Also, they did say the gaskets were leaking and that the oil cooler was leaking.

 

General Specific - I see many many hundreds of $$$ there for checks, upgraded parts costs etc etc, that may / may not be needed.

Depending on your skill level, willingness to either do some of the work yourself with help from members here and or shop around for Indy's I'd say you could lose a big chunk of that.

I'm going to make a thread into the relevant regional section, asking for help in either resolving these issues or pointing you towards a good Indy, for a second opinion.

Thermo springs to mind as someone who may be able to help for instance, he's a guru albeit on X types but knows Jags well.

Please keep us posted.

 

Craig,

I've seen a couple of estimates like that in the past, from shops I just walked away from and never looked back.

If I understand the estimate, they will charge you $44.95 to check for the oil leak, which is your concern, but they want to charge you another nearly $5,600.00 for parts and service that may or may not be related to your oil leak (and in some cases is very obviously not related to an oil leak).

Where, exactly, do they claim the oil is leaking? The estimate implies they claim oil is leaking is leaking from all of the following (and I may have missed something):

The front crankshaft seal
The timing cover
The engine oil cooler (not just an O-ring seal in a cooler pipe joint, but the oil cooler itself)
The camshaft covers (what they mistakenly/generically call valve covers)
The transmission pan gasket

Did you complain about a belt squeaking?

What are the symptoms of water pump failure prompting them to quote for a new pump (or are they suggesting you replace the pump preemptively since they'll have to remove all the drive belts anyway)?

What are the symptoms of harmonic damper failure prompting them to quote for a new damper?

Are they required to do an emissions and state safety check when they service a vehicle, or are these services you requested?

Did you ask them to replace the cabin microfilter and engine air filter?

I will be very curious to hear what they told you to justify this estimate.

Cheers,

Don

 

General, if you do not mind getting a little greasy, I am sure I can take care of most of that list in a long afternoon. Most of that sounds pretty straight forward (assuming that it really is a problem). If interested, let me know. I am probably about a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from you down in California, MD.

 

Absolutely this! There are four o-rings that seal up the pipes that run into the oil-cooler, if it's gonna leak, it'll be at those o-rings.

 

Covered in length by Don, but ...

a) precisely where is it leaking? they charged 44.95 for that, so there should be an answer, unless they don't plan on looking until after getting all work authorised.
don't authorise.

b) how much oil are you losing?

Unless you are losing massive amounts of oil, the last part of the job should be the
first part of the job ...

a) completely degrease everything top and bottom, even a detailing shop should be able to do this

b) then you, not them, drive as normal until you can figure out where the
leak is, in the meantime, keep a close eye on oil level

c) when the exact leak location is identified, fix that one item

On the X350, leave the belly pan off so that you can see any leaks from below.

It is usually difficult to find an oil leak with any certainty unless you start with a
clean engine bay and underside, and then drive until it appears. Doing it in a shop
in 15 minutes with a visual results in massive shopping lists. The oil may be all
over the place, but it usually comes from one place not every place.

edit:

Oh, and if you take Thermo up on his offer, you really should start with a
clean engine bay anyways

The shop actually quoted a reasonable price for cleaning and degreasing.
Maybe you should award them that part of the job only.

edit #2:

The leak is usually forward of the bulk of the oil as the oild travels
rearwards. So the transmission pan is out.

And if the leak is minor, it could be considered an automatic rust
proofing spray system. My 20+ year old Supra had a rustfree
chassis because it lost a quart every 2000 miles and it misted
back underneath the whole car. Never dripped, just a fine
mist

++

 

Some really good useful info there Craig, I'd recommend perhaps utilising it?

As stated, I've created another thread i nthe regional section, and already Thermo who is one of our X type DIY Gurus has seen it and replied, as in the posts above.

I would seriously recommend perhaps taking him up on his offer, meeting a long standing JF member who has helped many here.......He may be able to help you save many $$$....

At the very least, he'll be able to offer good sound advice in person after looking at the car.

Hope to hear...

 

First, let me say that I'm really grateful for all the advice and input from everyone. Thanks to all for the feedback. I'm going to pay the garage for the diagnostics and the inspections (I did ask for those), and take the car back.

Second, my mechanical skills are low, but my willingness to get dirty and learn is high. I'd like to talk to you more, Thermo. I'm headed out of town and won't be back for 10 days, but I'd love to talk to you more about what I might be able to do. Thanks for being so generous with your knowledge and potentially some of your time.

 

General, whenever you have time. I will teach you anything you want to know about your car. Do not worry if it is electrical or mechanical. I play in both worlds.

 

They don't want to work on your car so they give you a shopping list to scare you off or, if you should be a complete mental case they'll willingly ream you. Dealers hate to get into finding sometimes difficult problems on older cars as they have probably been burned before by a customer with an older car thinking a simple tune-up will cure the worn valves, or some other more serious problem. When they do ONLY what the customer requests and the problem doesn't get fixed they find themselves too often on the hook for costly 'free' repairs or being faced with endless unfounded complaints from an irate customer who was too cheap to fix the real problem.

I'm not saying you're doing that, only that their policy is to avoid any such problems by practically rebuilding the car so as to have been paid hundred's (in your case thousands of dollars) in upfront money to CYA.

This is as severe a case as I've ever seen and either they're professional rip-off artists or they really don't want to work on older Jags. As a former new car dealer I've been there with customers who were able to set my service manager up but their cars were much older and much higher mileage that yours and he should have seen them coming when they first drove in.

By the way this isn't an attempt to excuse their behavior just a possible explanations.

 

The local Goodyear service center seems to be the favorite repair shop for the Jag owners in my area as those people are top notch mechanics. May I suggest that you take the Jag to a Goodyear service center near you for a quote?

 

I always cringe when I see shops charge inspection fees for something like a belt squeaking and then charge the exact same fee for another issue. If you are going to charge do the work. $45 is about 15-20 minutes of shop time, enough to put it on the lift and give it a fairly thorough inspection. Its a red flag that he charged you twice. If you were a returning customer, I probably would have done it for free, I agree with other posters, an oil cooler is very unlikely to fail as is a harmonic balancer. He may have just thrown in the water pump since he figured he was in the neighborhood, might want to try another shop.

 

Howdy General,

You seem to have a great attitude and don't feel bad about initially wanting to punt the car, you did what any normal person would have done after getting that kind of news.

I have a general rule that I never trust a shop that charges for initial diag before really tearing into a problem. If the guy can't give you 30 minutes to either say "it's likely this or that" over the phone, or "I need to spend some real time on this to nail it down" (of which I'll gladly pay for), then there is something wrong and the BS meter goes off (in my experience). The latter being he has no clue what the problem is and is just going to start replacing stuff on your dime until its semmingly fixed.

Your experience is case and point why so many Jag's got lumped back in the day too (overheated V12's notwithstanding ;-), its really sad that honesty (and basic skills) are gone from many places.

Best of luck and keep the car!!!

Cheers.

 

Did you go to the independent place in Springfield that specializes in Jags or to Vienna? The place in Vienna always seems to charge for every little thing, such as 'knock spare pebbles out of tread on rear left tire - $67.43" (an exaggeration to make a point).

 

get a second opinion. i had a lady that took her car(1999 xj8) to bluff city jag here in memphis, they told her she needed an engine(used) for the tune of $7000. for an oil light coming on. i bought the car for $1000. put 4 qts in it and have been driving it everyday(month)

 

I'm local in Woodbridge, VA. Not a current Jag owner, but I am eyeballing an XJR that's currently for sale. I have a nice home garage and a LOT of tools. I'll gladly help you out on whatever you're willing to tackle yourself.

 

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Dave Harman I would trust him with my life he is a good friend he may be able to help you, He has a shop at his home in Stafford tell him you got his number from Paul I worked with Dave at Classic Car Center Fredericksburg

 

I live in Bowie Md, and would love to come and help out, and learn. I am good mechanically, and ok in electronics. Maybe with all 3 of us we can get you to keep your Jag, and then we can share with other Jag owners the good and the bad.

 

The bit that got me was the tax wish our tax was that low in the uk

 

As a mechanic the first thing to do is have the engine cleaned then road test and then check for leak as plums advised you have to have a clean engine to start from