| For anybody thinking of buying an L322 | |
For anybody looking at buying an L322, here’s the story of my first 10 months of ownership;
When I bought my 2008 TDV8 I’d looked at quite a few. There aren’t too many for sale in Ireland and due to the tax regime changing in July 2008 it had to be one registered before the end of July of that year. (After this the road tax goes up by 600 euro a year).
So the car I bought looked and drove a lot better than any previous ones I’d seen. It was in reasonable cosmetic condition inside and out. Owned by a solicitor for the previous 8 years (it had, I checked the guy out) it came with a service history (Not LR) showing regular oil changes and receipts for new rear air springs, battery, intercooler hoses, etc etc. It had a small amount of rust on the rear arches, the AC didn’t work, had new pads/discs all round and drove really well.
So here’s what I’ve had to sort out;
First thing was it had an irratic high idle. Turned out to be the wiring to the ambient air sensor behind the grille, repaired the wiring and that one solved.
I had to replace the bonnet struts, boot straps and struts, which were all past their sell by date.
It was suffering from a battery drain overnight which after a long process of using a clamp meter on the negative cable and pulling fuses turned out to be a dodgy AC control panel. Bought a NOS one off ebay and that solved that.
Took it to the mechanic and had a look underneath on the lift. Discovered two weeping rear shocks, a leaking power steering hose, a bolt missing from a suspension arm, knackered rear prop shaft bearing, all the wheel nuts were knackered and, most significantly severe corrosion to the rear jacking points, sills and inner wheel arches, hidden by the plastic sill mouldings.
So we gave it a full service, replaced all the fluids and filters and fixed what we found. I did the welding and painting on the rear sills. That took me a long time as there was a good amount of hidden corrosion to the inner sills etc as per usual with rust, what you can see is only the tip of the iceberg.
So all that done, I thought now I can fix the little things. The reversing camera wasn’t working so I replaced that. As soon as I finished that the LCM (Light control module) fried itself, a not uncommon problem that BMW’s of the same era also suffer from. After a lot of messing about trying to repair the original ended up fitting a used one and as a consequence have the tamper dot next to the odometer, but I don’t mind that.
So now we’re on the road, enjoying this beast for the first time. Then we get the dreaded bong and engine fault message and go into limp mode. Stop and start and it goes away. Happened about 4 times over a period of a couple of weeks. DTC is P123A22,which is a disagreement of the right MAPT sensor with the barometric pressure sensor. So replaced the sensor and haven’t had the problem again so far but I think it’s probably something to do with the right turbo/actuator, but time will tell if it comes back.
Also suffered from a funny wooshing sound from the transmission when cold, replaced the fluid and filter and that seems to have fixed that.
Also noticed what is like a bearing noise from the front. A gearbox guy tells me that they suffer from the passenger side differential output shaft bearing failing and he thinks after driving it that’s the most likely culprit.
Things that still need sorting are that bearing noise, AC not working, front parking sensors don’t work and the memory seats don’t work.
So that’s where I am. Now I expected that a few things would need to be sorted, I’ve bought old, complicated neglected luxury cars before, but maybe not this much. I’ve spent at least what I paid for it in repairs in the first 10 months of ownership, and I have done a lot of the work myself.
What can I say, It’s a lovely thing when it’s going!! All the best
Chris
Others;
1966 Jaguar 3.4 S type
1992 Jaguar Xjs 4.0 Coupe
2003 Jaguar Xjr
|
5th Sep 2025 11:32am
