Hello

I am a new owner of a 2005 X-Type Wagon, currently has 92,000 miles- overall seems to be in great shape. I am planning to have my mechanic do some remedial Maintenance to ensure it will be a reliable daily driver.

what do you recommend?

my plan was to start with a tune-up, but are there common problem areas that should be looked into right away?

thanks!

 

VTJaguar, you have a rarity car there. Not many estates were made that year. So, enjoy the car. It will be a great cruiser for you.

Ok, for things to do to make sure your car will be as trouble free as possible. You have the right idea in getting the plugs changed. While the mechanic is in there, have him replace the upper and lower intake manifold gaskets. He will have to take apart the upper part of the intake, so, replacing the upper gaskets should be no extra charge other than buying the gaskets ($25 or so at your local auto parts store). The lowers he will need to dig a little deeper into the engine (not much) to do those. So, probably an additional hour of labor and cost of the gaskets (the gaskets are like $30 as I recall). From there, I would say just for piece of mind, have him inspect (and replace as necessary) the "big 3" vacuum issues. The big 3 are the PCV hose (you should have the upgraded hose that is ribbed, if not, this is a mandatory replacement thing), the IMT valve o-rings (they should be green, if you have the black ones, replace them with the green ones), and then the brake booster hose (runs from the top of the intake to the brake booster, there is a little "football" shaped valve in the center of this line and if you rub it and it crumbles slightly, time to replace it before you have issues).

The next thing I would tell you to do is to get the fluid changed in your transfer case. Do not be alarmed if he tells you that he got no fluid out of it. You would not be the first to say that. He may give you a hard time about doing this as the fill plug is on the backside of the transfer case and is lodged between the transfer case and the engine. You can refill the transfer case through 2 methods (both are talked about at length here). the one the mechanic will probably take is to simply jack up the one side of your car to get it about 24 inches off of the ground. Form there, he can add the recommended amount of fluid through the drain plug and put in the drain plug back in. Some others (like me) created a valve that we put in place of the drain plug that allows us to push fluid into the transfer case and then shut the valve to trap the fluid in the transfer case.

A check that you can do is to check the battery cables. This is easy. Let the car sit over night (want the engine cool). Now, start up the car and turn on the headlights, A/C on high, and rear defroster. You want put a decent electrical load on the car. Let the car run like this for 5 minutes or so. Now, turn the engine off, open the hood of your car and then remove the cover off of the battery. Cupping your hand OVER (DO NOT TOUCH!!!!!!!) the battery terminals, do they feel about as warm as the other metal parts under the hood or are they very hot? If they are hot (like you think you could fry an egg on them), then you need to look into replacing the battery cable(s).

The other check that you can do you have probably already done numerous times. Engage the e-brake. The X-Type seems to suffer from a sticking e-brake lever at the caliper. So, when you engage it, you should be able to lift the button end up a few inches (say 3ish) and then feel the cable start to take a load and by the time you get to 6-8 inches up, you should be feeling like the e-brake is engaged. If you can pull the lever up quite high and it feels like it hits a stop, then you have a sticky e-brake lever. You can sometimes catch it early by simply engaging the e-brake and then releasing, followed by a drive around the block. If you put your hand near the rotors, they should still be fairly cool (slightly warm). If you have one that is very warm while the other is fairly cool, the hot side has an issue.

2 last things: replace the fuel filter. QUick and easy and since you don't know when it was last done, you can then start your own counter on this (should be replaced every 15K miles). the last thing is the rear suspension components. There are 2 checks that I am going to tell you to do. The first is to simply look at the rear tires and see if they lean in at the top (rear wheels should be straight up and down). If they are leaning in, the upper arm probably needs replaced. May be advisable to upgrade to an adjustable arm (lots of discussions here, you end up buying the arm for a Volvo S40 and putting it on the car). This will allow you to get the wheels straight up and down as the wheel will naturally lean in at the top with the aging coil springs. The second check is to find a long sweeping corner (intersection circles, cloverleafs on an interstate, etc). What you are going to do is to take this corner slow initially and then in the middle of it, step on the gas like you were going to pass someone (just need to be on the gas for a second or so). Did you feel like the rear end was going to come around on you (it won't, but it will make you question)? If yes, then your rear suspension lower/forward arm needs replaced. Make sure to do this check in both directions of turning. Both of these arms are known wear items with the X-Type and you are hitting the point where they normally start to show up.

 

Wow! Thank you for that advice! Very detailed and useful!

I really appreciate your time!