Hello everyone. Am new to this forum. Total car nut with an old Boxster and a recently purchased 2011 X351 XJL. Put sched used with 35k miles and v8 naturally aspirated engine.

Am completely smitten with this vehicle. Love everything about it. I researched the car as best I could and called an independant mechanic in my area who said its a reliable car with no reasonable expectation that it will be a problem car (I hear about the reliability of earlier models and the XF all the time).

So my question is this... Is this (x351 XJL) a good candidate for a DIY maintenance car?

I do very small maintenance on my boxster like brakes, pads, fluids, filters. But have never really had any problems with it in the last 60k miles and 7 years. Not once. So haven't had a need to do anything else.

Does anyone here have any experience, insight, advice, pointers, dos and donts, or anything at all on this model?

Would love to do my own maintenance if possible. Not a complete beginner but not advanced either.

Thanks,
Chris

 

To do the oil change, I purchased a Mityvac syphon to do oil changes. 15000 miles between oil changes is too long in my opinion. I will do them every 7500 miles. To keep any warranty issues to a minimum, I use Castrol edge PROFESSIONAL 5w-20 & oem filters. The Castrol edge pro has a dye in it, so Jaguar can tell if you used another oil. They use a black light and it glows. I found that my dealers price (Rusnak in Pasadena) on the oil is cheaper than online! I think I paid $8.95 quart. I haven't done the brakes yet, but somewhere I read that the rear calipers need a special tool to rotate the the piston when pressing it back in. I will go with ceramic pads in the future to reduce brake dust. The article I read said it was less than $50 for the tool. I too,enjoy working on my own vehicles.

 

Its nice to hear there are others that work on their Jaguars. So I have a question. I have Custom Colored Caliper Covers from MGP. It is a simple bolt on per wheel. My question, is there a safe place to use a carjack on the frame to raise each wheel one at a time to do the job. I am concerned about where to place the jack on the frame without causing damage. Any info would be appreciated.

 

Regular oil changes, brake fluid flush, disk or pad changes are routine easy. If you wish to lift the car you can use the oil pan drain method or, I recently purchased a 12V electric pump for sucking the oil out through the top so lifting the car is not needed. I worked perfectly, pulling the hot oil out in way less than 5 minutes while wearing my normal street clothing :-). Had to purchase the correct size plastic tubing that fits over the engine's oil extraction tube at Home Depot.


Certainly, if you take a peek at the lower side valances they have triangular arrows pointing to the preferred lifting sections. I always use a piece of soft wood between the car and my hydraulic jacks, just to avoid metal to metal contact.