2000 XJ8 intermittent electrical failure

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Andrew Nicholls - 14 Oct 2004 23:00 GMT

For 10 months I've walked to my car with a one-in-forty or -fifty
chance that it will be electrically dead. The battery and all visible
connections are fine. I have to key-open manually - there's no
interior lights, no mileage indicator, nothing; as if there was no
battery. Usually, after turning the key for less than a minute
there's a loud rapid 2-second buzzing in the steering column and the
car starts fine... albeit with re-set or blank stereo presets,
odometer, and seat and mirror positions. One day this week I tried
for 15 minutes to get it started with no results... had it towed.. and
Jaguar has for the last 2 days (as with the other 3 times I've taken
it in since December '03) been unable to "not start it." "UNABLE TO
REPRODUCE." The mechanic is stymied. To repeat: it isn't battery
weakness, it's as if it's disconnected, a hypothesis the electronics
re-setting supports. It does this hot or cold, parked inside or out.
Help!

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jim mcguire - 15 Oct 2004 18:47 GMT

try the goss's garage web site.he has a radio show on the east coast and
will e-mail you back about an interesting problem like this one.he usually
knows the right place to start and gets many thankyou's over the air from
people he has helped.
something most mechanics fail to test is to see if the +battery cable is
intermittent.a high reading with an ohmmeter will tell you that it is time
to change that cable.pat goss talks about this problem all the time on his
call in show.

> For 10 months I've walked to my car with a one-in-forty or -fifty
> chance that it will be electrically dead. The battery and all visible
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> re-setting supports. It does this hot or cold, parked inside or out.
> Help!

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John M Shedlock - 21 Oct 2004 22:41 GMT

I had the same problem and diagnosed it by removing one circuit fuse at a
time over a period of days and narrowed it down to a faulty thermostat in
the door lock heaters. This could be the gremlin plaguing you cat. I
unplugged the relay associated with the door lock heaters and have a strong
battery ever since.

news:357c71e2.0410141400.65e4c941@posting.google.com...

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Dennis Rech - 22 Oct 2004 02:19 GMT

Hello Andrew,
Years ago, I had a similar problem with a Porsche except that it would
also just die while traveling down the road.
The whole car was absolutely dead except for the clock and radio and
then 10 minutes to an hour later, it would be fine for another day or
maybe weeks.
It turned out to be an faulty internal battery connection.
The voltmeter would still read 12 volts when it was faulted, it just
wouldn't provide amerage.
Solved the problem when a friend left his lights on and I pulled the
battery out of the Porsche and loaned it to him.
Hope this helps.

Dennis

>For 10 months I've walked to my car with a one-in-forty or -fifty
>chance that it will be electrically dead. The battery and all visible
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>re-setting supports. It does this hot or cold, parked inside or out.
>Help!

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Andrew Nicholls - 22 Oct 2004 17:47 GMT

Thanks all, I'll pass this stuff on. Dennis: it's unlikely to be an
internal battery problem becase one of the 1st things the garage
/dealer tried 10 months ago was replacing the battery (though it
tested-out at 100%), yet the problem persists. They ran through the
fusebox over the last 5 days, one circuit at a time, but could find
nothing out of the ordinary. No door lock heaters (California).
Grounding to firewall is solid. Ignition / key unit and electronics
chip in the key are ruled out. How'd the Jag electronics gremlin jump
ship to Ford is what I wanna know...

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