Folks,

I have a 2004 StypeR and had these problems since day 1 and after 4 years of taking it to the dealer under warrantee, they have not been able to find a cure.

Problem #1:
I drive the car exclusively on the sport setting. Every now and then, the car would go off the sport setting by itself without anyone or anything hitting the button. Mostly occurs when the car starts up, but has been know to happen when driving. Doesn't throw any codes or etc.

Problem #2:
Was described on the lurch website, but every now and then when you start the car, the nav screen is blank but all of the buttons work (both on the outside edge and the soft buttons on the screen...can't see it but if you press in the right place, you get the desired function. Only cure is to turn off the car and start again. My fear is that it won't come back some day. The dealer have checked all of the firmware and software settings, taken the unit apart and checked all ground connections, etc at least 6 or 7 time to no avail.

Problem #3:
This think this is more of a design issue, but with the lights in the automode, the light sensor hystersis is incorrect. When you go under a bridge or when the sun is really low (say in the morning), the headlights turn on and the nav goes dark rather quickly when exposed to the "dark" condition. It takes a while after it detects a "bright" condition to switch it back to the bright nav. screen. As a result, its dark quite a long time in a bright situation so you can't see the screen. If the hystersis was the otherway around, being bright in a dark condition for a longer time, the nav would still be readable. After replacing the sensor twice, the only suggesting was not use the auto on lights or to manually set the nav screen brightness.


Eitherway, the issues are pretty minor compared to some of the posts here, but I'm curious if anyone else had these issue with their s-type. Better still, anyone know how to cure these intermittent problems?

 

Hey ccc......sounds like you got a few issues there mate?
Perhaps you could duplicate this post in the general tech help section and see if any of our top techs can advise?
Sorry I cant be of more help.

Good luck

 

Problem #1:
Never heard of it, never had any complaints of it, never seen it personally. I can't even think of any good reason for it to switch from sport mode by itself. I assume no other symptoms are involved like low battery charge, gearbox fault message, check engine light etc.?

Problem #2:
Are you sure the latest software is installed? The latest has a black background with a white outline leaper, the earlier has a green background with a 3D leaper. Assuming the latest software is installed, the dealer has never replaced any components for this problem, only checked connections? The nav system is proprietary and even Jaguar techs don't have access to the pin-out information for the connections between the nav module and screen. I would think at least a part substitution for testing purposes would have been done. How often does it happen? If the fault is a once every 1000 mile problem it gets pretty hard for a tech to diagnose when they have the car for a day. Again I would have thought your regular dealer would have at least substituted a part for you to drive the car with and see what happens.

Problem #3:
The headlamps and nav screen dimming are working as designed. The hysteresis is correct from a safety standpoint. Better to have the headlamps on too long than have them turn off too early. The quick turn on when conditions become dark and the extended wait for them to turn off when conditions become bright are simply safety. It's one of those problems we like to call the "operating as designed not operating as desired" problems. Every car has problems that aren't really problems but rather design criteria. All manufacturers will always err on the side of safety. You can always put the nav screen in twilight mode and split the difference.

 

this is why i love this place ! GREAT DETAILED REPLY "REAL_TECH"

 

I can't comment on the first 2, but #3 anoys me silly. Benz solved this problem by having 2 sensors one for outside light conditions and another one measuring the interior light level.
I thought for the longest time the little hole above the nav screen measured interior light levels and was simply broken in my car, but that is not the case.

 

Real_Tech,

Thanks for the feedback and useful advice,

#1: Dealer didn't see this one before either but I thought problem #2 was pretty rare until I saw it on the lurch website so I figured it would be good to see if anyone else saw it. It happens every 500 miles or so with the last one happening 3 miles from the dealer on the last day of the warrantee

#2: I believe its a black background with a while leaper from a firmware prespective. Its also a 1000 mile type problem and I brought it to the dealer twice when it was locked up. Service writer saw it but the tech was never able to duplicate it so its impossible for them to test if their fix did anything. Got to give them credit for trying.

#3: Agree the headlights hystersis works correctly, too bad they didn't add a few line of code to make the nav. a bit more useful. Will try the twilight mode.

Overall, if they don't get worse, I can live with these problems.

 

and on 2, since a nav unit is a fred item, we cant just substitute a new unti since theyre really expensive and get returned with no fault found.....So unless a fault can be consistent reproduced and tested, Jaguar wont approve replacement

 

There ya go ccc..........some up to the minute info from the techs.....these guys are the mutts nuts

 

ccc,

I've had the reverse of issue #1 happen to me intermittently. It goes from normal to sport. It may be related to how I was driving, ie, accelerating and revving the engine past 3500 rpm. I also was J-Gating it by upshifting manually. It may be that the transmission was adapting to my driving style and decided to switch to sport mode. I was more amused than bothered by it though.

Mike

 

Carelm,

So my tranny is shifting to normal because its telling me that i'm driving too mellow. If so, I think the solution should be pretty fun!

Seriously, how many people actually use the j-shifter to row through the gears?

I gotta admit I haven't tried it on this car yet...I always have assumed its like one of those old tranmissions rather then one that designed to be manually shifted (usually with a push up for upshifts and a push down for downshifts on the gear lever). Does the j-shifter design let you downshift down more then one gear quickly for uh...passing?

Anyway, still learning to drive an automatic, especially an adaptive one.

 

The J-Gate doesn't really become fun until you have exhaust (or cutouts) on the car.. Then holding it at 4k in 2nd and tapping the throttle sounds amazing! The only downside to the J-Gate is that unlike the German and Japanese competitors, this tranny really wasn't designed to be manually shifted and consequently shifts veryyyyy slow.. smooth, but slow.

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SEAT HEATERS

Sorry to redirect this thread, but since we're talking about quirks with S-Type, I wanted to see if anyone else was having problems with their seat heaters?

For some reason my driver side seat heater will turn on for about 3 minutes (switch lights up and it gets hot) then turn right off... and the passenger side won't turn on at all..

Lol I actually had a lady friend make me drive her car about a week ago on a cold night because she said she wanted her *** to be warm.. My comment to that almost got me slapped, but she compelled me to look into get the heaters fixed..

Someone said there was an inline fuse for the heaters that goes bad??

(Also the headrest and lumbar adjustment on the passenger side don't work)

Thanks is advance, Eric

 

whiteSTR,

You live in Miami. How cold can the seats get down there? 68 with a wind chill? Try 14 degrees. That's how cold it was when I bought my S-Type in Jan.

On your passenger seat adjustments, does it appear to be a motor issue?

Mike

 

I J gate my truck daily and occasionally when in the jag. Usually if I want to hold a lower gear to give faster accelration rather than letting the trans downshift. Also if you leave the sport mode on it raises the shift rpm on partial throttle a couple hundered rpm higher. But really shines when you punch it...like when you mistakenly pulled infront of someone and need to get out of the way. In sport itll downshift 2 gears and accel much faster.
In normal it only goes 1 gear and sllooowerrr accel

 

Seat heaters in Miami? I can't even stand 'em here in North Carolina in the dead of winter when the temperature is typically in the mid-teens. I would be sweating like a quarterhorse year-round if I lived in South Florida...

 

Lol I think we got down to like 47 one night, you'd be surprised.. We're not used to that type of weather down here and our girls here still try to wear skirts when we're in the 50's, so yeah sometimes you need the seat heaters.. Haha its more of just an annoyance that a car with a $60k msrp can't seem to have every option working at the same time.. I fix the headlights, then the turn signals blow, I fix the signals, then the coolant expansion tank blows up, I fix the coolant tank, then the nav goes out, the nav gets fixed then the seat heaters go.. once I fix the seat heaters who know what'll break next..

I love my STR to death, like I do all of my cars.. but the Jag is a spoiled, needy little b*tch.. If I had to name her I think she would be Paris.. (as in Paris Hilton)

I have JTIS, but I have 3 mac computers and no windows ones lol so I can't open it and I'm at a serious disadvantage..

Lol so does anyone know if this mythical seat heater fuse really exists??

Thanks, Eric

 

I think the Jaguar Etiquette needs a section on how a Gentlemen offers to be a bun-warmer for a lady

 

Hi Eric,

Based on what I saw in the owner's manual, here are some possibilities:

Passenger Compartment fuse box.

F16 Mini 10A Red Passenger/driver heated seat modules, electrochromic mirror, rain sense module,

headlamp levelling, ACC chime module.

Luggage compartment fuse box

F34 Mini 15A Blue Left/right-hand heater seat module.

 

I still shake my head at having to check three different fuse box locations in our S-Type. What were the Brits thinking when they came up with that design?!

Maybe that's fairly typical these days but I had never seen it before. Previously, I thought that just the two fuse box locations in our 2004 Lexus RX330 was a bit of overkill....

 

I am having similar issues with the sport-mode turning off by itelf....except while driving. It cannot be turned back on, and curiouslly the the gear indictor light goes out as well. Evidently the sport button is deactivated as pushing it does not result in the usual change in gear on the highway.

Turning the car off and on again resets everything and the problem is sporatic, but getting more frequent.

Anyone have any thoughts??

Thanks,
Eric

 

Is it maybe trying to signal a fault?

Possibly covered in jtis or in this http://www.scribd.com/doc/24267127/A...6hp26%E2%80%9D