Dead battery after a service

[cabriolet]

Last week I had my car booked into my local Jaguar garage for a service & MOT. Apart from having to order a part the process went ok. The next day when I went to open the tailgate it would not activate. I managed to open the car and the message came up that the battery was low and to immediately start the car. This I did but was confused why this should happen immediately after a service. I then looked at forums and read that in quite a few similar situations this had happened to them and that the potential reason for it was that the garage had not closed down systems they had been in. The effect was that lights inside the car were not turning off. After reading this I went to the car and I could see lights on each door illuminated. The next day I rang the AA and when I explained my situation and he said that Jaguar are aware of this situation where they are not closing down systems after a service. Apparently to clear the problem you have to disconnect the battery which reverts the car to default status. The AA technician said as the battery was flat he would not need to do that process and that he needed to charge the battery for 15 minutes and then reprogram the car. At this point I left him to it. Eventually he said he had completed the process but there was still a big drain on battery and that I should really be thinking about a new one. At that point I looked into the car and I could see that the door lights were still illuminated and when asked about this he said they should have extinguished. After seeing this he decided to disconnect the battery and do the reset procedure and after this was completed the battery drain situation and the internal lights had gone back to normal. Since that day my car has worked perfectly so I decided to contact the Service Manager and he stated that they do not do any process that can effect this to happen. I am not accepting this as I have sent him several examples of this happening to other people where they suspect that
The OBD ports had been used and not closed down. He is at this moment looking at this information and will come back to me. I could have easily gone down the road of replacing the battery and the action of doing this would have reset the systems. Without the information I have found I would have just accepted that it was a faulty unit and would have to accept the high cost of replacement. I have pointed out to the service manager that I have had a lot of inconvenience and possible damage to my battery and asked him what he is going to do about it

[andypryce]

Interesting let us know the outcome

[cabriolet]

Interesting let us know the outcome

I am not expecting them to admit that it is their fault but what I have learnt is that every time I have the car serviced in the future I will check that the internal lights are extinguished when the car is locked. This will obviously be done before I take the car away from the garage. Prior to getting this F type I had an XJ-S which was always serviced by an independent and during that time I was completely satisfied with the service given. When I purchased the car I had 1 service owing to me so I had to have it direct with the local franchised Jaguar dealer. I also had a years warranty which has resulted in another Jaguar dealer doing the work and my experience there was not good. I could write reams about it but that is another subject.

[cabriolet]

Just been dealing with a new Service Manager at my local Jaguar garage and he accepted that there was a possibility that a procedure done at the service could have caused my flat battery, having said that he does not know at this moment what it could be. (He said he will be looking into it a lot deeper) As a compromise for the inconvenience caused I have accepted 50% off the price of a new Battery. This compromise was offered by me and thankfully I can now feel that someone has listened to my issue. This is the first time I have spoken to someone with a good background in car servicing as previously I have spoken to personnel that looked uninterested in the faults you were describing. One good thing I can take away from this issue is that when I have the car serviced again I will make sure internal lights go out when the car is locked.

[andypryce]

So often we hear bad things on here about main dealers, occasionally good things, but on the whole main dealer servicing does seem a bit of a rip off. Problem is with a newish car a lot of value is put on a Full Jaguar service history rather than just a full service history. Weird.

[cabriolet]

So often we hear bad things on here about main dealers, occasionally good things, but on the whole main dealer servicing does seem a bit of a rip off. Problem is with a newish car a lot of value is put on a Full Jaguar service history rather than just a full service history. Weird.

I am going back to an independent garage who has authority to enter service details on the online Service report for my car. They can get the authority if they guarantee to fit genuine spare parts and keep to the Jaguar schedule. This dealer has experience of working on most of the Jaguar models and at the time I had an XJS I never had any of the issues I have encountered with Jaguar direct + they are loads cheaper