JAGUAR XE with an engine rattle

Jaguar XE with a timing chain rattle

This 2015 Jaguar XE is the owners much loved car.

He bought it into the workshop as he heard a slight noise when he started it up. He wasn't overly concerned about the noise as he said it went away after a couple of minutes. 

Initially we could not confirm where the noise was coming from. We suggested that we monitor the noise and for the customer to return over the coming weeks and we will see if the noise was still apparent.

On his next visit the noise appeared louder and more pronounced. We immediately realised that it was coming from the engine timing area. This is not good news for an engine. An engine timing chain keeps the movement of the components in the top half of an engine in synchronisation with those in the bottom half of the engine. If the chain starts to wear it can move out of syncronisation to the rest of the engine and cause catastrophic engine failure which normally results with the car requiring a new engine. 

We stripped down the engine to gain access to the timing chain. Once the original chain had been removed we compared the length to that to the length of the new chain and noticed that the original chain had stretched causing it to be loose on it's guides. It's almost like a bicycle chain stretching and coming off its sprockets. Multiply that scenerio and you can picture what could have happened to the engine. 

This was a complex job to undertake as not only as it's time consuming it also happened right in the middle of all suppliers shutting down for the Coronavirus outbreak. We had to shop around various suppliers to gather all the parts together to complete the job. 

With a great deal of persistance we managed to source all the chains, secondary chains, guides and all other secondary components required to complete the job. We give Brookfields Land Rover parts specialists in Market Weighton a thumbs up with their help with sourcing quite a number of the parts required in very challenging times.

Normally a job like this would take most garages approximately 1 week to complete but because of the circumstances the Jaguar was here for almost a month.

The owner finally got his Jaguar back with a quiet engine and a much smaller invoice than a new engine would have cost!