One of the main points of the redesign was indeed suspension & handling. I'm surprised you didn't know.

 

Zane,

It looks to me like a ton of stuff has to be removed in the engine bay just to get to those front upper wishbone arm bolts in order to remove them, pull the old arms, and install the new arms. I cannot run my JTIS CD on either my new (May 2016) Windows 10 desktop or my wife's Windows 8.1 laptop. Do you remember how much of the engine bay you had to disassemble to install the new arms on your 2005 car? I must say that I am not looking forward to this job....

 

Well, an amusing but ill informed post. The dynamics of the early S-Type were saloon car precise, not what was expected from a Jag, which is understandable as the platform was shared with the Lincoln LS and the Thunderbird. I bought a new 2001 S-Type and can attest to the poor handling, which by the way was a major complaint at the time. Jag addressed that with the 2003 redesign ...


"Dynamics is another key area for improvement. The front suspension is an all-new design, although retains the double-wishbone layout. It has new geometry and the aforementioned aluminum control arms. Rear suspension is refined and mounted on stiffer subframe for better geometry control in hard cornering. Body shell is also stiffened by 10%. As a result, the new S-Type rides quieter and smoother, changes direction more eagerly and handles with more agility."




You can put whatever incorrect parts you want on your car, if you are happy with the poor handling performance, that's fine. Just don't suggest other do the same.


That's it for this thread. Use the parts that were designed for your model/year, putting the incorrect parts in critical suspension components is a seriously dumb idea.

 

Jon, from my perspective, the worst bit was pulling the shock/spring assembly. Maybe worst because it was required, but as Jezza may say, "Only just." I think I printed the JTIS on it....I'll look in my files when I get home tonight and see what I can work up for you. From memory, I believe in the engine bay it was cowl and cross-car cowl support and cabin air filter plenum. Some bits on the front of the RHS fenderwell to get the right front one. Air box on the left side - but hey...seems I take that one off for just about any service I do on the 3.0L's ....

If I did print them out....I could snap pics of the pages and post for you...if you are starting right away....if you've got a day or two, I could bring them in and scan them on the fancy printer/fax/magic box and make quicker work of it.

Nope John, with God as my witness, I never heard this. But then my limited bandwidth of attention span for cars I don't own and thus have to maintain was over-run by the numerous failure reports I mentioned above....In all honesty, I couldn't really be bothered by whether or not Gerry would or wouldn't have an 01 due to bump-steer or whatever. So....with that being a main point...did they deliver? or was their result more like that on the coolant reservoir?

 

No rush, Zane. I think I have plenty of time. As I said, I didn't feel any play in the front upper wishbone ball joints when I pushed them around yesterday and the car tracks/handles just as well as it always has with no evidence of uneven tire wear. I'm just doing my research so when the time comes to do this job, I will be as prepared as possible....

Thanks for your kind assistance....

 

They improved it considerably, and also reduced the tyre wear (which was due to the not very good original design).

 

Ouch!!! 'cause it is really poor on the 03 and 05....although it does seem to be markedly improved since fitment of the cheap chinese junk suspension gubbings...03 has 16's the 05 has the 18" Tritons - what a horrid choice in tyre/wheel fitment.

Whew! I thank God each and every day I dodged getting an 02 or prior, stepping in with only a modest, limited knowledge of the breed.

 

You should not be getting tyre wear.

 

Zane,

My 2005 runs 235/50/17 tires on the plain ol' Kronos wheels. I bought the car at just over 18,000 miles in December 2008. The dealer had put a set of 50,000-mile warrantied Hankook Ventus tires on it a week or so before I bought the car. I ran those tires at 32 to 33 psi and got 36,000 miles out of them. I then put a set of 60,000-mile warrantied Dunlop SP Sport Signature tires on it, stayed with 32 to 33 psi, and got 37,500 miles out of them. Now I'm running a set of 70,000-mile warrantied Continental PureContact tires at the same 32 to 33 psi. This set has done only 5,000 miles so we'll see if they do a better job of going the distance (assuming I keep the car that long which may be unlikely)....

 

Another ill informed post. The reference to bump steer was as one of the side effect of too much positive castor. Just like you have by installing the wrong upper A arms. Also the KPA is changed by using the 2000 A arm profile but you clearly have no interest in technical stuff, so we will pass that one eh.
The 2001 I owned from 2001 to 2006 was a reliable ride. The steering and suspension dynamics were marginal at the limits and it ate tires. Apart from that I never had any issues in 120K miles.
See the measurements and profile of the correct 2003 - 2006 A Arm. Perhaps you could post the measurements and profile of the early A arm.

 

Here you go, Jon. I was able to print them to pdf. I'm running JTIS on Win10, not really sure what I did, if anything to make it work....best I remember I had it loaded on this computer back when it was running VIsta and it just stayed there, and still works on whatever replaced Vista which was then replaced by Windows 10. Anyway, my version only covers S-type up through 2004, so these are the 2003 instructions. I don't recall any differences except the 05 has the shock-covers cost-reduced (not fitted) and seems like there may be some slight difference in the fitment of the cross-car-cowl support. I'm sure you'll sort it out, whatever small differences there are.

Let me know if you need the cabin-filter plenum removal procedures. I know they are in there somewhere, as I found printed versions in my files...but this evening I didn't run across them in JTIS. Just a collection of M6 wshrhd nuts, as I recall - 1/4" drive with an M8 socket and a collection of extensions and either wobbles or a universal will set you right. May want to have a magnet handy for when you drop a nut....there are crevices under there much much smaller than your hands...

 

OK, I'll stop whining then.....The 03 logged about 47k on a set of 225-60R16 Michelin Primacy's (60K tire, I believe) and would've probably squeezed another 10K out of them had the car been remaining local and under watchful eye...but it was departing for the Mississippi Delta for awhile so I moved the 215-60R16 Michelin Premiers over from my XJ as the proper load range for it was at that point, available and why fit new tires just to have the edges chewed up, anyway?

A lot of my prior maintenance records were mistakenly stored on @clintonemail.com server and subsequently destroyed by hammer and bleachbit. But I recall running 245/40R-18 Michelin Pilot Sport on the 05 - I think two separate sets...both succumbed prematurely to inner-edge wear. During that period I replaced 2 wheels on separate occasions due to cracks at the inner bead letting the air out. So in the latest fitment, about 18k miles ago, I stepped down from the Michelin and fit a Nitto Motivo with a bit more sidewall in a 225/45R18. In the ensuing 18k miles, I've had 2 replaced due to impact blisters, one at a time, then 2 more recently with deep cuts to the inner sidewall made by the wheels as they were being well-bent! I have no idea what the woman hit, but she surely gave it a good lick! On the bright side, I finally found a local source for wheel repair and will eventually uncover the two busted ones out in the shop and have them refurbished, as well. They were very visibly bent at the inner bead, and for $125 ea, they were picked up, straightened, trued, refinished, and the new tires remounted and balanced, then returned. Beats the $250 I spent obtaining each replacement wheel from eBay a few years ago. Anyway, I think the Pilots were 40K mi tires and I guess I got close to that out of at least one set of them.

 

Glad to hear that your wheel repair efforts were successful, Zane. I've yet to have to do that for any of our past or current vehicles but know that there will eventually come a time to do so, most likely on my wife's 19-inch XK8 drug-dealer Atlas chrome wheels that I hate so much. She's pretty good at avoiding potholes when she can see 'em....

And thanks much for the JTIS instructions on how to get at those wishbone arms. That information will certainly come in handy when I decide this very unpleasant job (from my perspective, anyway) must be done....

My wife is much better with computer programs than I am, but neither one of us has been able to get JTIS to run on my new Windows 10 desktop. That's a real disadvantage whenever I have to tackle a fix on these cars that I've never done before....

 

Ha, glad you got a chuckle from it. Agreed it starts from an ill-informed premise which is obliquely admitted in the subject post itself, then explicitly stated in my response to John. I neither knew of, nor cared about handling concerns of the pre-redesign S-Types, for reasons that, if not already obvious, surely will be shortly...On the other hand, I submit had Jaguar addressed the reliability/durability issues mentioned therein even half as successfully as they apparently did the handling issues...and I'll dare say had they fumbled the handling issues as badly, the S-Type would've been a far more successful model as measured in sales #'s and resale value. Not at all true, this time. Instead, that ignorance you detected whilst reading it was your own, as the intended meaning passed over your head at the speed of heat. Here, I've the help of a couple of lovely young ladies to boil off the subtlety and distill it to my true meaning regarding the Pre-redesign S-type, it's characteristics, and it's front upper A-arms, as well as your diatribe regarding the end-effects of fitting same to a 2003 and subsequent car:

carefully chosen to demonstrate my acute disinterest in your baseless and uninformed opinion of what is fitted to my cars and what handling results redound to such fitments Regarding the above, I believe you said it about as well as it could be said:The A-arms I fit were accompanied by the following marketing literature:
Fitment: Jaguar S Type 03-08
Jaguar XF 09-12
Jaguar XFR 10-12
Meets or Exceeds OE Specifications
1 Year Unlimited Warranty

The results? Until now, I've hesitated to hold forth out of respect for those who may've spent 4X as much or more to fit the OEM arms. I simply didn't want to embarrass them, or needlessly saddle them with buyer's remorse, but the painful truth is, for less $ anyone could experience, "an S-Type that rides quieter and smoother, changes direction more eagerly and handles with more agility, with an unexpected bonus of a boost in fuel economy of just north of 10%"

Why?What?How? As previously stated, I have never owned the pre-2003 car, I have never owned nor possessed A-arms for the pre-2003 car, nor have I any interest in obtaining, measuring, or discussing same. The MY2003 predecessor is essentially an entirely different car that looks identical on the exterior and shares many of the same durability weaknesses. I don't know much about the model and tend to shy away from discussions of it. However, when I come across some hapless poster that no one has bothered to answer whom I can see is headed down the wrong track, I'm not averse to giving him(or her) a slight bump-steer back on the right track; to wit, I noticed this one still unmolested after 3 days' time: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...7/#post1522904
So I offered a gentle correction: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...7/#post1525150
Perhaps you could get in touch with that OP, who clearly had possession of the pre-redesign arms and took some measurements? If so, while you have him(or her) engaged, please scold him(or her) sharply about the sins of fitting sub-$50 A-arms, aka "cheap Chinese junk!"

Now that we've cleared up that these A-arms have naught to do with the pre-MY2002.5/03 car, here are some pictures indicating how far the ball joint moves. Let me be clear, that the camber distance is identical between the arm removed and the one that replaced it. It only moves longitudinally - caster is the only parameter affected. I stated earlier that it moved aft. That was my best recollection at the time. Now, on reflection, I am really not sure. Could be it moved forward. We could tell from the photos, maybe some of you still can - it is easy enough to tell which is new and which has just been removed from the car - but I don't remember which side is which in the pics. Sorry! I do recall measuring each side, and as can be seen, one ball joint moved near as makes no difference 3/4" while the other migrated nearly a full 1".
The method utilized was somewhat crude, yet suitable for satisfaction of curiosity, which is all I was really doing at the time. I had an aluminum tube lying about that fit snugly in the bushing ID. I inserted it through both bushes, flush with a particular one:

then used a carpenter's square and sharpie to mark where the center of the ball joint fell along the pivot axis:

 

Not true, I'd say. The #'s and resale value are all to do with the long-term perceptions of Jaguar. (Besides, no-one knows the actuality of S-Types till say 10 years after they're in use - and it looks good. It'll take at least another 10 years for perceptions to shift much, for such is the way people are. We here get/got bargains as a result.)

 

These cars are "bargains" only for a period of time which admittedly varies depending upon how many of the known design flaws are properly addressed and how consistently the car is maintained. As with any car driven regularly (especially in salted-road conditions), there eventually comes a time when it becomes fiscally unsupportable to continue repairing an aging dinosaur. Most of us long-time members of this forum are not there yet but that day will eventually arrive for all of us. The plastics and electronics will see to that....

 

I don't know any affordable car where that's not true (about being a bargain) - do you? Let me know as I need to get one!

 

Perhaps you are correct, John. Perhaps I am, perhaps neither of us. Differing opinions make the board interesting and fun. I would appeal to the 2002.5/03 redesign as a case-study. It seems they corrected some ride/handling issues that some (one, anyway) of us were unaware of, but the batting percentage on many of the other known problems was pretty poor. Even so, look at the benefit that has accrued to the redesign car here on the board. No one EVER advises prospective new buyers who post asking advice to check out the early cars. I don't know that it has an appreciably better resale value than it's predecessor, relative to it's lesser age, both are pretty low. However, as you note, that is great for those of us who have learned the issues of the brand and have the facilities, skills, and (however misplaced) courage to dive in and fix it ourselves.
You may well be correct that it wasn't early enough to influence the reputation of the S-type, but by not fixing the suspension durability issues, they've extended that problem to the X350 and XF and beyond (I believe both models use the same A-arms and such) The XF still has a headlight issue...
In the very end, I'm very thankful for Jaguar's shoddy reputation for quality/durability. It makes fantastic motorcars quite affordable. I'm less excited about the future, as I don't fancy as much DIY as these require to drive an elegant-looking Honda. So Jon's warning on plastic-degradation is troubling, though I have a greater fear the demise of the magnesium alloy parts will spell the ultimate death of the cars. Having obtained many of mine for less than 10% of the original (new) purchase price, and none for over 40% of it, I am thankful there are people out there who buy them new, which keeps the brand alive.....but at the same time, who forfeits such a prodigious sum to early/initial depreciation.

 

So get a Honda. I can't think of a good looking one I'd want to own, though.

 

That's the problem! the new Jags, save the F-type, all look like Honda's...elegant Hondas, but Hondas nonetheless....the dilemma I'll face when my X300's play out....is that no one has produced anything I'd care to have since 2003...so the pickin's may be slim indeed.