Hello everybody,
I just brought my 1998 XJ8 Vanden Plas home, and it is a beautiful car. The mileage is a litle high (145K), but the body and interior are immaculate.

I am getting some warning messages, along with some weird driveability problems. The check engine light stays on and I get the "Restricted Performance" error as well. The car will not rev past 3,000 RPM and it is very tough to accelerate. From the limited reading I've done so far it seems that when the car is in this more the engine is running in a fail-safe mode, I'm guessing similar to when a GM car runs in open-loop mode when something is amiss. I'm awaiting my friend to come over with a code reader and I'll post the codes once I'm able to.

In relation to the above problem, sometimes the check engine light will blink, and the car becomes exceptionally undriveable when that happens. It only happened to me a few times on the way home, and it only lasted about 30 seconds.

On the drive home I also got an "engine coolant low" message, although the temp gauge never went past halfway. I tried topping off the reservoir and it seems to be OK now. Is there any particular procedure for filling/bleeding the coolant system?

And lastly, I am getting the "traction control fail" and "stability control fail" message lights, as well as the ABS light coming on. I'm gonna guess that the ABS system is the root of the problem since the traction control would use the ABS system? Also, what's the difference between the traction control and stability control?

Thanks to anyone who can help, or point me in the right direction. I've literally owned this car for not even 5 hours now and I just found this forum. I will also keep digging through here to see what I can learn.

 

Welcome to the forum,

Good to have you with us.
You should post in the tech section for a better results, you will be asked for the codes
that are triggering the check engine light, so try and get those read, Autozone etc will do it free.

You should add your car details to your signature to help others to help you.

 

Welcome to the forum. Good advice from Norri, to go post in the X308 section...meanwhile...I'm smelling a bad battery in your car...Any idea the age of it?

 

welcome, good to have you here with us ....
There really are some amazing and friendly guys here....you're in really good company to discuss anything Jag related or even just to have a few laughs!

I've manually upgraded you to full forum access so you can better view the site and all its features so jump on in and enjoy