Hey Everybody!

Growing up with British cars, I'm used to electrical gremlins. Recently they've been at work on my 2003 STR: temperature display defaulting from F to C from one drive to the next, steering wheel memory "fading", climate control Auto mode sometimes not staying on for more than a few seconds. All of these tend to fix themselves by doing a "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" and shutting off the car.

One new problem has been a little more worrisome. The vehicle has started, only occasionally, to act like the battery is dead or shorted. When turning the ignition to start the car it makes a series of quick electrical "clicks" and the engine does not turn over. The battery was load-tested and found to be fine.

Any insight?

 

Oh...

It also does the Park Brake fail beeping - not all the time, but 90%. Once I shut off the car, the park brake beeps, but the fail annunciator on the dash does not illuminate.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Is your S-Type still running with its original battery? If so, your battery could be more than 6 years old. Sometimes when a battery is in the early stages of failure it continues to test okay. We've had our 2005 S-Type for just a little over two months so I can't speak for Jaguar, but I know from experience with other cars we've had that when the electrical gremlins similar to what you've described start popping up, the cause is often a failing battery. Clocks begin to reset themselves to a blinking 12:00. Memory positions for seats, mirrors, steering wheel, radio stations, etc. mysteriously erase themselves. I know these Jags have very complex electronic modules but I suspect your battery could be the culprit if it is indeed the factory-installed battery. I've never had a factory battery in any vehicle we've ever owned last more than 6 years and most last only about 4 years (or a few months past the original warranty period)....

First things first - unscrew all of your battery cell tops and make sure that all cells are properly filled with distilled water. All of our S-Type's battery cells were extremely low when we purchased the car the week before Christmas. Although this was supposed to be part of the 140-point Jaguar-certified inspection process, our Jag dealership missed it along with some other very simple issues that should have been discovered. I caught it after we brought the car home and put it through my own routine inspection. Filled up the cells myself with distilled water and we were off and rolling with no problems....

You might also want to remove your battery cables, clean and burnish the cable ends and the battery terminals, and then re-fit your cables and ensure that you have a tight fit all the way around....

 

Yep, my thought's, as to the problem, too, check all the battery connections, or could be the starter.

 

Those little "gremlins" are often warning signs to a bad battery. The battery serves more than one purpose in a vehicle. Alot of people determine that a battery is good by wether or not it starts a vehicle. The other major purpose of the battery is to absorb voltage spikes and to filter out AC ripple that is put out by your alternator. The AC ripple can really start messing with your electrical components on your car. That is why a defective alternator could also cause these "gremlins."

 

Thanks for the input.

The battery was my main suspect. I have just replaced the (Jaguar) battery and have also dressed my rotors and installed new pads. I pick up the "KWK CAT" in the morning and shall report on my experience with brakes pads from brakeperformance.com elsewhere on this forum.

Thanks again for the input from everyone.

Al.