XE

The XE is Jaguar’s entry level family saloon but it still shares the advanced aluminium construction of its bigger brother the XF. The XE is also packed with a similar level of technology as its sibling, meaning advanced diagnostics and proprietary tools are required to communicate with the vehicle when fault finding.

Because the XE shares its platform with several other JLR vehicles including the Velar and because we have expanded our business to facilitate repairs on Jaguar models, we are able to provide a specialist level of service on all XE models.

Here we have put together a list of the common faults found on the Jaguar XE with symptoms and the solutions required to resolve them.

The 2.0L diesel Ingenium engine found in the XE is also fitted to many other vehicles across the Jaguar Land Rover range and timing chain issues are unfortunately very common on this engine. The timing chains stretch over time and if not replaced can cause irreparable engine damage.

In November 2019 JLR introduced an upgraded design chain that eliminates this problem. If you hear an engine rattle on start up then this is the sign of wear. We replace all the chains, guides, tensioners etc using genuine parts.

If you would like to learn more about the timing chain issue found on the 2.0 Ingenium diesel engine, please take a look at this detailed article about the timing system used on Ingenium engines and why it can fail.

Turbochargers on both single and twin turbo diesel models can start to fail quite early on in the car’s lifespan, sometimes initially developing a whistling noise before failing and sometimes just going straight into restricted performance mode.

Despite this engine being used on the rest of the current Jaguar line-up as well, this particular issue seems to be most common on XE and F-Pace Models.

Replacing a failed turbo will require a full clean of the engine, oil supply and exhaust system replacing any other parts found to have failed or that are blocked to ensure the replacement turbo does not fail in the same way shortly after fitting.

For more information on turbo failure, please see this article.

There aren’t too many 3 litre XE’s around but water pumps on 3.0 supercharged models are the same design as on other Jaguars and Land Rovers and are prone to failure, sometimes they last less than 20,000 miles. This is because coolant gets inside the bearing housing corroding the water pump bearing. This stops the impeller shaft from being supported properly causing excessive wear of the mechanical flat face seal of the pump allowing water to escape.

Symptoms of water pump failure will likely be a low coolant level warning message and traces of a coolant leak around the water pump pulley. Luckily the water pump on the V6 engine is easy to access at the front of the engine. We also recommend replacing the small coolant pipe that connects to the pump at the same time as it needs to be removed to replace the pump and has very fragile plastic connections that will likely break upon removal.

The water pump is not the only part of the cooling system that can fail on these engines, many of the hoses and pipes used for coolant delivery are of a plastic design, unfortunately, with age these can crack and fail.

Replacing these coolant hoses one at a time as they fail is not a particularly efficient approach and could result in you being in and out of the garage, and as such we recommend that all plastic coolant hoses are replaced if one has failed.

Customers sometimes complain of a weird howling noise resembling an owl at low engine speeds, if you have noticed this noise and your XE is equipped with the ZF 8 Speed automatic transmission, there is a good chance this howling noise is actually the sound of oil flowing through the automatic transmission oil cooler pipes running by the subframe.

The solution to this issue is to fit revised foam insulation pads inside of the oil cooler bracket.