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Last night driving my 2016 FType base, I noticed a persistent issue. At random times as I drove, unrelated to any bumps in the road or anything, the headlights would dim, the dashboard lights would dim, the touchscreen would go dark and the Bluetooth connection to my phone would skip, all for a fraction of a second. The car seemed to motor on just fine through this. It happened numerous times over roughly 90 minutes of driving, to the point I canceled one stop bc I wasn't convinced I would make it home. I've noticed the Bluetooth issue on recent drives, but this was the first time I'd noticed the other issues. It was a rainy night, and I rarely drive in rain, so wondering if that played any part.

Any ideas? I'm going to call the dealer tomorrow and take it in, but eager if the collective intelligence of this group has any thoughts. Thanks!

 

The very first thing to check would be the tightness of the battery terminals then check the various ground points for the same.

 

Agreed. The symptoms you list all point to an intermittent connection at the battery or the ground points, not to any defect in components. Occam's Razor at work: the most obvious cause is the likely cause. Eliminate that possibility first before delving deeper.

 

The connections all seemed fine as far as my untrained eye could tell, so I got it to the dealership Monday. Apparently my 2016 F-Type base, with 22,000 miles, has a gasket that is leaking oil onto the alternator, and now both the gasket head and the alternator need replaced for a cool $4,000. If this happened two months ago, it of course would have been free under the 5-year warranty. If that isn't the most 2020 thing I've had to deal with, after my covid diagnosis, I don't know what is.

I called Jaguar USA and asked for help, and they've opened a case about this. I don't expect it to go anywhere; after all, the car is off warranty now so I expect they'll tell me I'm SOL. But this is clearly a defect and I hate that I'm stuck paying for it, when literally two months ago it would have been free.

 

It might be good (if you haven’t already) to send them a copy of your first post. It will document that you requested information on your problem. Because your warranty expired they may help since this shouldn’t be a wear and tear issue and it happened very close to warranty expiration. Good luck and follow up with your case.
Frank

 

Thanks for the update. I was squarely in the "bad ground" camp, so I'm glad to know the true answer.
Apparently even Jaguars can catch the virus; we learned today that lions can.

 

There is a Jaguar customer service poilicy but your service manager needs to go after it. When drivers side door handle malfunctioned he got Jag to pay for the parts and I paid labor, about $400. Parts were $500 as the actual part wasn't available so whole assembly had to be replaced. Took at least 2 weeks!

 

"At random times as I drove, unrelated to any bumps in the road or anything, the headlights would dim, the dashboard lights would dim, the touchscreen would go dark and the Bluetooth connection to my phone would skip, all for a fraction of a second."


the ghost of Jaguars past

 

I have a 2018 Ftype convertible.
Had similiar symptoms
Water had entered my right front headlight and it would apparantly short things out.
Headlight was replaced and problem solved.