2000 XJ8 won't start, please help!
#21
#22
feartheclown:
Some of what I am going to tell you is probably true.
Any actual percentages quoted will be obvioudly be conjecture, and remember we are Jaguar entusiast for the most part and have a better memory of the good than the bad, but your odds are pretty good for making 200,000 miles on the engine without a major failure PROVIDED you deal with the maintenance. Not to poke you in the eye when you are down, BUT you had a car with a known defect and either did not know about the tensioner issue, or did not make it a priority to fix it.
You seem to be inclined to work on it yourself for the most part, so you can drive a great car for reasonable money if you do most of the maintence and repairs yourself. However, you still have risks- Nikasil engine, transmission A drum breaking, front end alignment parts,sunroof track failure, cooling system leaks,security , seat or door module failure, water pump and so on. There ain;t much you can do about the Nikasil failure, except hope, the transmission is scary, but the rest are pretty straightforward and you can save a ton of $ doing them yourself.
All that said, I would NOT feel comfortable with a single 12 year old Jaguar that I had to depend on for day today transportation without budgeting several thousand a year for maintenance. BTW, I presently own an pretty flawless 2002 XJ8 with 165,000 miles, a pretty good 1999 XJR with 170,000 miles, and my beater 1998 XJR with 240,000miles.
Some of what I am going to tell you is probably true.
Any actual percentages quoted will be obvioudly be conjecture, and remember we are Jaguar entusiast for the most part and have a better memory of the good than the bad, but your odds are pretty good for making 200,000 miles on the engine without a major failure PROVIDED you deal with the maintenance. Not to poke you in the eye when you are down, BUT you had a car with a known defect and either did not know about the tensioner issue, or did not make it a priority to fix it.
You seem to be inclined to work on it yourself for the most part, so you can drive a great car for reasonable money if you do most of the maintence and repairs yourself. However, you still have risks- Nikasil engine, transmission A drum breaking, front end alignment parts,sunroof track failure, cooling system leaks,security , seat or door module failure, water pump and so on. There ain;t much you can do about the Nikasil failure, except hope, the transmission is scary, but the rest are pretty straightforward and you can save a ton of $ doing them yourself.
All that said, I would NOT feel comfortable with a single 12 year old Jaguar that I had to depend on for day today transportation without budgeting several thousand a year for maintenance. BTW, I presently own an pretty flawless 2002 XJ8 with 165,000 miles, a pretty good 1999 XJR with 170,000 miles, and my beater 1998 XJR with 240,000miles.
#23
Gotcha, unfortunately with the tensioner issue I was completely in the dark. All of what you said was fairly accurate, however difficult things I won't be able to do on the car, due to time and lack of knowledge(which is why I'm not doing the chain and valve replacement myself at this point).
I definitely respect the advice of this not being my main means of transportation and am going to remedy that in the next couple of months. Thanks again.
I definitely respect the advice of this not being my main means of transportation and am going to remedy that in the next couple of months. Thanks again.
#24
#25
The car ran a little bit louder on the highway for about 3-4 months before this occurred which I chalked up to just age of the vehicle and a week before it broke down it popped up 'restricted performance' for 5 minutes during a drive but went away midway through the drive which I figured was just the damn electrical system since I had been having issues with my driver's side window and sunroof.
And as someone who 2 weeks ago knew fairly little about engines I never took those 2 things as something that would put the car out of commission.
On a positive note this car breaking down has caused me to learn how to work on them a little and really just made me realize that with the right amount of patience and good instructions(or someone by your side who knows what they're doing) almost everything can be done on the vehicle myself.
And as someone who 2 weeks ago knew fairly little about engines I never took those 2 things as something that would put the car out of commission.
On a positive note this car breaking down has caused me to learn how to work on them a little and really just made me realize that with the right amount of patience and good instructions(or someone by your side who knows what they're doing) almost everything can be done on the vehicle myself.
#26
On a positive note this car breaking down has caused me to learn how to work on them a little and really just made me realize that with the right amount of patience and good instructions(or someone by your side who knows what they're doing) almost everything can be done on the vehicle myself.
YES!!!! And even if you do want to have someone elso to work on it, you can still feel in control, knowing how the beast really works! Good luck as you learn to tame the Kitty.
#27
How do you break the timing chain, and how do you know if you've done it? I just replaced my fuel pump and link lead on a 99 XJ8 and can't get it to start. Went over everything I did at least 10 times looking for a mistake or something not reconnected. Getting fuel to the fuel rail, seems like the fuel injectors aren't do their job. Maybe there's a fuel cut-off switch somewhere?
#28
How do you break the timing chain, and how do you know if you've done it? I just replaced my fuel pump and link lead on a 99 XJ8 and can't get it to start. Went over everything I did at least 10 times looking for a mistake or something not reconnected. Getting fuel to the fuel rail, seems like the fuel injectors aren't do their job. Maybe there's a fuel cut-off switch somewhere?
The only way to know for sure is to take the valve covers off and look. Not sure what your model/year is but if it is in the range of "failing tensioners" problem I would do it for sure.
Thanks to this forum I caught my tensioners just in the nick of time.
#29
I've got a 99 XJ8. So far my last great idea was to fully charge the battery using the onboard charger on my boat (killed the battery trying to get the car running all week). Once the battery was fully charged I hooked it back up hoping to get a start, instead I momentarily had a new message: Stability Control Failure. Don't know what that means yet, but I just came inside to find out. I've got around 140,000 miles on the car. Bought it with 127,000, so not sure what maintenance was or wasn't done before hand. Ran great til it quit running.
About the tensioners, you said you caught your's just in the nick of time... what do you mean by that? If they are going bad what damage can they cause if not 'caught in time'?
Thanks.
About the tensioners, you said you caught your's just in the nick of time... what do you mean by that? If they are going bad what damage can they cause if not 'caught in time'?
Thanks.
#33
#34
In the past week I've replaced the pump, the link lead, the evap flange, and now the fuel filter. Still nothing. Unfortunately I don't have time to work on it this week (really didn't last week either but did my best), in the meantime I borrowed a vehicle to tote the kids around while my wife has my truck.
#36
#37
If it helps, I had a 20 something amp fuse in my trunk fuse block that had a little light on it. So I moved it over to the fuel pump fuse so when current is flowing through the fuse the little light on it would light up.Not sure if this a "standard equipment" item in the XJ8's but I am sure you can buy one.
I would make extra sure that power is making it to the pump.
Also, you really, really need to get the secondary timing chain tensioners replaced, if it isn't too late already.... I wouldn't drive the car another mile before doing it.
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