Hi everyone.

My Jaguar S Type 2005 2.5L V6 was working great before I went to change the tyres recently to winter tyres. About three days later I heard noise from one of the rear wheels. After taking it to the garage, they found out one of the brake pads was gone so I bought new set of brake disks and pads for the rear. The mechanic replaced them and for the next two days was going good till I hit a little wall while parking backwards. Nothing serious happened to the body of the car, though.

But after taking off, I saw a warning message “Hand Brake Fault” and “Cruise Control Not Available”. So now I can’t use the hand brake any more. I have tried all sort of advices from this forum but still none of them worked for me.

I have disconnected battery for 10 minutes and reset,
I have done Electronic Park Brake (EPB) Re-Calibration Procedure,
I have changed the Park Brake fuse in the luggage compartment (F35) .
All didn’t work.

Does anybody has any more ideas for me to try before I head off to a dealer? Thanks

 

How old is the battery?

 

This thread has a good discussion on the fickle nature of batteries, including links to several other threads on the same subject:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ilable-192080/

 

Battery is is about 4 months old . I even recharged it and tried but didn’t work.

 

Got to thinking more about this one. The run-in with the wall: Was this caused by a brake failure, pointing to a problem with the recent brake work? Or were the brakes fine but the wall jumped in your way as you backed up? Just trying to get a feel for what seems to be the trigger event, since the messages started immediately after that.

Even though the battery is only a few months old, I wonder if the impact was enough to damage it internally. Maybe two plates are touching or something like that. A shorted cell will wipe out about 18% of the battery's capacity. The car may still start just fine, but the battery voltage would be below the minimum 12.6v needed BEFORE start to keep those messages away. Have you measured the pre-start voltage yet?

Another thought is the impact caused the battery to shift and tug on the cables. The positive cable would be most prone to stretching damage if the battery shifted aft. The negative cable could have twisted loose ever so slightly where it bolts to the fender well. If not the cables, maybe some fuses worked loose instead.

 

Thanks for suggestion.
Everything was fine I just went a bit too far back than necessary. As for the battery I checked today before starting the car and was even 15.0v. The battery is VARTA H3 Silver Dynamic 600 402 083. And to my knowledge, the battery and bolts were tight enough. Afterwards I have made sure the fuses in the luggage compartment but still not working.

 

15.0? Are you sure about that? That seems REALLY high for a battery at rest, engine off and not connected to a charger. I'm not familiar with Varta batteries, but understand they are very good quality. I'm just not sure how a battery could read that high just sitting there.

If one were checking the charging voltage, even 15.0 would be too much. Max is normally around 14.5 for the first few minutes, tapering off to 13.5.

The 2003+ cars are very persnickety about pre-start battery voltage. From experience on this forum, a minimum of 12.6v seems to be the magic number. But here's the rub: I'm not sure what would happen if the voltage was too high. This may not even be a fault, I don't know. Still scratching my head on this one, as usually one would see up to 13.2 for a good fully-charged battery at rest. My '02 shows 12.5 before start, but the early models aren't nearly as sensitive.

Maybe Varta has some special chemical composition instead of the standard lead-acid battery like I have. More input is needed. Anybody else got any thoughts on this?

 

This may or may not be related, but it is worth knowing: In the XK8 models, a dashboard message display combination of "Check Rear Lights" and "Cruise Not Available" indicates that the brake pedal switch is beginning to fail. A new (or properly re-soldered) brake pedal switch always resolves that particular issue. We have had to resolve this issue twice in my wife's 2006 XK8 (built in May 2005)....

 

15.0V sounds impossible so probably either the car was running or the meter needs checking/replacing. Or junk the battery as it is the wrong voltage.

 

Sure I was surprised myself but that’s what was there. Usually I don’t check but because of this situation I decided to press the trip button while turning ignition on to check it on the dashboard. Anyway am going to do that again tomorrow and will post.

 

Use a proper meter, that's known to work.

 

Ok I will do that. Thanks.

 

i finally got multimeter. i measured today before starting, after sitting through the night and was 11.6v. am going to that again tomorrow before starting.

 

Allrighty, making some progress! From the general experience of forum members, with a 2003+ car, you want to see at least 12.6v before starting. I see three primary scenarios for your situation:

1) The battery is weak and having a hard time holding a charge overnight.

2) Some electrical load is not shutting down properly after the engine is turned off, and this is running down your battery.

3) The charging system is weak, so the battery never gets a full charge.

I'd suggest ruling out the last possibility first, as it is easiest to check. With the engine running, you should see approximately 13.5v at the battery. Any less and the battery is not getting a full charge.

What is your typical drive routine? Mostly short trips with the lights on and heater going full blast? If so, even if the charging voltage is good, there may not be enough time to fully recharge the battery.

After making sure the charging system is okay, try disconnecting the battery AND putting it on a charger overnight. Check the voltage in the morning before reconnecting to start. If it stays above 12.6v and the car now behaves itself, you know low prestart voltage was the cause. The next step would be to determine if the battery itself can't hold a charge, or something external is running it down.

 

I checked again yesterday today before starting, was 11.9 both times. My typical drive routine is ostly short trips with the lights on, Taking wife to work, kids to school and grocery shopping, As for battery charging while driving I see it doing it immediately I start the car hanging around 14.1V. Like you suggested am going to recharge it over night, check before reconnecting.
But more and more I think I think the problem came after hitting the wall while parking!

 

11.9 is roughly dead and you can expect endless grief.

 

Ok. I recharged the battery for almost 24 hours, checked before reconnecting and was 12.1V. But The problem with the hard brake still exist. I thought 12.1V is a bit less especially after a whole day of recharge. When the car is running, the battery stays around 14.1V. I don’t know if this is going to help but now I intend to buy a new battery again and try.
Thanks

 

12.1 is dire. Basically dead.

 

A bit less? At 12.1v after 24 hours on a charger, your battery is basically an unwieldy paperweight. This YouTube video should help with the diagnosis:



The only caveat concerns what type of charger you have. I have a 10 amp automatic unit that has served me well for at least 20 years. I simply hook it and let it run until the little green light illuminates. That tells me the battery is fully charged and it has never let me down.

Now in my mind, everybody has the same type of automatic charger. On a different forum, I went through a drawn-out process with a guy experiencing an intermittent slow-crank fault. Part of the problem was a partially discharged battery. He swore up and down he had repeatedly charged it overnight. After much back and forth, it finally came out he was using a battery tender, not a full-fledged charger. A tender is good for putting a fully charged battery into storage, but won't do much to recharge one that is run down. Somebody else eloquently described the tender's output as a butterfly fart.

So before you spring for a new battery, please confirm what sort of charger you've been using. The battery itself is still your likely culprit, but I do want to make sure the old one is fully charged.

 

Hmmm

I would return 4 month old battery and demand exchange!

BTW, butterfly fart hahahaha!! That's one I haven't heard before.