Hello All; I have a 2002 XJ8 with only 68K. Base model. The prior owner has the front end aligned and new tires and brakes installed when it had 66K/2years ago. Car is in real nice shape. However, I noticed the steering wheel will shimmy/shake back and forth slightly while decelling down from high speeds{from about 70MPH} WITHOUT any brake application. Any hints? I assume there must be some front end wear like a tie rod end or the intermediate bar/pitman arm, etc, but since the car had that recent work, I assumed that the Jag Dealer repairing shop would had jumped on the chance to sell more repairs when servicing it for the alignment and tires. Unless they were just lazy. Or the tires hit a curb, hard? The car also drifts slightly to the left on the highway during steady state road load. Maybe that's key evidence? And this being my first Jaguar, I noticed that these cars are indeed a different animal {tank's fuel pump line access, anyone??}. I'm a Car Guy/ retired automotive engineer and am familiar with these topics, but wanted to bounce it off the Jaguar Forum, as these car are somewhat specialized. Looks Old School, but...Thanks for any input.

 

There's lots of bushings that they could have missed before. Though with a shimmy I'd look at balance again just to be sure before doing anything else. I'd look at shock mount bushing first, then ball joints, then at the wishbone bushings, then the front subframe carrier bushings. Here's a diagram of the wishbone stuff, the shock bushings are just a round rubber insert at the bottom, and the foam bushings sandwiched by big washers up top. Wishbone-Front-Upper and Lower - Parts For XJ Series from (V)812317 to (V)F59525 (X308) | Jaguar Classic Parts UK