Hello all,

recently bought this jaguar s-type r and been loving it thus far, along with tiny little problems here and there, this one is scaring me and making me a nervous wreck.

I was driving down the road completely normal and then the car just shut off...completely. I was so confused so once the car rolled off to a stop on the side of the road i tried to diagnose the problem, the original ground cable was over tightened to the point where it broke the connector around the battery ground end so my friend drove the store to pick up a ground cable, once that was hooked up, I got a weird beeping noise from when I tried to crank the car over to start it, not like the normal door open chime but a fast high pitched chime. When i turn the key into accessory on, the windows work, the nav system works, the dash lights work kind of, only the airbag light and the parking brake light comes on. When I try to crank the car to run, that high pitched beeping goes off, and the starter doesn't even try to turn the car over.

I waited 8 hours on the side of the road waiting for the right tow truck to come because the parking brake is stuck on and wouldn't release even with accessory on, and the car will not shift out of park either, once it was towed to my mechanic's shop he told me he couldn't figure it out, but discovered several fuses in the engine compartment fuse box are receiving a very low voltage in comparison to the trunk fuse box which is getting full voltage. Some people say its a higher resistance somewhere whether its a loose connection or something, but i could use anyones help at this point.

 

Check the EMS relays in the engine bay fuse box, I've had a few of these over the years cause the same issue.

 

Could be a quite flat or dying battery.

The beeps may well be the car seeing a problem with whether the car is in Park or something else - so at least check the gear shift lever and its linkage (under the car, side of trans).

But battery is #1 suspect as poor power causes mayhem.

 

JagV8, the car is in work and it's a different beeping noise from it not being in park, I know which beep you're talking about. And when testing the fuses there was a 12v box hooked up to it the entire time and the car was tested being jumped. The battery is relatively new and load tested okay.

JNzXJ40, I will do that in a few minutes.

 

I think there's another beep if the EPB is unhappy.

Again, it's likely power (or ground) even if the battery is OK.

Be very suspicious about the actual battery since you know you had a fault relating to the cables and that would in turn mean it may not have been charging properly.

 

JBzXJ40 I checked the ems relay and it is fine.

Jagv8I'll recheck the ground for the battery but it was working before so it does not make sense why it would stop working.

 

You should be able to use a meter to figure where the sudden voltage drop is, so long as the battery is good.

 

I sanded the contact patch in the trunk for the battery chassis and checked the fuse box and rechecked the battery voltage. The only place reading a 1.6v is in the engine bay fuse box. The trunk fuse box is reading 12v.

 

Is 1.6v a typo?

Exactly where are both meter leads for this reading? I'm looking for a specific fuse and ground point where you got that value.

What year is the car? Wiring diagrams are here, but there many changes. Can't help without knowing the year:

JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource

You mentioned testing the EMS relay. How exactly did you do that?

 

kr98664: I went through the fuse box in the engine bay and most of them are reading a ridiculously low amount, 1.6v is not a typo. I got that off the ems 50amp fuse in the engine bay fuse box, and most of them in there are reading similar values.

The car is an 03 s type r.

I tested the ems relay by swapping relays with another relay of the same size and had the same value but does not have such an important function, I believe I tested with the headlamp relay or windshield wiper relay and nothing changed. I tried one or two more relays just to make sure.

I think I'm going to take my car to jaguar since i don't know any specialists near me and that's all I have left as my options. I'm just terrified of how much they could run me.

Unless anyone knows someone in the Philadelphia area who is a jag expert and doesn't want to rip me off.

 

Don't take it to a shop until you've fully charged or replaced your battery! These cars are essentially motorized portable computers, so they're extremely dependent on the battery being fully charged.

In your 1st post you mentioned that, after re-connecting a broken ground cable, some electronics worked again but the starter wouldn't turn over. It sounds like the battery was severely undercharged because the ground cable had been hanging on by a thread. When the cable finally broke, the car died altogether.

When you reconnected a better ground cable, the battery still had enough juice left to run the windows, dash lights and nav, but not enough cranking power to turn the starter (under a certain battery voltage, the computer system probably won't allow cranking).

Undercharged batteries cause certain features to be temporarily shut off, and a corresponding warning light or message appears on the dash. Fully charging the battery causes those features to be reactivated and their warning indicators to disappear.

The fast beeps you're hearing most likely are the Electronic Parking Brake failure warning beeps (again, probably related to your flat battery). Hopefully, this is temporary and will also be resolved with a fully charged battery.

So your battery needs to be FULLY recharged (at least 12.6 volts). I'll bet that will fix some, if not all, of your problems. Tell your mechanic to fully charge the battery. If your battery is more than about 3 years old, it would probably be smart to replace it with a high quality, high capacity battery appropriate for an STR.

One last thing...
A few months ago, my '03 3.0L S-type suddenly shut off while I was idling at a traffic light. The car just shut off. All other features worked including the starter; but the car just would not start. The cause - my fuel pump failed. I doubt that this is your problem, but if recharging your battery doesn't get your engine running again, I'd look at the fuel pump next. Trust me, charging your battery is way cheaper.
Good luck!

 

Don't panic! You've got a hard fault, which is great for troubleshooting. You're not chasing an intermittent fault that only appears under certain conditions. You've got a dead car in your driveway with a repeatable fault. Sounds horrible, but troubleshooting is way easier now.

My hunch is an important relay is not getting a signal to energize. I'll have to dig a little deeper in the wiring diagrams. In the meantime, follow the advice to fully charge the battery.

 

Several cups of coffee later, I did a little digging in the wiring diagrams:

http://www.jagrepair.com/images/Elec...al%20Guide.pdf


Scroll down to section 1.1. It shows power distribution to the front and rear power distribution boxes. The rear box gets unfused power directly from the battery. This portion seems to be fine because your power windows are working.

The front box does not seem to be getting power, based on your 1.6v reading. That is probably bleed-through via some module. I bet if you used a test lamp, that value would drop to zero under load.

Power to the front box comes via the 175A megafuse on the rear box. You can see it in the middle of fig 1.1. I suspect that megafuse has opened, or is loose in the socket. Inspect it, and if blown, do NOT just replace it. That's a huge current flow to have blown the fuse. We'd have to identify why and fix that. At this point, I just want to verify if the fuse is still intact and firmly seated.

If the fuse looks good, here's a quick way to test if the front power box is getting battery power. Try your headlights and horn. Those both get power from the front box, and thus through that megafuse. Also turn the ignition switch to run and try the wipers. If none of those systems work, either that fuse is blown or there's a problem with the big cable running from the rear box forward to the front box.

Make sure to run these tests with the battery fully charged. And if you find that megafuse blown, remember do not replace it yet. It's very important to figure out why it overloaded and fix that.

 

Whoa you guys really do help out, I do appreciate all this tremendously considering this is my first Jaguar ever and within a month of buying it I have all these issues. So I was fed up with the problem at hand and took my car to the jaguar dealer. There was a private shop nearby I could have gone to but he would not be able to touch the car for a while since he's got a whole line up of cars until the end of time. He recommended a specific jaguar dealer that has technicians who usually know what they're doing. So I just picked up my car and they claimed that the fuse in the "inertia switch" went bad which caused this massive problem.

As I was picking up the car, I asked for the location of the inertia switch to make sure it does not happen to me again and I could replace it on the spot, but they said to come back Monday and worry about it then. So I am currently sitting on the side of the main highway typing this because...guess what...SAME THIGN HAPPENED. I'm not ever happy with jaguar right now but luckily they are sending out a tow truck. So I guess the inertia fuse blew out again? I'm not really sure what this means but I do know Jaguar is going to get a very stern talking to for having my car immediately stop on a dangerous main highway going 80+mph...

 

I'm not aware of a fuse "in" the inertia switch. At the primary junction fuse box (US passenger/UK driver side footwell, forward of the door), there is a fuse F4 that feeds the inertia switch. That might be worth looking at.

And while this may not be the best time to ask, did you get a chance to check the exterior lights and horn? I'm still wondering about that megafuse in the trunk. Perhaps it is intact but the receptacle is burnt or corroded? Might be worth inspecting and reseating it.

 

Kr98664 I thought the fuse/switch was in the passenger compartment which is what I read on other forums. I'll try to check that out while stuck on the side of the road. But yes the horn works, the exterior drl lights come on but not the main low beams when I switch it to that.

 

What's the present status? Did you have the car towed back to the dealer?

I'm not sure chasing down my hunches has been of much help, but am also very curious about this mystery "fuse" and what the shop will find on Monday.

 

Current status: it's sitting at the dealer, there wasn't even the service manager for me to complain to. They are very sorry and gave me a free tow which was nice. We will see what they say Monday and what comes around. My theory is one of two things, it's shorting out because something screws up and touches metal where it shouldn't, or it's protecting something, and causing the fuse to short instead of the entire system.

 

so guess what guys, there was a loose cable from the previous owner and his rear mounted sub woofer touching the chassis every time the fuse blew...Well at least the problem was fixed, but this was one stupid stupid problem.

 

Ah yes, the dreaded previous owner...

You may want to dig a little deeper to be sure everything is up to snuff. Which fuse blew? I see several improper scenarios if an audio system problem could kill the engine:

1) The subwoofer is wired to the wrong fuse. A short in the audio system should not affect anything else.

2) The subwoofer's fuse (correct location or not) had blown before, so the "fix" was to install a bigger fuse. I'd have to know the exact fuse and consult a wiring diagram, but there may be another big fuse feeding multiple smaller fuses on that bus. If the (oversized) little fuse didn't blow, it may have overloaded the bigger one upstream, taking out multiple circuits.

3) The subwoofer wiring may have been rubbing against another wire, not necessarily just the chassis. This other wire may have been an important one.