As a new XK8 owner I posted questions to several experts. Dean
Cusano is a member of the Jag car club I just joined here in CT.
He is also one of the owners of Motor Cars Ink in Plainville, CT
www.motorcarsinc.com]1-800-899-1055. Here�s his very informative
reply
Generally here we try to advise a 3500 mile oil change interval,
usually in the xk8’s that means 2 changes a year, the most
important one being just before the car gets put away for the
winter, and the other probably mid summer depending on the
mileage. we do not recommend synthetic oils, they tend to promote
leakage in these cars.
The Borla system is a little loud, I have installed only 2 so far
on an xk8, I feel that being an automatic, a louder system seems
out of place. if you go on line, there is a company owned by a
neat guy ‘‘Chafi keisler’’ and they make a nice stainless system that
has a nice sound, or you can save loads of money by installing
resonator eliminators and supercharged tips at the end, and it is
more easily reversible if you want to quiet down at a later time.-
I have not installed any Jaguar navigation systems but Kenwood
makes a nice one that fits in the glove box area that is a little
user friendlier than the jag nav system which I think is kind of
useless.
Front wheel bearings are definitely a weak link and we replace them
all the time, they are not adjustable and there is nothing you can
do to make them last longer, they are either good or loose. good
news is that they last about 50k miles usually and that they are
relatively inexpensive, pts and labor about 300.00 per frt corner,
the rears last longer. And yes they are always checked during
services. The main reason why they may fail prematurely is that
you should NOT rotate tires on an xk-8, contrary to what jaguar
says. Xk-8 cars wear the rear tires on the inner edge within 15k
miles usually the wear is very obvious, it is a sacrificial thing
that you just have to accept. And when someone with good intention
moves those unevenly worn tires to the front, they want to toe out
by nature and wipe out the frt bearings much quicker.
The only time I have ever seen any timing chain issues with any v8
jaguar engines has been when the motor was either over 200k miles
or if the motor was over revved or ran out of oil by neglect, I
have seen one of each of these so far. My opinion is that the
motors are absolutely dependable, and that there is nothing to
worry about if you are good with your services and
in summary, the things to know about an xk-8 convertible are as
follows:
the rear tires wear, that is the way it is
the top is tricky, always go from the beginning of the cycle when
opening ro the end to close, don�t stop in the middle.
The side windows need to resynched from time to time especially if
the battery is disconnected. See the manual on how to reset.
–
Old Dog, 2000 XK8 Convertable
Mystic,CT, United States
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