Mine triggered no codes but the dealership's diagnostics easily picked it up.The shop foreman explained that the parameters for the misfire to throw a code is not what one would think; he explained it needed to misfire X # of times each minute or something to that affect.

I think we should start keeping track of the cars production dates that are experencing true misfire symptoms to see if we can establish a range; mine was July 2011

I spent some time in a new XJ today and it's a lovely car, the interior is a thing of beauty with impeccable leather work all around especially the dash. The exterior is also quite nice, I think the car looks especially nice in white. The ride and handling were also excellent; it feels like a much smaller car to drive than it is.

 

just bought xj supercharge 2012. after 3 days took it in for engine shaking. got it back and took it back and they said its normal all the cars do that. its not normal for me. very very noticeable during warm up. it moves the engine thats how bad it shakes. did anyone figure out whats wrong with these cars. the dealer does not want to do anything about it

 

Based on my experience, Jaguar plans to do nothing about it.
It won't get any better, matter of fact, it will get worse over time.
Based on what I have learned, some cars are worse than others.
Since you just purchased the car, I would quickly make a decision.
Either you decide to live with it or the dealer takes it back.
We got rid of ours. My wife was emotionally attached to the beautiful car, but the engine shake always made her feel like she was in a cheap piece of crap instead of a $95K car.
It's sad that Jaguar does not address this issue.
Maybe it's normal by their design, but that means their design sucks and they should do something to improve it.

 

I have done 4000 miles so far and engine shaking has almost disappeared or reduced dramatically (lately i have been using Shell premium gas).

 

It is strange as I have had my XJL2011 supercharged for one year now and it is NEVER rough at idle. The car is super smooth as any car I have ever owned and this whether it is warm (120F when I went to Texas with it last summer) or super cold (0 to -10F as it is right now).

Also I get great mileage on this car. I get easily 26 mpg on the highway and a mixture of city/highway brings me at about 18-20 mpg. Better than what I used to get with my BMW 750 even though that engibe was smaller (4.5L) and not supercharged.

All in all a great car.

 

First off, very sorry to hear that Jaguar couldn’t resolve your problem- I can imagine how much it must kill the joy of owning and driving such beautiful cars. I was wondering for those who have had the 5.0 S/C misfiring, was it an obvious issue from day one, or did the problem slowly emerge and/or worsen over time?

I’ve had extended seat time in several models with the 5.0 S/C, and none of them exhibited any engine issues. It seems pretty clear from this forum and others that some unfortunate buyers end up with definitively bad 5.0 S/Cs, while others have engines that are problem-free. So essentially, my question is- can you determine whether or not you have a bad 5.0 S/C from just a test drive, or a take home (overnight) test drive? I was very close to pulling the trigger on an XF S/C, and remain tempted to upgrade before the next gen arrives. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

Is the Jag 5.0 related to the new mustangs 5.0? Since i know the Jag v8 is at least similar to the ford 5.0?
Thanks,
Mike

 

In our case, it was evident with the first test drive. That's one of the biggest gripes I had.....we were told that it was not "normal" and the service manager reassured us that it would be taken care of. Now, Jaguar NA has chosen to do nothing about it and call it "normal". If they had said that from the beginning, we would have never purchased the car.
I want to be perfectly clear....this is not a subtle thing. It's not an engine vibration or a slight variation in idle speed. I would consider those types of things "normal". This is a sudden jerk of the car, feels like the engine just coughed/misfired/something. Every person in the car will feel it and most will wonder if the car is going to die.
Jaguar NA was about as useful as a used condom. They had made up their mind already while they were "doing their investigation". I'm glad that most of you have cars without problems, because if you ever really develop a problem, don't count on Jaguar to be very responsive.
After this experience, I would NEVER buy another car from Jaguar. Not because of the cars, but because of the company.
So if you are thinking of buying a car that doesn't have this issue on a test drive, good luck with that line of thinking.
Good car companies take care of their customers, especially when they are $100,000 customers. Jaguar doesn't seem to care in the least.
Sorry for my rant.....but the whole ordeal has been horrible to say the least.

 

Glad you have a great "normal" car. This is what I would have expected too. As the point of this thread becomes more obvious, some people have the problem, others don't.
The biggest issue, however, is that Jaguar is calling this issue a "normal characteristic of the supercharged engine". If that's the case, then why do some have it and others don't?
If it weren't for the engine issue, I would have totally agreed with you on "all in all a great car".

 

I very much hoped I had read this before buying my brand new 2012 XJ Supercharged 4 weeks ago. I got the same issues with the engine shaking at idle. I took it back to the dealer 2 days after buying to get it fixed. But the issue remains. In addition they had to rebalance the wheels due to vibration in the steering wheel.
I traded my BMW650i, and there were absolutely no issues with that engine or performance.
On a side note; I got the blind spot system going down daily due to "obstruction of sensor" and the engine oil level indication don't work (never has). I am very disappointed in the Jaguar quality so far. And it is my first Jag, and could be the last one.

 

The engine idle issue must have something to do with the supercharger. My normally aspirated 2012 XJL engine is smooth as butter at idle and the rest of the RPM range.

I did have a slight vibration in my steering when getting the new car. It was a combination of 1) a bad electronic damper, 2) the tires needed to be broken in. For 2013 Jaguar changed the damper and spring rates to get rid of some of the ride harshness that came with the previous year models.

Also, not sure if you know that the engine oil level indicator only works when the car is in "P". After shutting the engine down, wait for a few minutes for the oil to settle before using that service menu.

Hope you get it all fixed. It is a WONDERFUL car.

Albert

 

I have a Jaguar XJ supercharged model 2011 and my engine is idle at start and does not shake - almost as silent as my old Lexus LS 460L known for its engine silence. From my experience, the quality of gas helps to give a smoother engine noise with less shaking. Use premium quality 93 octane gas, my car works best with Shell, BP, and Sunoco. I also notice that engine shaking has a lot to do with the quality of engine oil, please use quality ones. When overfilled and using engine oil of medium quality, the engine tends to shake. The problem is that the engine level gauge is electronic now and it is harder to gauge accurately when overfilled. I use a 50/50 mix of synthetic oils of 5-20 and 0-30 for performance, longevity, protection, and gas consumption economy. I also change my oil every 6 months in between yearly ain't enhance oil change as I drive only 6k mies a year. Use time to time an injection cleaner, this will help your car to drive smoother and more efficiently.

 

My 2012 XJ s/c shakes - especially more so in below freezing temps. But, I kind of get the 'normal characteristic of the vehicle' explanation.
Take the 'beating' ignition button, and the rising gear selector - now add the V8 rumble. That all seems to be part of the whole Alive vibe Jaguar is promoting.
Heck, Harley Davidson charges you a premium to have your kidneys shaken when you buy their motorcycles...

 

i do not understand all these posts. my SC is super smooth and it does not matter if it is 100 degrees or -20, it is the same. but having said that I only put the highest quality high octane fuel in it. any high compression engine needs the best and high octane fuel to run properly. if your engine shakes and you are putting the highest octane then go to another station to fill out in case this is it. also these cars (i have driven 2 different and mine now has 20k miles) are all super smooth, so if it shakes bring it to the dealer, it should be fixed under warranty.

 

I have been doing research on this issue after reading this thread as I am interested in purchasing this car and want to understand the nature of the problem.

From my research the issue is most likely carbon buildup on the intake valves.

First a little history, there are two main methods of injecting fuel into the combustion chamber, port and direct fuel injection. The most common today is port in which the fuel injectors are located in the inlet tract and inject fuel via the intake port that travels into the combustion chamber. GDI engines or gasoline direct injection engines have the fuel injector located in the combustion chamber and thus inject fuel directly.

The change to GDI, or at the least the trend towards it, is to increase efficiency and power but mainly for controlling emissions. The flaw with GDI from a reliability standpoint is that unlike port FI where fuel being injected hits the back of the intake valves in effect cleaning them constantly, the only thing that enters through the inlet tract with GDI engines is air.The problem with this is that the air coming into the engine isnt always clean.

Engines are equipped with PCV or positive crankcase ventilation system which prevents a buildup of pressure in the crankcase caused by combustion gases passing the piston rings and entering the crankcase. This gas needs to be vented out of the crankcase or there will be an excessive buildup of pressure. The excess gas is vented back into the inlet manifold and allowed to re-enter the engine for combustion. Those gases however are now contaminated with oil vapor, unburnt fuel and other contaminants and when allowed to make it back to the manifold may deposit on the intake valves and form carbon deposits.

Over time the deposits will buildup to a level where they can impact the performance of the valves and cause hesitation, stuttering and misfires like the one experienced by forum members. The reason it is worse with a S/C engine versus a NA one is because there are more blow by gases in a supercharged engine due to the boost it produces.

So whats the solution? First select the best quality fuel available in your area, not necessarily based on octane but on the actual purity of the fuel. I hear that Shell, Chevron, BP, etc. have good quality fuel. Second is use good quality synthetic oil which resists breakdown due to heat and don't change oil too often (i.e. 3,000 intervals) because new oil vaporizes to an extent during the first few hundred miles of use. Third, refrain from very short driving distances and excessive idling which are conditions which can increase carbon buildup although I would think good fuel and oil would make this less of an issue.

Another consideration although one which we don't have much control over is the design of the PCV system. A well-designed system will sufficiently "scrub" the blow by gases such that what finally re-enters the intake tract is relatively clean air. This is typically done by baffling the system so that the oil vapors can condense and collect in tube rather than travel to the manifold. Not sure how Jaguar's system is designed.

My recommendation to those who are already experiencing this problem is to suggest to the dealer to take the valve covers off and inspect the valvetrain for carbon deposits and sludge.

Hopefully this helps and while this may not necessarily be whats happening in your engine, this is a known issue associated with GDI engines.

 

Although your post is informative, it is not relevant to the issue described in this thread. It is important to understand that this is not a rough idle or irregular idle situation. I've heard a lot of people describe those. Until you experience this, maybe it's hard to explain. The issue at hand is a big car shake, bump, jump, thump. It is inconsistent and irregular.

Second, the whole fuel discussion and oil choice is bogus as far as I am concerned. All other manufacturers seem to be able to make their SC'd cars run fine on whatever brand or octane of fuel is available in the U.S. Try selling one of these cars with a disclaimer that you can only use fuel from Shell, Chevron, or BP for example. Total BS. Also, most fuel in the US is of the same exact refinement and additive standards, with the exception of the percentage of ethanol blends. Try to print a disclaimer that you cannot sit idling in this car for very long or you will get carbon buildup. Waiting in snarled traffic is commonplace now days. Simply can't be done. Print a disclaimer that you cant use this car for short trips or it will get carbon buildup. All of this is absolute BS.

The oil from the factory is synthetic and service requirements specifies minimum oil specifications. If oil is an issue, then specify another type of oil that will address the issue. Jaguar had no such recommendation.

Regardless: We tried fuels from all the companies you suggest and the car already has synthetic oil. Besides, this was quite evident for me on a BRAND NEW car. It had less than 10 miles on it. It didn't get worse with time, just persisted. So the theory of a carbon buildup is BS. Also, various cleaners were tried to get at these upper valves to clean them and had absolutely no effect. Jaguar would not pull the heads to see if this was actually a problem. In fact, they said this was definitely NOT the problem but a normal characteristic of the engine.

Since this issue does not seem to affect all cars, you would think it is not a design issue, but rather a quality or build issue. Jaguar had no interest in finding out what might be going on and washed their hands of it.

I guarantee that if you had a car with this issue, 100% of you would call it unacceptable and demand it be fixed.

I'm glad that most of you have great cars. I absolutely loved everything else about the car! But....this was unacceptable and Jaguar's response was even more unacceptable. That's the main point of this post.

For me, I would never buy another car from Jaguar for that reason alone.

I am not being critical of your opinion, but just want to make it clear that it does not apply to the real issue described in this thread.

 

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely DI issues are the primary culprit behind the misfiring problems reported for S/C models (too new/low mileage). If it was just a matter of DI carbon buildup, I expect Jaguar would have provided cleaning (walnut shell) service to resolve the misfiring for customers with new/very low mileage vehicles. The complaints posted online suggest it can’t be readily fixed in a flawed example.

With regards to the DI issue in general, I was never able to find information on it specific to the AJ-V8 5.0s, NA or S/C- there have been no reported complaints, but Jaguars sell in very low volumes vs. the Germans, so it could be a function of numbers. Range/Land Rovers sell a bit more than 3X Jaguar’s volume, and also use the AJ-V8 5.0s, with no DI carbon buildup reported online. I’m optimistic that this is due to superior DI design; it seems like automakers who either adopted DI technology a bit later, or were more thorough in engineering their DI engines early on (Toyota/Lexus), have avoided Audi's and Mini’s fiascos.

 

Point taken and in your case it may have been defective from the factory as you suggest. I agree such a low mileage car shouldn't have carbon buildup. Its too bad Jaguar wouldn't tear that engine down and see what could have been wrong with it but I guess we will never know the true cause. About the gas and oil I tend to agree that most are probably of sufficient quality that it shouldn't make a difference but in reference to carbon buildup in general, these are the sources.

Bad customer service in the luxury segment is like a death knell to the brand. Its not like you want to have your car in for service. Its even worse when the dealer/corporate doesn't care to get down to the bottom of the problem when it isn't an "easy fix".





That's a good point. I was looking at the design of their PCV system and in the technical packet regarding the engine and it seems their system is well thought out. The technical packet said that oil pullover was reduced by half with their system but relative to what?

Anyway, hopefully carbon buildup does not end up being an issue with these engines. Only time will tell.

 

Agreed- I am optimistic, but far from certain. With DI increasingly de rigueur, it is a risk almost impossible to avoid.

 

try diffrent oil weight in your XJ.
my buddy jag is noisy and ticking in timing chain ...i told him put 0W40 in it instead of water oil 5W20 which come with the car...problem gone away.
i think the reason ford come with 5W20 is because of EPA mile per gallon.