Something perplexing and somewhat concerning:


Last night when parking I noticed that the puddle lamps and footwell lamps were flickering when parked with the engine running.
Notes:
- I often open the door while parking to check that I am perfectly square in the parking space.
- I park on the fourth level down (P4) in my apartment building parkade, the trip up/down conveniently serves as a sort of warm-up/cool-down for the car.
- Car is currently at ~78,500km/48,800mi
- I drop the top almost anytime it isn't raining, and drive the car almost every day.

It did not recur on start-up this morning (doors closed), and I forgot about it until this evening when I was again parking after the short drive from work to the gym.
This time, not only were the footwell lights flickering, but the roof would not latch all the way - it would close 99% of the way, but the clamps would not engage.

I turned the car off and went to the gym.
After the gym I dropped the roof and drove home.
During my descent to P4 I attempted to close the roof while in motion - and it worked!
Not only that, the footwell lamp flicker was absent when I pulled into my spot.


The first thing I thought was: battery (I of course hooked up the charger/maintainer before going upstairs).
However, I installed a new battery less than a year ago...
Another potential factor is: I had new springs installed at a local Jag/LR specialist shop a couple of weeks back... maybe something they did (or forgot to do) is now causing electrical issues?


I'm curious to hear any thoughts on this, accounts of similar experiences, etc.

 

Don’t have a convertible but I would check for water in the boot and roof storage area first off

 

Thanks.
I forgot to mention that's it's been dry for the past couple days leading up to this event, but just to be sure I checked in the areas you mentioned: both dry.

 

Luc, this still sounds like a battery issue - or a faulty connection somewhere. On a different model I once had a similar pattern…and it was the battery connections that were not clean and tight.

 

Yep--need to eliminate battery or ground so a full charge is in order even if it is a year old battery. Also, check that the connections on the battery are tight. If a terminal clamp has vibrated loose you could have poor connectivity.

The shop doing the spring install could have accidentally disconnected a ground (or purposely to get it out of the way and forgot to reconnect/it came loose) as there are several attached to different points on the car.

Electrical oddities are almost always one of these two things.

 

Quick update (and hopefully the end of the story): gave the battery a full charge, no issues since.

So thankfully just another boring battery case after all 😁