Hello gentlemen,

I've smelled something off around my car for a few times now but I didn't really pay much attention until today, when I saw a dark puddle on the ground at the back of my car. A quick look underneath the car, then lifting the car up on jackstands and what do you know - my diffenrential is leaking between the CV shaft (LH side) and the diff. It seems very evident this is the place where it's leaking from judging by how It's thrown oil all over the bottom of the car but only on this side, in line with the shaft.

I read about the issues with early model XF's diffs but I believe that is a different problem altogether? Or does it have something to do with this?

I'm really hoping this only requires replacing a seal but then again this winter I've had the front windscreen replaced (it was leaking), the rear windscreen re-fitted (that was also leaking) and this weekend I spent pulling both EGR's off the car because it threw a code and according to diagnostics with SDD my EGR's are both bad. But that's a whole different story and I'll post that in another topic if necessary.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

I actually had a similar problem to yours just 2 months ago along with the bad rear driver side wheel hub. Every time I drove the car and came home, I would smell a weird burning oil smell just from the rear driver side. This went on for a week until one night I looked behind the wheel and I saw it was wet, "oily" all over back there. I took it into the shop I take it to normally, and they were replacing the wheel hub. They noticed that I had actually had a leaky axle near the shaft and axle at the rear driver side. Only had to change the seal, I forgot what it was called. I did not see any oil on the ground whatsoever, so I don't think mine had a heavy leak, but it was leaking quite a bit. Just thought I'd share my experience with a similar problem as yours. Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the input, I’m really hoping this is the same case with just a bad seal and nothing major. I’ll be sucking all the old oil out with a pump as well as probing the diff with a magnet and checking that there is no debris such as pieces of metal to confirm there is no evident internal damage. If it turns out clean and it’s not making any noises I’ll just replace the seal and fill in the fluids like in your case.

 

Update on the situation:

I got the seals changed on both axles as well as a flush with new oils. The diff had very little oil left and it was in rather horrible shape, but it seemed fine, runs fine and doesn't make any noises. The shop informed me that the problem is caused because these diffs have absolutely no breather system. They had previously repaired a whole bunch that had blown the new seals out in just a few weeks! After further investigating they found out that the breather valve was blanked off with a plate, and machining a new bung + fitting a breather valve fixed all the issues with the diffs. None of them have returned with issues since.

So this is what they did with my diff as well. The only concern is the condition the oil inside the diff was in, but it didn't have any particles/chunks in it. What I'll be doing now is I'll drive the car for a while, after which I'll suck the oil out of the diff and replace. I'll possibly repeat this step, just to make sure I flush out all the gunk that may be left inside. Just have to hope that no problems arise.

 

SO.. Forward less than a year and the diff sprung a new leak. The shop changed the seal, which blew again after a couple months only

We're suspecting that the issues is to do with the faulty (contaminated) diffs that (to my understanding) were an issue with these cars for the first few model years. That's what I gathered from the following topic:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...l-leak-120646/

Now I'm looking at purchasing a second hand or refurbished diff, axles etc.. that are needed to swap to the newer type differential. If anyone knows a good source for these please do share! In the meantime I'll be browsing through the usual suspects online..

 

Unfortunately, I think you are in deep trouble... To the best of my knowledge there is no fix for this problem, that all the affected differentials were replaced under original warranty, but that that coverage has ended and no replacement parts remain. Further, another rear end can not be substituted.

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Angle parked in a parallel universe

 

My XFR-S has about 68000km, i noticed a humming noise coming from the rear when going between 30-60 kph. Very faint but still audible, as soon as i heard it i thought it could be the wheel bearings going bad but turns out the rear dif was seeping. They checked the fluid and it was dark with metal chunks in there. The dealer suggest a complete differential internal failure, luckily i have extended warranty and it wasn't cause by human error so it was replaced under warranty (yay new dif!). I think from the dealer it was about 2800 CAD if i was to pay for the differential. You might want to look at replacing it as a precaution, replacing the seals could just be a bandaid over a larger issue.

 

Thank you for your concern, but my local Jaguar shop told me I should be able to substitute any 09-12 3.0 litre diesel diff + cv shafts + propshaft to the 2.7 litre. You have to change the entire package for it to work, but other than that's it should be as close as bolt-ons get. Apparently post 2012 have a different ratio so that's why I need to find a 09-12 diff (2.73 ratio) for it to work.

In fact looking at the EPC catalogue the rear end seems to be identical in nearly all models apart from the 2.7 litre diesel, XFR and XFR-S versions, and the different drive ratio pre- and post-facelift. I could be speaking horses**t though, as I didn't really look at every single part of the puzzle.

I've managed to find most of the parts online and I'll see how it goes. I'll keep the forums updated so others can hopefully benefit from my experience on the subject.

Yes, it seems that the seals are breaking because of loose tolerances inside the diff. The 2.7 D diff is an alien among the XF diffs, though, and the XFR diff is also different to the rest considering that its LSD and probably quite a bit more stout, but this is just a guess.

 

The diff from 2010-2012 3 litre does NOT fit the 2.7 litre. I was misinformed. The mounts are different, and while i thought that the 2.7 only missed one mount, in fact the only front mount on the 2.7 is in the wrong spot altogether for the newer diff. And you can't really move the mounts as other parts come in the way.

According to JLR Ecat the correct part no. is C2C34879.

Regarding the post by pab, the only options are to rebuild the original diff meaning milling new seal seats and re-engineering the seals or finding a new diff. Not sure really which is easier.

 

Oldish thread but question here as I am now in the same situation: If I can get hold of one of the replacement diffs as sent out by jag under warranty, will propshaft and driveshafts from a 2009 - 2012 fit?