New battery - problems

[daveboswell]

hi

Put a new battery in my 1998 xk8 at the weekend. (old one had stopped taking any charge).

Couple of things now:-

Car won't start (seems to turn over ok, lots of whirring noises!). Is there any sort of safety switch I have to reset?

Lost radio code - where can I find out what it is?

Regards
Dave
====

[GrandTourer]

hi

Put a new battery in my 1998 xk8 at the weekend. (old one had stopped taking any charge).

Couple of things now:-

Car won't start (seems to turn over ok, lots of whirring noises!). Is there any sort of safety switch I have to reset?

Lost radio code - where can I find out what it is?

Regards
Dave
====
Hi, Dave b,

1. There is no such thing as a reset switch.
2. You have to be very careful when disconnecting the battery. Always make a 'clean' disconnection/reconnection.
3. Always disconnect the Earth (-) terminal first - and reconnect it last.
4. There are three things the car's memory will forget when disconnecting the battery: a) Radio Code (always make sure you have that before you disconnect), Trip mileometer reading and c) the window settings.

You should find the radio code amongst the car's paperwork when you bought it. I not you need to go to a main Jaguar Dealer, convince them that you are the rightful owner of the car and he should, if he is happy, give you the code.

There is nothing you can do about the loss of trip meter readings.

Re window settings, you need to follow the proper procedure (should be in the handbook), ie:
1. Before disconnecting the battery, lower both windows.
2 After reconnection of the battery, go back into the car,put key into ignition, go to I or II key position, activate the window-up on the driver's door and keep it activated until you hear a soft clic (about 2-3secs), then active the switch again for window-down and keep the switch activated again until you hear the click. Close the window normally and it should be reprogrammed.
Follow the same procedure for the passenger window.

You obviously have another problem whith the car not starting. Could the starter motor pinion be stuck in the flywheel ??
Just put the car into NEUTRAL and give it a good rocking back and forth - unfortunately you'll find out what a heavy car this is.

Anyway, Good luck

[daveboswell]

HI GT

Thanks for the advice.

In the end I called the homestart service from my Insurance Co (Footman James). They came within an hour. Fixed it in 5 minutes.


He asked how far my last journey was. (From the road to the driveway - 50 yards). He said this was a typical cause of flooding with injection engines, and gunks up the plugs. Subsequent attempts by me to start it, just made it worse.

The guy disconnected the pipe from the airfilter, jabbed the accelerator down hard, and it started first time (lots of smoke from the exhausts).

He said he gets called out lots for this problem. Removing the airfilter from the line lets in a lot more air, as does jabbing the accelerator.

Nothing to do with me fitting the battery!

Now for the radio code.

[GrandTourer]

Glad you got that sorted - yes it is common enough problem with modern engines which tend to overdope a lot when cold, but it never happened to me - - - yet .