They said the cells were bad, so it wasn't holding a charge. They had the car over 2 days to test it out.

 

I'm hoping that's what they tell me as well. I'll call them in the morning just to get SOME kind of information...

 

That makes me wonder what killed your battery. I know some will say that some batteries just fail for no reason. I disagree. IMHO batteries will fail from overcharging, under charging, prolonged discharge in cold weather and the like but not for no reason at all. I am very curious as to whether your new battery will also have an unnaturally short life and if so, why. Keep us posted.

 

If they say the battery is bad please ask them for details as to why they think it failed.

 

+1 I think it is a combination of more factors than just the battery and alternator. Would be great to get to the bottom of it.

 

I'll ask for more details when I pick up the car tomorrow

 

So I contacted my dealer service department and this is what they said

"we tested battery, alternator, and did a draw test on vehicle the only thing that failed was battery. sometime batteries have bad cell, having nothing to do with the age of the battery"

 

After leaving a voicemail for my service advisor Wednesday afternoon, and not hearing back from him, I patiently awaited a call Thursday morning. 10 AM I had heard nothing so I called him. I was told he was with a client and would soon return my call. Noon rolls around and still nothing so I call again... Guess what... he's with a client. I make my displeasure known and after a very brief hold, I am assurred that as soon as he is finished with this client I would be called. Nearly 2 hours later and no call, I phone and speak directly to a manager.

So far, the technicians WERE able to duplicate my issue. They ran diagnostics on the the battery, alternator, and charging systems and found nothing wrong. They now have "Cleaned the grounding strap" and are leaving the car to sit overnight and see if it still displays a battery low message in the morning.

Third day in the shop, I cannot get a call returned to me, and they "cleaned the grounding strap" and are waiting to see if the message returns? I could have got a battery and alternator test done at Autozone in 15 minutes.

 

My car has been at the dealer for 13 days now, they are still not able to identify what the issue is and the only time I spoke to the service rep is when I called. My "battery" issues are a little more severe, since the car won't start 95% of the time.

At this point, I'm not sure I even want the car back. This will definitely be my first and last JLR purchase. I had hoped the Land Rover and Jaguar reputation for service problems were a thing of the past, but based on the threads in the forum, they clearly aren't.

 

That is a bit of a stretch. Jaguar's reliability is in the top of the Luxury car charts these days and much different than the days of old. Car enthusiast forums tend to attract people with issues who are looking for other car enthusiasts to discuss them with and possibly get assistance... its the nature of the beast. Despite that, there are only a handful of threads focused on issues. I'd say that reported issues make up a tiny percentage of the overall posts on the forum.

No to mention, depending on how you look at the issues, a good percentage of those reported issues are more complaints about things not working how they'd like, rather than actually being physical defects with the car. Still perfectly valid, but more questions of personal preference than engineering defects.

Yes some issues are clearly engineering defects and more widespread than others. Those are typically failures in the engineering design process which JLR will address via recalls and/or new service bulletins once they make their way to the JLR core engineers and a solution is developed and tested.

I suspect this battery issue will come down to a defect in the programming of the charging circuit, an underpowered alternator, a bad run of batteries, or some combination thereof. I haven't seen it in my 2016 FTR, but the longest I've gone without putting it on the BT has been about 5 days, and that didn't trigger any warning lights for me. I do see the longer charging times though so its clear that there is something different about how the battery charge is sustained on this car. However, to me I don't think that means the brand is rubbish and their service and/or reliability is bad, it just means there is a specific engineering issue in a specific model that needs to be addressed by JLR to make things right. In the mean time I keep my car on the BT anyway since I haven't had the opportunity to drive it a lot recently, and the BT helps extend the battery life.

 

Agree.. as well, its possible that the few issues (relative to the total sales) mentioned on this forum could possibly be cars that sat, uncharged, at the dealer before the sale. Many dealers are notorious for allowing batteries to go completely dead, which can happen in a couple of months and this could easily damage the battery.
Anyway, this is something a competent dealer should be able to easily fix.
Lawrence

 

Could be . . . my car was dead on the show room floor, and I had to test drive another base car. However, it hasn't died in 16 months since delivery, and there have been no other issues other than the long charging times and much lower voltage readings when running than any of my other vehicles. I do plug it into the BT if it's going to sit for more than a week.

The most plausible explanation to me is that the software running the battery management system isn't allowing the alternator to fully charge the battery, but it's also possible that a less than perfect battery can't be fully charged.

However, Nookieman had his software reflashed, is running a brand new battery, and monitoring with a voltmeter. He's still reporting the same voltage readings I see (in a V6) and still getting codes (on a V8), so there's something going on, which is very different than any other vehicle I'm familiar with.

 

My F-Type isn't due until December, but my Vette would run the battery down on a regular basis. Tried Optima batteries, and they were worse. They would not recover from a bad discharge. I used a battery tender if the car was not used for a week or so, and that solved my problems. Hard to believe the computers can run the battery down, but what else is there?

 

So why do you need software to charge a battery? Voltage regulators have worked just fine for the past century. Yes, they go bad occasionally, but take all of a minute to replace.

 

I don't know, ask JLR, but there is a "battery management system" on the car controlled by software.

 

Agreed, IRR. I think AGMs are more susceptible to damage from running down.

I also had a C6 Z06 that would run down if I left it sitting for a couple of weeks. Whatever the issue is, it's pretty minor on the F-Type. I have a BT Plus hard-wired, and it's a pretty simple matter to plug it in if it has to sit for more than a week.

 

+1

 

My car sat in the garage for 11 days without being used (and only used for on short trip in 7 days before that), before I took it for two short trips yesterday (to and from work - 5 miles each way through the city in low speed and many start/stops).

Plugged in the Ctek BT in the evening yesterday (just because I was curious), and checked it this afternoon. Battery was fully charged after less than 20 hours (don't know how much less).

It seems to charge the battery very much the same way (and time) as it did on my Audi TTS and VW Touareg (same Ctek charger).

 

Seeing as how I again did NOT receive a phone call this morning to come pick up my F type, I can only assume the low battery warning has reappeared after they cleaned the ground and let it set... (Service manager informed me if they checked in the morning and if they resolved the issue I'd get a call first thing in the AM)

Perhaps Lucas has returned to haunt our cars again?

 

Sounds like we have the same service advisor - seldom answers emails, never answers the phone, seldom responds to voice mails. I'm unclear if I'll go back to my dealer for anything, although the other Jag dealers in the Boston area also get poor reviews.


Last time my car was there for a few days without hearing anything, I called and was given the option of calling back, or transferring to his voicemail (for the 3rd or 4th time). I said I'd stay on the phone until she got an update on my car, which worked.