Questions and Answers

Jaguar XJ-S Oil Dipstick Marks Q. Dear Vincent, This may be an amateur question but never the less an important one. As a classic car collector I probably should know more about simple maintenance than I care to admit. But owning several different makes, I find my knowledge is more in the technical aspect, merely for the cultural aspect of the envelopment of each mark at it's given production stage.

I have very little time to actually enjoy the physical pleasure of using them on a daily basis and to keep them topped up for all their normal maintenance purposes. This is what I'm leading to; living on a remote island in the Mediterranean we have a very limited mechanical or otherwise general automotive professionals here!

My question is about my first 1989 Jaguar XJ-S 3.6 automatic which I recently purchased abroad with only 91,000 kilometers on the clock, and today when I noticed the red light warning flashing oil, but later realized it was the cooling system (which was a minor refill, which the gauge had always shown normal temperature anyway!) And already added too much oil.

After a short drive, once stationary, noticed two small oil leaks on the garage floor, which was obviously the access oil. Sods law, these always happen on a Saturday afternoon when one finds no garages open.

The dipstick is confusing; on all of my other cars, it's quite clear of where maximum and minimum is, but the Jaguar has a strange line with the letter M and on either side has a sort of crisscross lines added; the oil measure is well over all of this. How dangerous is this for the engine, having driven the car?

With kind regards,
Phillip

A. The M is the FULL line. The cross hatch marks are the allowed over and under fill. Possible damage depends on how much it was overfilled. Most crankcases will tolerate a one quart overfill without any adverse effects. Some will not.

The problem with overfilling is the throws on the crankshaft hit the oil causing it to foam. This foam, which is air bubbles, is circulated through the oiling system and can cause excessive wear on moving parts.

If the crankshaft was hitting the oil, and it was only a short drive, I wouldn't worry about it as long as the oil level was corrected.