1997 Jaguar XJ8 from UK and Ireland
Summary:
Unreliable
Faults:
Engine floods very easily if it has not warmed up. Will not restart even when looked at by AA. Have had had to have it towed to garage on several occasions & have been told by dealer that this was a design fault. Is there any way round this or obvious first aid that I can carry out at time of flooding?
General Comments:
Otherwise nice looking & comfortable.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know
Review Date: 1st March, 2006
30th May 2009, 17:57
I had a 1994 BMW 525i which suffered from this problem as well, and I always put it down to some issue with early catalytic converter cars. My Dad's Rover 216 of a similar vintage also suffered in the same way. I agree with the previous entry that the remedy was to floor the throttle and keep turning it over and it would eventually start and run rough for a while. I always worried if this method damaged the cats, but I never had a problem. In the end I found that if you kept it running for a least couple of minutes after starting it would restart alright. A bit of pain if you wanted to shunt cars around on the driveway though.
30th Aug 2008, 12:46
My dad's car - a 1995 XJ6 - once suffered this problem, as did a Mondeo of mine. It seems to happen after you start the car, drive it a few feet and then switch off.
If it happens again, try the following:
Switch off ignition.
Press accelerator to the floor and keep it held there.
Switch on ignition, pause a couple of seconds, then turn the key further to fire up the engine.
If the engine fires up, it might splutter a bit but should start to sound healthier after a few seconds, at which point you should smoothly release the accelerator.
The trick here is that when the accelerator is on the floor, this actually seems to instruct the engine management system to NOT take any more fuel from the tank, thus you avoid further flooding and it just burns off the excess that's already in the injectors.
Good luck!