Need some advice about XKR air-con repair, London

[Man of gas]

Hi guys,
I have a 2011 XKR which has always been serviced by my local Jaguar main dealer.
Although they are very convenient for me I am not that impressed with the quality of their work as everything always takes longer than a day (just routine servicing) and It always seems to cost more than £1000.
I have an issue with my air-con which they failed to diagnose at the last service as they ran out of time and I needed the car back. (re-gas didn’t fix it)
Although I want to keep up main dealer servicing I wonder whether this would be a better job for an air-con specialist or even an independent Jaguar specialist.
Anybody have any recommendations, I live in Dulwich, southeast London.
Cheers

[anonymous-user]

You'd be mad to take a 10 year old car to the main dealer; they're expensive and usually mess up anything except changing 60% worn brake pads for £500, £400 oil changes, replacing tyres for twice the price of a tyre shop, and making up "health reports" for eight grands worth of work.

Any air con specialist will have no trouble fixing that; at that age it's most probably a hole in the condenser. I've heard good things about The Jag Workshop in Ealing if you want a specialist, I was going to give them a try for changing the heater matrix in my X350 before the world ended.

[stevemcs]

The condensers can fail on these, did they pressure test the system ?

[Man of gas]

stevemcs said:

The condensers can fail on these, did they pressure test the system ?

Thanks,
it’s 8 and a half years old but I appreciate your point. Trouble is that I extended the factory warranty for 3 years so was forced to use the main dealer for the first six years and as it is walking distance then the convenience factor is a big thing.
I looked up the place you mentioned and think i will give them a call. Ealing is a bit of a trek but doable.
I like the idea of an air conditioning specialist but would be happier with a pistonhead recommendation.
thanks for your help
c

[swisstoni]

Good forum name, OP, under the circs.

I use main dealers to stamp the service book once a year. That’s it.
Getting them to even look at stuff that might require a bit of a think can turn out very costly.

[RikJonAtk]

Take it to an indy...

My XKR Air Con was intermittent for a while, then stopped entirely. Faulty electrical component somewhere - common-ish fault apparently - didn’t take long to sort (and it was cheap) and everything’s back to being frosty again 🥶

[Rozzers]

I always chuckle when an air con issue comes up in ‘General Gassing’

[Piersman2]

stevemcs said:

The condensers can fail on these, did they pressure test the system ?

I bet the dealer didn't even look at it!

Anyways, when I bought my 2010 XKR 3 years ago the air con was kaput. I got my usual mobile guy round who diagnosed a leaking condensor in about 10 minutes. Arranged with him to change it out for me. Cost about £400 all in IIRC.

[Man of gas]

Thanks guys,
won’t be taking it to the dealer, I might get a mobile chap to see if they can diagnose the problem and take it from there .