Jaguar XF home servicing.
Discussion
What's going on with Jaguars these days.
Owning a fairly high mileage XFS and planning on holding ont it means that I'm not concerned with stamps in the service book so it gets looked after at home. What's surprised me is the ease of servicing:
Front brake pads - 2 hours
Rear brake pads - 2 hours
Air filter - 5 minutes
Oil and filter - 30 minutes
Fuel filter - 5 minutes
I'm sure there are lots of jobs that are best left to the specialists, but I'm really pleasantly surprised at the ease of access for doing other jobs, particularly the tube for oil extraction using a pump.
Owning a fairly high mileage XFS and planning on holding ont it means that I'm not concerned with stamps in the service book so it gets looked after at home. What's surprised me is the ease of servicing:
Front brake pads - 2 hours
Rear brake pads - 2 hours
Air filter - 5 minutes
Oil and filter - 30 minutes
Fuel filter - 5 minutes
I'm sure there are lots of jobs that are best left to the specialists, but I'm really pleasantly surprised at the ease of access for doing other jobs, particularly the tube for oil extraction using a pump.
h for access!
In reply to the OP's point and as an amateur tinkerer who likes to tackle small easy jobs that normally incur large garage and emergency plumber bills to put right I would like to make an observation:
In all my cars and motorbikes and even lawn mowers from 1982 to today if I wanted to check the oil I would take Qty 1 oily rag (or inside of my trouser leg if no rag to hand), extract dipstick and 1 minute later I could tell if the oil needed a change.
Fast forward to my 2015 Jaguar XF 2.2 diesel. Drove it with a big smile on my face for a month and the amateur tinkerer in me got the better of me and I decided to check the oil....
1 - Hunt high and low in the engine compartment for the dipstick, none obvious. Pull at all plugs, nuts, bolts, pipes... anything and every thing ... scratch head lots. Walk around engine compartment many times.
2 - Repeat (1) above lots.
3 - Repeat (2) above some more.
4 - It's getting dark, admit defeat. My man credentials (such as they are) thwarted and left in tatters. I am now officially a woman incapable of checking oil level.
5 - Resort to Google. This reaffirms I am a woman because as a man I never seek advice or read the manual. Google throws no light on where the dip stick is at all. Instead it says I must follow some weird process of driving the car to get the oil hot. Sit in the car for ten minutes (or it may be 9.172662 minutes precisely because leave it too long or do it too soon AND this will not work.
6 - After waiting said interval press a button on a stalk and scroll to where it says "Oil info not available - refer to manual". Bad luck you didn't wait the necessary and precise 9.172662 minutes. You ferked up and left it a millisecond too long. Repeat (5) again.
7 - Repeat (6) many times. Don't leave the car but keep trying the button on the stalk every millisecond else go back to (6) again.
8 - At this point give up and admit that checking the oil is a job for the garage.
9 - Alternatively take a week off work to drive the car to get oil hot and press the button endlessly and you *may* get a message saying "engine oil is ok".
10 - As far as I can tell there is no dipstick. As far as I can tell the electronic messages do not give an actual oil level. Nor do they tell you that your oil is so beautifully clean you should syphon some off an drub it on your girlfriends body that night or that it is black as coal and may need a change.
So in summary "in the old days" checking oil was a 1 min job. Nowadays it takes many times that.
Yes I have a bee in my bonnet about certain so called improvements! Why not do both the dipstick and the electronic method.
... and another rant, in the old days every thing could be taken apart with phillips or flat head screw drivers, then in came allen keys.. well ok. Now everything seems to have some new head on it that requires some new tools. Luckily a hammer and or stillson will sort most out.
In all my cars and motorbikes and even lawn mowers from 1982 to today if I wanted to check the oil I would take Qty 1 oily rag (or inside of my trouser leg if no rag to hand), extract dipstick and 1 minute later I could tell if the oil needed a change.
Fast forward to my 2015 Jaguar XF 2.2 diesel. Drove it with a big smile on my face for a month and the amateur tinkerer in me got the better of me and I decided to check the oil....
1 - Hunt high and low in the engine compartment for the dipstick, none obvious. Pull at all plugs, nuts, bolts, pipes... anything and every thing ... scratch head lots. Walk around engine compartment many times.
2 - Repeat (1) above lots.
3 - Repeat (2) above some more.
4 - It's getting dark, admit defeat. My man credentials (such as they are) thwarted and left in tatters. I am now officially a woman incapable of checking oil level.
5 - Resort to Google. This reaffirms I am a woman because as a man I never seek advice or read the manual. Google throws no light on where the dip stick is at all. Instead it says I must follow some weird process of driving the car to get the oil hot. Sit in the car for ten minutes (or it may be 9.172662 minutes precisely because leave it too long or do it too soon AND this will not work.
6 - After waiting said interval press a button on a stalk and scroll to where it says "Oil info not available - refer to manual". Bad luck you didn't wait the necessary and precise 9.172662 minutes. You ferked up and left it a millisecond too long. Repeat (5) again.
7 - Repeat (6) many times. Don't leave the car but keep trying the button on the stalk every millisecond else go back to (6) again.
8 - At this point give up and admit that checking the oil is a job for the garage.
9 - Alternatively take a week off work to drive the car to get oil hot and press the button endlessly and you *may* get a message saying "engine oil is ok".
10 - As far as I can tell there is no dipstick. As far as I can tell the electronic messages do not give an actual oil level. Nor do they tell you that your oil is so beautifully clean you should syphon some off an drub it on your girlfriends body that night or that it is black as coal and may need a change.
So in summary "in the old days" checking oil was a 1 min job. Nowadays it takes many times that.
Yes I have a bee in my bonnet about certain so called improvements! Why not do both the dipstick and the electronic method.
... and another rant, in the old days every thing could be taken apart with phillips or flat head screw drivers, then in came allen keys.. well ok. Now everything seems to have some new head on it that requires some new tools. Luckily a hammer and or stillson will sort most out.
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