Had problems with my 2003 XJ8 Vanden Plas this morning. It was hard to start, finally started but didn't fire on all cylinders for a couple of seconds. While it was doing this it said something about fail safe engine state or something like that for about 2-3 seconds. It was also a lot of smoke from the exhaust. After that the engine ran fine (to work) and there was no check engine or any other warning (the fail safe engine warning went away after 2-3 seconds as described above).

For the last couple of weeks, not that the car has been hard to start, but I have been noticing that it is has been taking like an extra second or so for the car to start and I have been sort of worried about it, and then the above incident happened this morning so I guess my supsicion was right.

I had a very similar problem with another car (not a Jag though), where the coolant was leaking and it was behaving more or less the same way (lots of smoke and hard to start). I have had to refill the coolant 3 times since I got the my Jag in April and I actually have a service appointment this week to have this checked out. The weird thing, although it was maybe 3-4 weeks since I last topped off the coolant, the colant was fine after the incident this morning. No need to top off. So obviouisly not the coolant. Back in April I had the cam cover gaskets replaced. The oil level is fine, but is due for an oil change this week.

Does anybody have any ide want this problem could be? I just spent $2K two months ago on repairs, so hopefully it will not be major.