Hi,, If the suspension on my 2006 xj sovereign 2.7 diesel is in transport mode. Should i get a warning light. The reason I ask is I can feel nearly every small bump in the road..Thanks in anticipation..

 

Welcome to the forum bezzy,

I've moved your question from the end of a thread in the New Member Area - Intro a MUST section to a new thread in the X350 section. Members here should be able to offer you advice on transport mode.

When you get a minute, please post your own Intro in the New Member Area with some info about yourself and your vehicle for all members to see. Inreturn you'll get a proper welcome and some useful advice about posting to the forum.

Graham

 

Hi Bezzy

I am beginning to think I have what you have too !

I am also feeling every little bump in the road, and pushing down on each corner of the car to see if there is any movement there results in about 1/2" or less. So something seems wrong to me ! The car also seems very thumpy, clonky, and bangy as I drive along on our dreadful local Cheshire roads. Maybe it's the roads that are the fault, as on the motorway at 70-80 its almost perfect !!

The only thing wrong with your prognosis is that my Jaguar Technical Notes 2003.5 say that when a car is in Transportation Mode, there will be a continuous fault display of "Air Suspension Fault", but I have no such message.

OK, my car is a Sport with the firmer suspension, but it certainly wasn't like this in 2011, so something seems to have changed. I am going to take it to a local independent soon for a checkout.

 

A friend of mine has the exact same car albeit a 2011 model, he drove it today only for a short distance and he thinks its fine, im not convinced though. My previous XJ8 and 6 were silky smooth. I think my next step will be a trip to Jag dealer for a road test,which they have said is free. Any investigation work after that however is £98/hour. Is it me I dont think so. Ill let you know my results.

 

Bezzy - what size wheels do you have ?

Mine's on 19" (255/40 tyres) and I feel quite a bit of road bump; it's fine on motorways and 'clean' A-roads, but on roads with old or new road repairs etc ... it's a tad rough (try the A38 into Bristol - yeowch !)

I'm seriously thinking about going down to 18" wheels (235/50 tyres) as quite a few people say they are much better.

Apropos whether it's in Transport Mode (or not) ... you could try measuring the vertical distances from the wheel centres to the wheel arch above. According to Cambo351 at
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...rt-mode-95711/ (the UK Jag Forum [but he's here as well !]) the correct normal figures are:
386mm Front, and 373mm Rear; both plus-or-minus 15mm.

His post on suspension lowering is a definite read; very informative.

If it's in Transport Mode those measurements will be decidedly greater than the 'normal' figures above. If it's not too late I'd do that before going to the agent.

Dave (in Gloucestershire)

 

Hi..Well I took my car to Guy Salmon Jaguar Stockport and one of their technicians drove it, He thought it was normal ,however he did put it on the ramps for inspection and found my left CAT had a crack in it and I need two rear lower wishbone arms. Could they be my bumpy ride problem???. Guy Salmon want £525 to replace, Im looking for a cheaper quote at the moment. I have to say that the staff at Guy Salmon were excellent. I was amazed that for test drive and full detailed inspection followed by wash and hoover NO CHARGE.

 

Two lower rear wishbones for £525 at a Jaguar main dealer is a real bargain. Jaguar must have revised their prices or something. Or you misheard them !! However whilst the bushes may be worn-out, I don't think that explains the hard ride. There is a letter about this in the July Jaguar World magazine. XJK Jaguar have recently checked my 2003 Sport and told me it is normal, but it really isn't based on what it was like 18 months ago. I am convinced the CATS system is not switching the shocks to Soft. Default setting is Hard. i.e no change signal sent to the shocks.

Don't forget to check that price, BTW !!

 

I was in someone else's 2001 Daimler X308 a week or so back, like a VDP, (it has CATS but as a LWB no Sport mode, don't think it has transport mode) which had bad tyre thump, he was convinced it was due to the 40% low profile tyres (he mentioned he had swapped from the original different wheels) and I am willing to believe it.

Not quite so willing to buy a new set of wheels and tyres to find out though.

Did your noise change when you changed tyes?

 

Would an '01 have air-springs, or coils ? I thought the air suspension units only came in with the aluminium alloy bodies in '03.

I have 19" wheels with 40% profile tyres and found the ride a bit disappointing ... until I found the dealer had left the tyres with about 40psi in them; putting them down to the normal (comfort ?) pressures (28F 30R) improved the ride hugely.

 

He has CATS, with the cables going to the big caps on top of the suspension units under the bonnet. I thought that meant it had air suspension; if not I suppose it just acts on the damping.

It might be relevant that tyre thump was worse than on the equivalent aluminium car which also has 40% tyres.

 

Yeh - CATS only works on the dampers (as I understand it). I don't think the air suspension can act quickly enough for to be part of the CATS system.

 

I had the same issue, thought the ride in my VDP was a little bumpy. Had my Jag shop check it Friday, found a code stored. Cleared the code and my ride is back to smooth clouds again. My shop didn't charge me a thing to check, clear code and test drive it. Doesn't hurt to have suspension system scanned, these cars can store all sorts of codes without having any warning lights.

 

Now that could be the clue to the whole problem, also described by a correspondent this month in Jaguar World. There is nothing wrong with the CATS system, but a stored code from another problem in the past causes the software to inhibit damper setting to 'Soft', but no warning is given, and the stored fault code is old and the original fault has gone or been fixed.

Having worked in IT, I am a bit cynical and suspect the guys who developed the CATS software didn't talk too much to the guys doing the other software. "Hey, I shut down CATS if I see <xxxx> codes". "Oh didn't we tell you, a code can still be there even if the problem is fixed or gone " "Doh !!"

I do wonder if the "DCM Not Available" message I got last year is the culprit. This message disappeared shortly after it appeared and I haven't seen it since, but it is suspension related.

 

I had my lower wishbone bushes replaced and a rear shock absorber bush. However it made no difference whatsoever. My independant jag dealer checked the suspension out and he didnt find any error codes, he did agree however that my suspension felt stiffer than others hed worked on. He then suggested trying four new shocks. At least £2000. The one thing i have noticed about my suspension is, the rear does feel stiffer the other is ,if i press down on the front of the car(engine running) it feels soft,however after three or more presses the whole suspension seems to lock up and go very stiff. Is this whats happening when Im driving???. Should it do this. Im am now thinking about getting rid..

 

The answer is in the previous posts-scan and clear all codes

 

My Jag dealer didnt find any codes????

 

Just to let everybody know that I got the fault register cleared of all codes at the annual service, but the ride is still hard. Car is running very well at the moment, no complaints except hard ride.

However, I have now checked the tyre pressures and found them a bit high and reset them to the "Comfort" setting with a bit of improvement. A recent trip to Norwich proved OK, but I think I'd really like the Comfort springs rather than Sport but cannot afford to swap out four perfectly serviceable air spring units right now.