Mazda 5 Brake Problems

Jaguar XF Brake Problems ? Hub Rusting the main Culprit?

Jaguar XF Brake Problems

We are fortunate to have a few of our customers who own a Jaguar XF.

So, like most older guys I have always been a keen fan of the Jaguar cars. Going back to when I was a young man working in a garage, as an apprentice mechanic. We were fortunate enough to have some wealthy customers. Importantly, who could afford to buy new Jaguars from time to time.

One of them was one of the directors of the Fox’s biscuits empire. Hence, who was one of the Fox families. Luckily, he always had four or five new cars on the go at once. Consequently,who always kept us busy with the servicing and repairs.

Jaguars have always appeared to have brake or tyre problems. So, throughout their history. I can remember in the late 1960’s the new  XJ4 came onto the market. This car sported wonderful flared archers . Including, new 6×15 inch wheels that were fitted out with a new tyre form Dunlop tyres. Subsequently, the tyre size was ER70VR15.

These  tyres were especially designed for Jaguar by Dunlop.

Dunlop were developing tyres with the Jaguar engineers. Who at that time were a major force in the UK tyre market. Importantly, this car also came out on disc brakes all round.

I always remember the problems that the XJ4’s were having with vibrations. Annoyingly, coming through brakes and the steering wheels. Firstly, it turned out that one of the problems was engine vibrations. So, Jaguar engineers tried out many things. Of course to try and correct the problems.

I then worked for National Tyre Service who was wholly owned by Dunlop. It was our task to try balance the wheels to our best ability. But in those days we did not have the sophisticated electronic equipment that we use on today’s cars. In fact we had to take the cars to the Dunlop garage in Leeds. Strangely at the time this was done in secrecy.  Because of the huge problem that Jaguar was having with these vibration problems.

I was once able to stop and watch the engineers go to work balancing the wheels

The balancing was carried out on a special machine that I had never seen before.  It must have been brought to Leeds from the Dunlop factory. The most amazing thing was that the Dunlop technician actually skimmed some of the tread off the tyres. Trying to make them

rounder. I certainly know that all this was hush/hush. Incredibly, so not to affect the reputation of Jaguar and also Dunlop. I believe that Jaguar had to do all sorts of things to correct the vibrations problem !  An excellent article about the early Jags can be found on…Aronline .

Back To the future with the Jaguar XF

As I have said before !  We have three or four customers that come into us for servicing. Including other jobs doing on their Jaguar XF. We have had a couple of these with complaints about brake vibrations and a droning noise. One of our customers came in with brake problems similar to the others.

This one was a bit different in that the problem  did not occur  when he was doing high speed ,the car was smooth, but when he started to slow down to about  60 mph and then 40 mph the vibration and droning noise would start to happen.

The problem is, like so many of these things, that when we road test the cars the problem never shows itself up, the car plays mind games with the owners. This particular car was taken back to the main dealers, but we now know that the braking and droning noise is now a recognised fault, the cause is thought to be the disc brakes or hub run out.

Another Jaguar XF that we were servicing was found to need discs and pads all round.

We contacted the customer who kindly gave us the go ahead to do the job. He gave us his consent and we carried out the brakes work. About three months later the car had developed a slight brake vibration and he left the car with us for examination. This all reminded me of our problems with the XJ6, s Jags in the sixties.

We road tested the car a sure enough the brakes pedal did vibrate slightly. We could find nothing wrong and true to our warranty policy we suspected that the discs could be faulty and  ordered a new set of discs.

Our supplier agreed to change the discs and accordingly sent us a new set. The New Jaguar XF discs fit onto the hub and we noticed that a slight amount of rust had formed on the outer part of the hub; this can be seen on the pictures that we took.

We think that we cured a previous Jaguar XF by removing any rust and thoroughly cleaning the hubs

Of course, before refitting the brakes discs. When we did this on this particular Jag it appeared to solve the problem. So, we cleaned off any rust that had formed on the hub. Thus, where the discs seat and re-fitted the replacement discs. Ryan road tested the car and all was well, the car had no brake vibrations and so far the car appears to be working fine.

We now think that this could be a problem if you are lucky enough to own one of these fine cars. Please make sure that the hubs where the discs fit are totally cleaned and look like new, because any rust build up will cause the disc to run out of line, only a fraction, but we feel it would be enough to cause a brake vibration on the Jaguar XF when the pedal is applied.

Eric Roberts

Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre offer car and van servicing and repairs to all makes of vehicles.  Also sell Dunlop Tyres online from our website www.pellonautocentre.com. Of course, by using the tyre selector and choosing your tyre size. Offering courtesy cars to local motorists who need to go to work and leave their car with us for work doing. We are also an official MOT testing station .