The engines in these are not run anywhere near their potential. They are held back by ECM programming. The same is true of the 5.0 liter in the XFR, 500 is where they wanted it, not what it is capable of.

 

Your service manger did not impress you because he does not know anything!!! He was not the best mechanic in the shop that got promoted to service manager. He is clueless on automobiles. That's why the independent guy was/is so much better. Now if you had talked to a Jaguar mechanic the difference would be very obvious!!! Just look at the depth of detailed knowledge the techs on this board give out daily.

Real_Tech; I think this too. It’s a shame we don’t have enough production numbers to get some aftermarket tuners in the Jaguar ECM tuning business. I have found several who will provide a tune but the cost is $1000 or more and no dyno information before and after? I don’t like the black box-no info type stuff!!! At least for that kind of money!
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Pete: Try a different dealer... tbird6 is right to a point. The service manager that I deal with knows a bit about the cars, enough to talk about common issues. Also, he respects that I wish to do most of the work on my car myself. When I ask about something he doesn't know about, we go talk to the techs together. This dealer has been one of the best I've ever dealt with, the other was a Honda dealer. They are out there, it just takes some time to find them. I think you'll enjoy an S if you decide to go that way. If you find a dealer you like, check into their certified pre-owned cars. That's the way I went, got a good deal, and will buy another car from these guys in the future.

 

No doubt! You pay $1000 or more for a "tuned" ECM but get no numbers to back it up. I have found the best bang for the buck to be a simple pulley swap with no other mods. Cheap, easy and there are many on the road with no problems after 50k plus miles. I have run stock next to pulleyed? many times and it's at least a few car lengths/1/4 mile. Now an all out assault would take a little more planning!!! The 500 cut off on the XFR is supposedly due to the limit of the trans. Strange, there appear to be some M.B.s with the same trans but more HP.

 

Hello, New Member - I have a 2003 STR and would like to know where you found the info on the foldown rear seat as I think mine should have that too and I also can't find the release.
As you are in Toronto, I could give you the name of a transmission shop to take your Cat to have her inspected. The shop I have in mind does all the rebuilds for Jaguar and seem to have a great deal of moxy about these cars. They gave ours a clean bill of health before we bought it, but with some cautions and things to watch out for. 20,000 klms later things are still going well.

 

Thanks everyone, hadn't looked in here for a day...
I talked to another service tech today, who was far more helpful. Yes, I kind of realize the service manager, may be a good manager (ie run up lots of sales in service) but doesn't mean he can turn wrenches on a busy day.....
The Transmission upgrade software was loaded, and he took it out to initiate the learn procedure.
I am taking the car to a shop in Etobicoke for an objective look, and see under it for myself tomorrow or Thursday.
I am pretty confident all will be fine and will be proceeding.
Seat release - I found a thread on this in this forum somewhere with pictures, if you pull away the felt panels you should be able to find them, especially if maybe you look at another S Type and follow them to the release, then start from there in your R type.
I am in Etobicoke, there is a specialist nearby.
Pete

 

Thanks - soon as the weather warms up (we have no garage for our lady) I'll take a good look for that release. It was easy enough to locate in the regular S Types we looked at.
Our Cat resides in Cambridge and we make the trek to Thornhill to have her looked after. We get the feeling that our Kitchener dealership isn't even interested in talking to us because our car is so old and the "hello" light went off in our heads when the service manager sold us the wrong replacement bulb for our Bi Zenon Headlights.
We inheritated a number of problems when we bought this Cat used and are always interested in finding someone to look after her problems for us without necesitating a mortgage on our property just for a diagnosis.
Please keep us updated on how you make out. gr8cat

 

Cambridge? Thornhill? Which country are you even in? Canada like the other guy?

 

That would be Great Britain....

 

They are both just outside Toronto

 

Oh! (Nearly asked which Toronto but thought better of it.)

gr8cat maybe describe your issues here and hope..... but first fill in your details more please

If you're a DIYer, get JTIS and an OBD tool. Plenty of threads about both to look at.

 

[quote=jagv8;172640]Oh! (Nearly asked which Toronto but thought better of it.)

Another Toronto ???? Ohio maybe...
Cambridge is also close to London.......Ontario..lol.

Jagv8 where are you located?

 

Leeds

 

Yes, we sort of are DYIers - hubby does the work and I do the fetching of tools, parts and information. We have the JTIS and various Forums we hunt out which help a great deal. I'm not too computer smart so I sometimes get quite frustrated about the amount of time I have to spend on this machine weeding out information.
What is an OBD tool?
The majority of our problems seem to stem from fuses, maybe. Things like the mirrors not memorizing, and a couple of other glitches. Someone over lubricated the sunroof and left us with a horrible mess on the headlining which won't come off. We've tried carburetor cleaner but don't want to go too far in fear of damaging the adhesive. When spring comes we'll have to see to our bi-Zenon headlamps which seem to be aimed in every direction except the correct one. The heated windshield doesn't work.
Just silly annoying things.
We bought the car with 115,000 klms on it and it has been an absolute dream car so far. We've put about 20,000 klms on it and basically the only repair we've had to make is replacing the driver's power seat module. I think I left something behind the seat that caused that problem.
We're long time Jaguar owners - back to the 150S - so we were prepared for problems - we absolutely love this car - I can't quit smiling the whole time I'm driving it.