She's dead Jim!

[TonyMaloney]

Good afternoon All from a New Member

Apologies for jumping straight in with a request for some advice but I've had little time to do anything else..

In January I treated myself to a 2002 3.2 XJ8. In the first month of ownership I had to get the gearbox replaced and despite the expense I still loved the car. Now driving home yesterday evening on an A road, I flashed my headlight to let someone pull out and I immediately lost all power (the engine cut out), the dash went blank, the wiper came on once and the ABS warning light came on. As soon as I let go of the light stalk normal service was resumed.
Hoping this was a one off, I waited until the road was clear and flashed my headlights again only for the same thing to happen. When I got home I turned off the auto wiper drove up and down the road outside flashing my headlights like an eejit but everything was fine.
About two hours later I took the car out for 30 mins or so and when I turned off the ignition the rev counter stayed around 1k, the fuel gauge stayed where it was and the drivers seat didn't move back.
Now the car is well and truly dead, no sign of life whatsoever. I'm hoping this is a well known issue and is easily remedied but any and all pointers are greatly appreciated.

Tony

[ptjs1]

Tony,

Sorry to hear of your problems. X308 jaguars were the first generation to be prone to electrical vagaries, partly because of the interconnectivity of components through the canbus system. This means that you must have good quality charging and earthing components and a fully-charged battery and then all is well with the world.

What you have described could be caused by a few things including a short on the lighting circuit, bad earthing or a failing battery with one or more duff cells.

I would start by disconnecting the battery and then measuring it's voltage. Then fully charge it, connect it back to the car. Turn on the ignition and measure the voltage. Start the car (hopefully) and measure the voltage to verify the charging state. If all ok, measure the voltage the next day and see how it is.

There is a good chance that the problem all stems from the battery rather than anything else. It's a common issue on x308.

Good luck

Paul

[TonyMaloney]

Hi Paul,

Many thanks for the quick reply. I've grabbed a multimeter from work luckily so I'll give it a go and see what I get (when I can get into the boot!). FIngers crossed.

[J44EAG]

I agree with Paul.

This is a tool similar to the one I use to test battery condition. It loads the battery and voltage drop can be seen. Recovery to original voltage is important. A sharp rise indicates poor condition. Batteries can die through two main problems. Lack of voltage or lack of capacity although usually it is a combination of the two issues.

If you replace the battery, avoid the cheap budget ones. These cars need premium units. Bosh Silver or Varta Blue have better internal technology which is more suitable and stable for our Jaguar electronics.

Bad battery condition and decaying platform stability can cause havoc with electronics. Batteries should be regarded as consumable items with a finite life.http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SILVERLINE-CA ... 2405579518

Mike K

[TonyMaloney]

Thanks Mike. When the gearbox went I'd convinced myself that it was going to be an easy (read, not expensive) fix and it wasn't of course. So I'm hoping that this time.....

[TonyMaloney]

Type 019 Varta Silver Dynamic Car Battery 12V 100Ah (Short Code: H3) (Varta DIN: 600 131 080 or 600 402 083)

Would this be a suitable replacement?

[TonyMaloney]

Well I ran a few checks over the car tonight.
I started by using one of those phone size chargers hooked up under the bonnet to give enough power to open the boot. I then started to check the battery, which was showing between 12.3v and 12.4v, this didn't change when the key was turned in the ignition.
I then checked all the fuses in the boot, and these all returned 0.2-0.3ohms. The negative to the bolt in the boot was checked and was clean with no sign of corrosion and seemingly making a good contact. The black box at the rear of the boot (I can't remember what it's called) that has the cables running into it was checked and again everything was clean and tight. I finally tried to jump the car from another car and the phone size charger and nothing happened, no change whatsoever. The only thing I did notice, and it was the same yesterday when it first went wrong, was that the red flashing (immobiliser?) light next to the gear stick is still flashing, so I assume there is power somewhere.
If anybody has any idea where I can go from here I'd be only too willing to try it.

Thanks.

[andypryce]

Hi,

Does sound like an earth issue, especially if no joy by jump starting either from another car or using a charge pack. Even if earthing points look ok, I would undo and thoroughly clean up, then reconnect. From memory there is earthing point under bonnet too, suspect this could be the issue rather than battery earth? Good luck!

Andy

[TonyMaloney]

Cheers Andy. I'll see if I can track down the one under the bonnet and go from there.

[andypryce]

Quite a lot of earth points in fact ! See page 22:


http://www.jagrepair.com/images/AutoRep ... xj1998.pdf

[andypryce]

PS: check the ones behind the headlights first, notorious on the X350 for failing (mine has), don't know about the 308 though.

[ptjs1]

Hi Tony,

I'm slightly confused. Are you saying that the boot wouldn't open prior to the charger being connected but then opened immediately the charger was connected? Also did the battery read 12.4 as soon as the boot was owned and without the charger being connected or did it read that WITH the charger connected?

If the battery was dead prior to the charger being connected and only read 12.4 with the charger then connected, then i can envisage that it might not start with a jump battery connected, especially if the original battery is duff. The charger being connected when trying to crank the car will not help it, indeed it can blow the charger, if it's just a small capacity charger.

I would suggest you start by disconnecting the battery and charge it until it is holding a steady 12.7 mind with the charger disconnected. Then reconnect the battery and try and start the car and measure how much the voltage drops whilst cranking.

At the moment i don't think you have enough info to know if you've got a battery or circuit problem.

Cheers

Paul.

[TonyMaloney]

Hi Paul,

Initially I had no way of getting into the boot, either with the fob or the release button on the dash and the lock was seized just to put the cherry on the cake.

As soon as I connected the charger pack to the positive connector under the bonnet though the boot popped open. As I'm typing this I realised that at this point it didn't cross my mind to see if the electrics in the car worked, which maybe could have been a good idea

The battery readings were taken without the charger pack connected.

[Brakebuster]

if i put my battery conditioner/charger on the car with a ' dead ' battery , the charger doesn't perform correctly if the battery is still connected to the car , it appears the natural load ( clock, radio , alarm etc ) fools the charger into ' maintain ' mode rather than ' charge ' mode

as soon as i remove the negative cable the charger goes into full charge mode on a dead battery

if your just putting on a charger to maintain the battery during storage, then you don't need to remove the negative lead

Just my experiences using intelligent chargers

BB

[andypryce]

Agree with Paul, definitely need to know battery is good, measuring voltage of little use, need to know how it performs under load, a load tester is very useful piece of kit, as Mike says.