- 5,111
- Panama City, FL
So many of your descriptions of issues in the Jag seemed... familiar, and then you went to bad solder joints in the Lotus!
I don't see where you've said what model year the XK is, but since it's not a facelift, it's the same era as my 2007 XJ8 L, which has had its share of issues, only one of which approached insurmountable. If you've ever looked in on my Walter' Jalopies thread, you've seen most of this.
X350 Jags were equipped with self-leveling air suspension, and after my experience troubleshooting this I will never have another car with air suspension, unless it has a separately serviceable dryer after the compressor, as opposed to a dryer inside the compressor. Any water that gets in the system is there FOREVER, with absolutely no way to remove it. Valves rust, fittings corrode, and the system simply fails to work. Mine worked for almost a week after I bought the car, then suddenly I see the car sitting low in the morning and have to wait for the system to raise it up, or I get "Air suspension fault" while driving, and eventually "Car too low." A set of steel-spring coilovers took care of that issue right away, and I've never looked back. Car rides great, and is absolutely the most comfortable highway car I've ever owned.
I had a cracked radiator tank, and replacing the radiator led to a daisy-chain of next-weak-link events with the recovery tank, the water pump, etc., so I eventually replaced EVERY hose and fitting in the cooling system. Again, haven't looked back since doing that, and no further issues.
I recently had the headliner replaced, along with getting the driver's seat re-upholstered in new leather. I'm checking on the sunroof drains over the next few days, as a significant portion of my headliner damage was water getting in through the sunroof during a biblical rainstorm. Three of the four drain hoses are free, but having trouble with the right front, can't get a wire all the way down it.
I had nothing wrong with the stereo in mine, it played fine, even had a working CD changer in the trunk, although it didn't take long for the factory door speakers to start failing. eBay was full of replacements, though. However, the stereo has no modern connectivity. It has Bluetooth, but only for calls, not music streaming. I did find an aftermarket box provided as a kit from jagaux.com which allows me to stream from my phone, now, although I had to take the head unit out and install some cables that came with the Jagaux box. It basically disables the built-in CD audio stream and inserts its own stream there, so you select CD on the head unit, and you have to have a disc loaded, but the audio comes from your phone, and the box responds to track controls on the phone (and my smartwatch) as well as the normal steering wheel buttons. The nice thing about the Jagaux was that it was pretty cheap. The guy that makes it is Russian, and I'm thinking he's kinda fallen out of business, but I'm not sure of that. Down side is the Jagaux is only for XJ, X-type, and S-type; the ones with the same head units I have.
My car did not have the tough-screen audio/HVAC system, it has real buttons and stuff, but it did suffer from some bad solder joint issues which caused the radio/CD display to be dimmer than the HVAC display above it. Fixed that while it was out for the Jagaux install. he forum I'm on showed the exact points that the solder fails, so all I had to do was touch a hot iron to them and POOF! good lighting.
I don't see where you've said what model year the XK is, but since it's not a facelift, it's the same era as my 2007 XJ8 L, which has had its share of issues, only one of which approached insurmountable. If you've ever looked in on my Walter' Jalopies thread, you've seen most of this.
X350 Jags were equipped with self-leveling air suspension, and after my experience troubleshooting this I will never have another car with air suspension, unless it has a separately serviceable dryer after the compressor, as opposed to a dryer inside the compressor. Any water that gets in the system is there FOREVER, with absolutely no way to remove it. Valves rust, fittings corrode, and the system simply fails to work. Mine worked for almost a week after I bought the car, then suddenly I see the car sitting low in the morning and have to wait for the system to raise it up, or I get "Air suspension fault" while driving, and eventually "Car too low." A set of steel-spring coilovers took care of that issue right away, and I've never looked back. Car rides great, and is absolutely the most comfortable highway car I've ever owned.
I had a cracked radiator tank, and replacing the radiator led to a daisy-chain of next-weak-link events with the recovery tank, the water pump, etc., so I eventually replaced EVERY hose and fitting in the cooling system. Again, haven't looked back since doing that, and no further issues.
I recently had the headliner replaced, along with getting the driver's seat re-upholstered in new leather. I'm checking on the sunroof drains over the next few days, as a significant portion of my headliner damage was water getting in through the sunroof during a biblical rainstorm. Three of the four drain hoses are free, but having trouble with the right front, can't get a wire all the way down it.
I had nothing wrong with the stereo in mine, it played fine, even had a working CD changer in the trunk, although it didn't take long for the factory door speakers to start failing. eBay was full of replacements, though. However, the stereo has no modern connectivity. It has Bluetooth, but only for calls, not music streaming. I did find an aftermarket box provided as a kit from jagaux.com which allows me to stream from my phone, now, although I had to take the head unit out and install some cables that came with the Jagaux box. It basically disables the built-in CD audio stream and inserts its own stream there, so you select CD on the head unit, and you have to have a disc loaded, but the audio comes from your phone, and the box responds to track controls on the phone (and my smartwatch) as well as the normal steering wheel buttons. The nice thing about the Jagaux was that it was pretty cheap. The guy that makes it is Russian, and I'm thinking he's kinda fallen out of business, but I'm not sure of that. Down side is the Jagaux is only for XJ, X-type, and S-type; the ones with the same head units I have.
My car did not have the tough-screen audio/HVAC system, it has real buttons and stuff, but it did suffer from some bad solder joint issues which caused the radio/CD display to be dimmer than the HVAC display above it. Fixed that while it was out for the Jagaux install. he forum I'm on showed the exact points that the solder fails, so all I had to do was touch a hot iron to them and POOF! good lighting.
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