Hi again, I am in the motor trade and bought the oil,air and fuel filters for my new addition and the oil also which is Castrol Edge C1 with fluid strength technology. Oil was £60 and the filter were £37. Not bad considering the main dealer charged the P.O £105 + vat for the oil alone. Any comments about the oil or the filters? Any advice much appreciated as the service is not until Friday and I can change anything you see in the boot.

 

ArtyH, I would ask the Indie which way they plan on changing the oil. I know this sounds like a strange question, but there are actually 2 different ways to change the oil in this car. You have the traditional way which is pulling the plug on the bottom of the engine. The trick with this is that to get to the plug, you have to pull the aerodynamic skid plate off the bottom of the car. This plate is roughly 1.2M x 2M in size. It comes off with about 15 fasteners. Not impossible, but may not be something that they are familiar with. The second way is if you remove the oil cap on the top of the engine, you will see a small tube sticking up inside the engine. This tube runs all the way down to the bottom of the oil pan. You can connect a vacuum pump to suck out all the oil and then put in the new without ever having to get under the car.

You can get the OEM oil filter on a place like E-bay for much cheaper. I recently got the OEM filter for $18 USD delivered to my house. It can be even less if you are willing to get say 6 filters at a time.

One question I do have about the oil though, I only see 5 liters of oil. The car is rated to take 6.5L of oil with the filter replacement. hate to see you be a little short on the oil. I find when I do the oil changes on my car, I put in 7 quarts (6.5L) and it takes the oil level right to the Max mark by the dash indicator.

 

Chris,

You're in the USA and are describing your XJ with the 5.0L gasoline-powered V8. Note that ArtyH is in England and his XJ has the 3.0L diesel engine, which was not sold in the USA. I think your comments about the oil capacity and filter don't apply to his car.

Stuart

 

Stuart, I keep forgetting that we have cars from around the world here and that some have the perferred (to me) 3.0L diesel engine.

Granted, looking at the shop manual for the 3.0L engine (2010 model), it does have the vacuum tube so both methods of oil removal are still applicable. Also, the manual states that the oil capacity for the engine is 6.6L for a oil and filter change.

I will have to follow the procedure I just found in the manual too for getting an instantaneous oil level indication that appears to change with actual conditions. One of those hidden "push this sequence of buttons to access...." tricks.

 

Hi Thermo & Stewart S, thanks for the info! The pic only shows one can of oil, I bought 2x 4ltr cans, the other is a bit further into the boot Thanks for the heads up for the methods of draining the oil, I am sure my guy will remove the aerodynamic skid plate, he is very good at his job. I was thinking of adding some Extralube ZX1 to the engine, anyone else used this before? I had it in my Mercedes 350 CLS and it was very good at making the engine sound quieter.

 

I doubt that Extralube ZX1 (or any other similar "snake oil" product) makes any improvement over the factory-recommended engine oil. There's a reason Jaguar recommends a particular specification Castrol oil - it has been tested by Jaguar and meets their requirements. Adding anything else to that approved engine oil may change its viscosity and detergent/lubrication properties and jeopardize any recourse you might have against Jaguar. I'll stay with the factory recommended lubricants listed in my Owners Handbook. The spec is the key, not the brand.

But it's your car, and your choice.

 

Indeed Stewart, I see your point, however ZX1 is not an oil additive, its an engine additive and does not affect the viscosity of the oil or change its spec, according to the manufactures. I will contact then directly and see what they say, but thanks for the input.

 

I'd leave it out. The engines just don't need or want it. Save your money.

BTW unless it's also 5W30 it's bound to alter the viscosity.

 

Yes mate I see your point, its only 250mls but it may be enough.
I sent the company an email but as yet have not had a reply.......we will see....

 

They just want to sell...

 

Did a lot of research and searching for Ford WSS M2C925-1 compliant oil and found this from Mobil 1.

MOBIL 1 5W-20 | Mobil

I like it. I will use it on my 2015 XJL Portfolio 3.0 next week.

 

Indeed, I put some in my wife's Suzuki Swift 4 when she got it and the MPG increased from 50 to 53 MPG so thought it was worth a try. However if they cannot be bothered to reply it says a lot about their confidence in the product! Shame I bought two bottles

 

This must be a UK > US issue, over here Mobil 1 is VERY expensive where Castol is less so. I did some comparison checks as I got mine trade, cheapest I could get online was less than £3 more expensive, so it is doable relatively inexpensively. Notice the usage of the words, I did not say " cheap or cheaply " as we all know its not in the dictionary for Jaguar.

 

Well got my car back today after the filters and oil change. The mechanic stated the air filter looked like it had been in from new! It was supposed to have been changed not last service but the one before at 28k ( 37k on now ) only 9k miles earlier but 24 months in real time. Showed me the filter and questioned the time scale. No other issues apart from it being documented in the car history which made me wonder what else had been missed or paid for that had not been done. Anyway its been done to my satisfaction now, and for good measure I put in 4Tec advanced engine oil cleaner for 15 minutes before the oil was dropped, he said the oil was dirty but it had done almost 4k miles according to the service history.
My bill was £60 for the labour and time, which to me was worth it because I know the guy is fastidious in his work and he is always ready to help at any time. I was told the air filter is a time consuming one to change, any comments from people who have done it themselves? I will be doing it all next year so should just cost me the price of the oil.
Have a great weekend folks.

 

ArtyH, while I cannot speak for the 3.0L diesel engine, I now the twin filters on the 5.0L engine are pieces of cake to change. Now, with that being said, is the "time consuming" part that instead of it taking 2 minutes to do, it takes 10 in yours? I would not call that time consuming. Longer, yes, but not time consuming.

 

Yes mate, it looks like if you have a Jaguar they seem to add more to the bill. I would be interested to find out how long it should have taken for the job to be done or how long Jaguar allow and also if others think £60 is a reasonable amount for the job.
Cheers guys

 

ArtyH, I am assuming that you were billed for about 1 hour of time (for most places here in the US, they have a minimum 1 hour of labor charge). So, even if the mechanic did the job in 30 minutes, you get the 1 hour charge.

I know when I do my oil changes, it takes me about an hour to do. There is some down time as I am waiting on the oil to drain and whatnot. So, that time could be used to change out the air filter or check the other fluid levels and top off as necessary. So, being charged an hour for labor to me is not out of the ordinary.

Now, for the actual cost. A 60 pound price equates to $78 USD. With most places around me wanting to charge around $100 per hour of labor, it would appear to me that you have a fairly cost effective guy that you are getting work done by. But, this is assuming your areas costs are similar to mine. You would have to see how much other shops in the area would want for say an hour of time to do work on a vehicle.

So, as I see things, you were not charged excessively for the work being done. Could you have saved that money by doing it yourself? Depends on your abilities. For some, the risk of doing something wrong and ending up with a bigger bill is far more worrisome for them than paying a little bit more than just the parts for the job. For them, this is money well spent.

 

You have to wonder that if a product was capable of increasing mileage to such an extent, why don't the OEM's stop spending millions of dollars on research to get .1 or .2 mpg- and just use the miracle fluids instead?

Not to be harsh, but there's NO additive on the market that been proven to do even one bit of good. Jaguar specifically instructs NOT to use any additives in the oil or fuel for very good reason. There is no control over how it modifies the fluid it's being added to. Just as likely to do harm as do nothing.

 

And then there are those magnetic fuel savers....

 

Don't forget the infamous inline electric turbos that net you 100+ hp or the HHO systems that inject hydrogen into your air intake that generate improved power and mileage.