was delivered to its first owner in February 2002.

It's quite easy to determine when an engine was built. The engine number represents the date and time of its assembly. The format of the engine number goes

ABYYYYMMDDHHMM

The first two characters (which have no specific meaning, as far as I know) are followed by the production year, then month, then day, then hour and last, the minute.

The engine number can be found on the engine itself or hopefully on the first inner page of the guarantee and service booklet.

 

P.S.:

I found the infos I provided in two German Jaguar forums.

 

This is great information! It will certainly assist me in my search. Thank you!

 

To exemplify, here's a photo of the engine number of my Daimler written into the guarantee and service booklet.

 

Hey welcome aboard....... good to have you here with us here at Jaguarforums


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