Yesterday morning I decided to drive my XJ8 to work, it normally starts almost immediately but it tried to fire but would not start and then it would not even try to fire. It also seemed to be turning over faster than normal. Then I remembered the night before I just reversed the car down the drive so my son could practice playing basketball turned the car off. About an hour later I started the car and drove it back up the drive again.
Oh no "Cylinder Wash"
So last night I removed the 4 left hand side sparkplugs added a teaspoon of oil to each cylinder using a medicine syringe, put every back together and on the second turn of the key she started. I let her idle until warm then went for a 10 mile drive. I have learnt my lesson I will always warming my XJ8 up whenever I have to start it.
If it was not for this forum I would have had to have the car towed and repaired as I would not have had a clue what was wrong.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to make this forum site such wealth of information for newbies like myself.

 

I think a lot of members would agree that this site is the reason we can own a Jaguar.
The level of expertise and the willingness of members to help never ceases to astonish me.
It is good to get feedback like yours - there's nothing worse than spending hours trying to help and have the original poster evaporate on us.

 

Hello,

I empathise with you tale. After having my car for a month, the same thing happened to me. I called out the RAC (UK roadside assistance) and the tech advised me that I had bore wash. Sadly, although he new the remedy you describe, he said he didn't have time to do it.

I went back indoors, not happy, thinking I would have to pay to have it fixed. I thought I would google the problem and EUREKA, I found this FORUM and many similar stories.

The next morning, after giving the battery a full charge, I planted the accelerator to the floor, cutting out the fuel pump and after 40 seconds, she spluttered back into life.

Since then, my car is kept running for at least 3 minutes and in the last 2 years it hasn't happened again.

 

Oh crap, what the hell is cylinder wash? Why can't fully depressing the accel and cranking to clear the flooding not work. No ^^^^ing wonder we left the Empire in 1776.

 

Just let the car warm up for at least a couple of minutes if you start it...you will never run into the problem.

Embrace the few idiosyncracies Jim, you will then be a happy Jaguar owner

 

If memory serves me correctly, I believe Jaguar, at this time, was owned by a well known company from the former colonies.

Anyway, if the our cars had no faults, this forum would almost be redundant.

Happy Motoring,

Stuart