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Jaguar S Bype R - An Imposter, saving a bird, and that effin supercharger!


Crispian_J_Hotson

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British auto gearbox specialists appear, as far as I can tell, to be utter crooks as a rule. If it needs a service they'll tell you it needs a rebuild/recon, if it needs a rebuild, they'll perform a service and hope it lasts long enough for you to forget.

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16 minutes ago, RichardK said:

British auto gearbox specialists appear, as far as I can tell, to be utter crooks as a rule. If it needs a service they'll tell you it needs a rebuild/recon, if it needs a rebuild, they'll perform a service and hope it lasts long enough for you to forget.

I used Preston auto transmissions. They were very good and appear to be well regarded.

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Through just doing this and making enquiries about my black car too, it's the self confessed specialists that one should be wary of. If you are a specialist, you know how something works and all the associated issues that can arise with whatever that is, and generally, how to remedy it. You call on the years of experience you have obtained as a group through employing the correct people. I found out of the 5 specialists, most of the people I spoke to were helpful and willing to discuss, much like a Kwik-fit, but once the facade of being a specialist was passed, all lacked technical knowledge on a commonly shared part. I know this because the conversation died at the same point, and I'm not the only one to find this.

Who would want to give a so called technically complex vehicle to someone who lacks the technical knowledge to repair it and is wheeling out the parts cannon?

I have also left email enquiries for others with no response whatsoever.

There are two types of enquiry.

a) "I have a yellow light come up on the dash, it's in the shape of an iron lung, I've googled it and it says that it's near Africa. When can you pick it up from my place of work and proceed to financially slaughter me please"?

b) "the noise started on this date, we monitored it over this period, tested the system and found these fault codes, eliminated this one, checked the ecu which leaves this, can you replace this one part only as it's a sod of a job"?

Even the old bill of major engine electrical work this car had done is quite comical to read, when you know what your reading (which isn't that difficult). This was not done by our favorite* specialist, but by another. The car had an EML issue so they:

1) repaired wiring - Okayyy, maybe. This is a 'repair' to the injector harness at the only point where you can see it and access it to lazily repair it. I know this because I've just had to repair their repair, before it totally failed.

2) repaired the ECU - ffs, I bet, I could go out there now and that ECU has not been touched, ever.

3) changed the EGR - which was most likely the issue and is a shitter of a job.

4) reprogrammed the ecu. - UWOTM8

Now the fella is going to pay for all that and then spread the word on how there was so much wrong with it, and how it's cost him a fortune, when it's most likely just an EGR, how common are they at failing?

I'm afraid as it would seem with these things, we are pretty much left on our own to get it done right.

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When the valve stem oil seals failed on my 545 ( it smoked like a pope being elected on the deck of the Admiral Kuznetzov when hot ) replies from local specialists ranged from " not a repair we offer any more " to tumbleweeds.

I bit the bullet and took it to a place in Nuneaton who could do valve stem seals easily. On arrival it was obvious they took on the type of work that had the rest running for the hills - they specialise in turbo rebuilds, walnut blasting - in other words they did more than just servicing and brakes which is what many "specialists" just want to "specialise" in because easy.

How come they could do the job easily and cheaply (£1k) but nobody else gave a flying fook? I did notice many of techs appeared to be eastern european - maybe they have a greater skill set? Work ethic? Dunno.

There are good still good specialists out there - but you need to do your homework.

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Wow, persistence pays off. Excellent work Crispin. You've saved this from the jaws of the crusher, and I say this because if any unsuspecting/unprepared punter buys this, it goes into the cycle of specialist -> £500 but not repaired -> another specialist £500 still not repaired etc. Then they give up and scrap it.

There is a litany of shady work in the history here which you have done well to reverse. I'm flabbergasted at some of the faults you've found, and yet also not surprised at all.

I'm interested to hear about the conversation with seller who was pretending not to be a trader. What is to stop him doing the same again?

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1 hour ago, sierraman said:

With the advent of YouTube I would not want to be a specialist. ‘I’ve looked it up and it’s xyz can you now replace that and warrant that it’s sorted’

And forums, everyone has a story or opinions and they aren't all correct. You know yourself that if the car isn't in front of you, it could be 1 of 100 things. I've had a small amount of great advice from forums though that have thought outside the box. Not one has ever directly solved an issue. They are great for sources of information though. Literally all the diagrams and technical information are available gratis, for these s types.  At the end of the day, it needs to be correctly diagnosed from start to finish in one session.

I like You tube to watch component tear downs and see others go through the mental pain and suffering, albeit with sponsored advertising.

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6 hours ago, Bren said:

I used Preston auto transmissions. They were very good and appear to be well regarded.

I'm sure there are good ones and it depends what the issue is, the SLK went to one in Glos, and predictably they charged for service, claimed box was fucked, and had actually "wiped the sump so it looked like someone had looked at it if you glanced". Old oil, old pin bushing, anti-tamper dipstick untampered, car switched to W mode so it slurred when driven off. When I serviced it myself I found the original filter and untouched bolts.

And that's just the most recent because I'm so tired of this nonsense. But a proven good one? That's a keeper. I know there will be people to take pride in such things - @NorthernMonkey took my E320 when I had an attack of CBA on the selector plate and fixed it for example - but the businesses that present as high turnover, marketed to the public specialists? Not with someone else's.

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9 minutes ago, RichardK said:

I'm sure there are good ones and it depends what the issue is, the SLK went to one in Glos, and predictably they charged for service, claimed box was fucked, and had actually "wiped the sump so it looked like someone had looked at it if you glanced". Old oil, old pin bushing, anti-tamper dipstick untampered, car switched to W mode so it slurred when driven off. When I serviced it myself I found the original filter and untouched bolts.

And that's just the most recent because I'm so tired of this nonsense. But a proven good one? That's a keeper. I know there will be people to take pride in such things - @NorthernMonkey took my E320 when I had an attack of CBA on the selector plate and fixed it for example - but the businesses that present as high turnover, marketed to the public specialists? Not with someone else's.

I posted on a completely different thread that I really don't blame anybody for wanting brand new. It is getting more and more difficult to keep an older car on the road.

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Well... whoop dee doo...

Restricted performance came on today after a bit of a serving up, you need to put these through their paces gents. This was accompanied with an EML.
No performance restriction was detected by the driver (me) and the message with the orange light of doom soon extinguished. The EML remained lit. This is a new one!
Upon returning back to base, the ignition was turned off and the car left to shut down whilst I went and smashed my head up against a stone wall.
About an hour later, the engine was switched back on and the EML was still present.

Diagnostics time! YAY. I actually secretly enjoy the process, it's like solving a murder mystery. I just wish that it wouldn't eat up so much time, everyone just sees me sitting in the car and assumes I'm relaxing in some strange way.

Still, I plugged in icarsoft, that doesn't work, and proceeded to read all the ecus except the important one that it can't read, you know, the one I need to read... right now...

No faults found in the rest of the car which was nice to know, even the TCM was blemish free. So, as it can't read the engine ecu codes, it can still do live data which is weird. I picked out the main culprits to see if they were even alive, like the temp sensors, maf sensor etc. I can't read all the entire cars live data at the same time because icarsoft stalls which leads me to think that there is a powerful* processor in there. So I need to select choice bits at a time.

Most things appeared to be doing stuff except for:

  • O2 sensor, bank 2 upstream which was reading -1.76A to -2.00A. Minus? I need help with figuring that out.


So then I grouped all the O2 sensor readings and looked at their data, here's the group:

  • O2 bank 2 upstream
  • O2 bank 1 equivalence ratio
  • O2 bank 2 equivalence ratio
  • Heated O2 bank 1 downstream
  • Heated O2 bank 2 downstream
  • O2 bank 1 downstream
  • O2 bank 2 downstream


And that was it. Now, check that list again... are you sure you checked it and made sure it's all there? I'm going to let you have a play with that. Interactive problem solving...

I did find the issue of which will come in the nail chewing part two.

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Jeepers, this is turning into a bit of a mystery. The eagle eyed ones out there would have spotted that bank 1 upstream is missing.

Being the determined fool that I am, I kept messing with icarsoft and came out of the diag for Jaguar. I went back in on OBD11 diag and selected Jag from the long list of manufacturers. I'm sure I tried this once before, anyhoo, I looked down and it had run through the ecu presence list, again, I selected the PCM > read faults, and didn't hold out any hope. I looked back down at the icarsoft and there it was...
 

  • P0171 System too lean bank 1


So, what tells the PCM what's coming out so that it knows what to put in? The O2 sensor. I had a crawl under the car and would you believe it... there is a spark plug in Bank 2 upstream hole in the CAT. So my question is, how is this sparkplug bluetoothing data to the PCM?

Seriously, why is this plugged and what's it hiding? Is it just a case of 'no money m8, just lash it up, or is it hiding something much more sinister? That plug has been in there a while as it's fairly rusty. How is Bank 2 missing the upstream but Bank 1 does not show up on data? Has the cable or entire sensor been swapped over so now bank 2 is actually bank 1? Where's the connector for bank 2? Is it sellotaped into bank 1's wiring? 

The only way I can tell is to look at the wire colours and compare them to the colours on the wiring diagram, I also need to find the connector to bank 2 sensor. It's a bit of a mess. Whatever happens, I'm going to need a new sensor which is just a touch over £100.

So now, not only have my bushes still not turned up and my rear wheel is still hanging out, but I can't rag the car either. But, we will get it fixed although it feels like I've been knocked back to square 1! Poo.

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Fuxache. The wankers really have been let loose on this. A friggin spark plug. Get tae fuck.

Good luck finding the wiring and unpicking this bugger's muddle. Honestly there should be some sort of licence that prevents twats from owning this sort of car. If you can't afford to fix it, don't buy it.

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1 minute ago, grogee said:

Fuxache. The wankers really have been let loose on this. A friggin spark plug. Get tae fuck.

Good luck finding the wiring and unpicking this bugger's muddle. Honestly there should be some sort of licence that prevents twats from owning this sort of car. If you can't afford to fix it, don't buy it.

That's the thing, I reckon they did charge him for fixing it. Looking forward to sussing it out though, if I had a warm garage right now, that's where I'd be. Trying to work it out in the old noggin keeps me awake at night dangit!

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Get yer head around this...

 I am reading that a good upstream sensor outputs from 0.1 to 0.9 volts, as a guide.

O2 sensor, bank 2 upstream which was reading -1.76A to -2.00A. Minus? 

What alien language is that?

That sensor physically in bank 1 is busted, those readings are too weird and make no sense. The readings from the down streams are uneven, bank 1 being high as the connection to the sensor in the upstream comes from bank 2- in my theory. So, therefore the downstream in bank 1 is getting a default over fuel from the PCM* as there is no information going to it. Bank 2 is being read from the sensor in bank 1 which is outputting something but as said, the readings are weird, out of the required parameters, so that is over fueling too.

Downstream: (target 0.45v as a standard guide)

  • Bank 1: 0.71v
  • Bank 2: 0.53v

I cannot even figure out what's what as I don't know how the remaining upstream has been connected. At the moment it looks like the cable for 2 is in 1 because 1 does not show on diag. Until I get into it, it's a theory, but the car is over fueling on both banks and there is bad information from half the system going to the PCM. Once the PCM standard fuel trim is exceeded i.e. under power, it does not know extra fuel is required, it runs lean and the fault occurs. Therefore, the system requires 2 upstream sensors and this bodge is covering up a £250+ labour bill.

How's your brain now?

* PCM Powertrain control module. 

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That sounds like a pretty intractable problem as it stands right now. The only way I feel I would be comfortable proceeding is with a wiring diagram to rectify the two plugs into one situation and four new oxygen sensors. I wouldn't be surprised if upon removing some of the remaining O2 sensors you find they have melted away due to the catalytic converters collapsing. I've seen that before.

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1 hour ago, Crispian_J_Hotson said:

Get yer head around this...

 I am reading that a good upstream sensor outputs from 0.1 to 0.9 volts, as a guide.

O2 sensor, bank 2 upstream which was reading -1.76A to -2.00A. Minus? 

What alien language is that?

 

That sounds like bolex to me. I mean, not bolex from you, but gobbledegook from the code reader. Never heard of these things being read in current/amps, ever. And if you were to measure it, I'm sure it would be milli or micro amps. 

My thinking is that the 'A' is Chinese/Danish/Azerbaijani for 'open circuit' and the number is... meaningless. Which would make some* sense if it was the unplugged sensor circuit.

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Is it possible that the bodgers have joined the wiring for two sensors onto one working sensor, thus reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, in the belief that this would fool the car into seeing two outputs? It's too early for me to brain but from my computer PSU faffing days I remember there being tricks to get different voltages by combining outputs.

Suspect a search for scotchlocks up the loom somewhere is in your future.

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59 minutes ago, RichardK said:

But the other vague possibility could be failed and leaking capacitors in the ECU causing weirdness. It's about the right age and era for such shenanigans.

In my experience it's very rarely the ECU and when it is, it's because someone can't be bothered to diagnose properly. They seem to be one of the more robust bits of electronics, but then they tend to be insulated from the worst of the road salt/clag/oil leaks, unlike the sensors. 

I'm putting £10 on a scotchlock bodgefest somewhere inaccessible.

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