Hi there. Brand new member and XJ 8 V8 owner here.

I picked up the car a couple of weeks ago and it's been running perfectly. The previous owner told me that once in a while the "High Gearbox Temperature" warning comes on - and it does - but the car continues to drive fine and shifts rather smoothly. He told me it's a bad sensor and it's about 150 bucks to replace; however, I noticed today that after the light came on, the tranny jerked a little before shifting into the next gear. Other than that, the car drives very nicely and without any problems.

I just don't know what to make of this and I'm afraid I landed myself a project.

Any ideas or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Holiday Cheers!

 

You should take your autobox temperature very seriously. Try and find out if any work has been done on it, especially if the ATF fluid has been changed. Also the mileage if over about 60,000mile, the fluid should have been changed. The fluid used may not have been the right type, i.e. synthetic or mineral. Synthetic is said to run at a lower temperature by its very nature. Cooler lines to the autobox could be clogged.
I put an external temperature guage onto mine, it was a cooking device called a "meat temp. indicator" which just conveniently happens to be in exactly the right temp. range for the job. The probe was on a lead which I had to lengthen with some thin screened lead of the audio type. I ran the lead up a body panel joint, so no drilling of anything. I fastened the probe unit to the top cooler line on the autobox with tie wraps of the nylon type, and surrounded it with some glassfibre insulation. The device is battery powered, and has a low power consumption, so you can leave it on all the time. As this will separately show your ATF fluid temperature, you can decide if the internal one is right or not. My cost was £10, say $15. Hope this helps. Mine is an S-type 2.7D., ZF6HP26 autobox.
Leedsman.

 

Thanks Leedsman. I took the car to a shop and they told me since the warning is "only" orange, I shouldn't worry too much about it. I still plan on taking it to a main Jag dealer to see what the issue is.

I also found out about a few new issues I wasn't aware of. It kinda makes me feel bad about my acquisition, but I guess Jags are known for that (being in the shop a lot).

Anyways, many thanks for your detailed response.

 

BadCat, I can't honestly say my Jag. has been any worse than the last few cars I've had. In fact the only real trouble I've had was to do with this nonsense of the autobox being "sealed for life". Also any troubles I had with recent cars were nothing exotic -- same kind of stuff I was having 30 years ago. The S-type has the same quality you find in most Jags; you could rightly say "it's a very pleasant way of getting around".
Leedsman.
p.s. Re the "sealed for life autobox", there may be a case for miss-selling here that could be a basis for litigation. It seems to have all the hall-marks of an attempt to hoodwink a buyer into buying a car by suggesting that the gearbox is sealed for the life of the car. An intending buyer might conclude that the car will thereby cost less to service. There is nothing new about this autobox OR ITS FLUID that can justify the claim "sealed for life". Granted it's a clever design of autobox and works well now the control software has been improved, but I feel the claim made for it is not substantiated in reality. Whether ZF company or Jaguar et al could be held liable is a moot point. Certainly, because of the expense of the gearbox, and the expense of removing it for repair/replacing and re-installation, the amount of money involved might be worth litigation, but a lawyer would be the best to consult in such a contingency. It seems we could be looking at anything between $3500 to $5000 to repair/refurb a ZF autobox because the ATF fluid had not been replaced at sensible-engineering intervals such as 60,000mile for synthetic fluid and reasonable driving style.

 

I don't think you'll find a very good legal position for "Seal for Life" in the event of a unit failure. Seal for life is part of an incomplete sentence that more fully reads something like "Sealed for the Life of the Warranty Period". Seal for life is a term freely bantered around in loose conversations leaving one naively with the impression that a mechanical unit like a transmission might never need maintenance until civilization ends as we know it on planet Earth. That kind of mechanical unit has not yet been invented.

Of course, it would become incumbent upon the user to do due diligence in reading the fine print regarding the manufacturer's responsibilities for unit failures if that opportunity arose. I can't cite it verbatim but I'm very sure it's there in the warranty language coming from the manufacturer. Witness that Jaguar will readily replace the complete transmission at no cost to the owner, upon good evidence of failure, right up to the mile (or date) of warranty expiration, yet will completely reverse stance the mile (or date) after.

Seal for life is not an engineering accomplishment, it is a Marketing strategy. Seal for Life, along with extended oil change intervals and expense free maintenance services during warranty are part of a marketing plan used by many manufacturers recently. This is coming from two forces - Customers who are demanding more service-free products than tradition has offered, and governments demanding products that have less impact on the environment. With the advent of synthetic petroleum products, manufacturers are better able to "gamble" that uint failures are kept to a minimum during the warranty period; however, they have no qualms about denying any responsibilities thereafter and, I believe, are on solid legal ground.

I would love to see the MTBFs for the so called "seal for life" units and compare those to the previous generations of similar units where regular periodic maintenance was required. I'll bet that while synthetic fluids offer some initial, early life assurances for unit integrity, the curve takes a steep rise at about the 50K mile interval and, I bet, comes close to the MTBF curve of the previous gen units. Of course, I'm sure I'll never have access to that information, just a wish.

 

Nowhere can I find the expression "sealed for life of the warranty period" actually in print. Therefore THAT would be an assumption. In print it says "sealed for life" only.
The business of mis-selling and a sellers responsibility is a new-ish legal situation here in UK. It mainly came about over the scandal of mis-selling of endowment mortgages from the late 1980s, and there is estimated currently that some £50bn. is still owing to clients who have been "time-barred" from their rightful money, in the situation where a policy cannot be estimated to have furnished it's claims until it has run it's course of at least 20 years, therefore exceeding the 16 year statute of limitations.
I would again point out that if an individual is considering legal action in this contingency, then he/she should consult a lawyer. In such matters a group action (US class action) might be considered appropriate, as has previously happened with contention over motor vehicles.
Leedsman.

 

Yes, I agree, consulting an attorney, if one truly believes they've been harmed is the correct path to take, of course. I'm certainly not that person. Hell, I never graduated from high school and it took me two tries just to get my GED, but I digress. I've never read the warranty nor have I parsed it's content with the intention of trying to build a legal case around alleged damages resulting from misunderstandings of the term Seal for Life.

I would imagine an attorney's first challenge is getting to the originator's intent for Seal for life as this term cannot be more ambiguous as it stands. That term comes from Jaguar, ZF, and other car manufacturers and suppliers so they hold the keys as to its real meaning. I would also imagine that one legal challenge, probably out of many, is to prove that some implied warranty exists resulting from the use of the term Seal for Life. Maybe that would be easier than it looks; however, I couldn't imagine a contract lawyer missing something as simple as boilerplate legal language protecting his client from implied warranties which is really Contracts 101 in any law school in the World.

Then again, lawsuits do happen and are sometimes won by good litigators. One comment about class actions suits; especially here in the three-ring circus courts of the US - Class actions, if won, are a complete energy/money drain with the only payees being the attorneys. Class actions serve far more as a lesson giver to the respondent than as any real monetary award to the class of complainants. So, if one likes teaching lessons, class actions are a good gamble.

As in other things like this, I'd rather be proactive, sifting through the ambiguities of something like Seal for Life, taking more practical preventative actions, then rolling the "mechanical failures" dice (as all things mechanical do eventually fail), over taking something like Seal for Life as face value.

Good discussion.

 

Hi there again. I finally managed to get a code for my "High Gearbox Temperature" warning. It's P0710.

Does anybody have an idea what this indicates. I'd appreciate it. I'm in France and getting to the bottom of issues like that is like pulling teeth.

Cheers & many thanks.

 

I was getting the same fault a few months ago, I replaced the transmission internal harness which includes the temp sensor and have had zero problems since. There is a thread where several members help me through the process. Not a hard job at all once you know what you're doing on it. The harness cost me $175 ish and the fluid another $200 ish. Don't skimp on the fluid. I also did the filter at the same time.

 

i agree with 70gsrick. most likely problem is the temp sensor which is in the internal wire harness. part number should be lnc3380aa. i have seen it many times at the dealership. hope this helps.