Hi all, I’m a young Jaguar owner who bought a 93k mile S-Type R in September. While driving home from work, I had to do a bit of hard acceleration due to someone holding me up on the motorway. About five minutes later, I was minding my own business going around a roundabout and the gearbox fault message popped up. I have had no issues with gears slipping, limp mode or jerky shifts. I own an admittedly, cheap OBD 2 reader and no codes were displayed on the device. After re-starting the car, the message had gone. Any advice on how to fix or where to look? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

What is the available voltage at the battery?

With the ignition in the OFF position for at least 30 minutes, use a voltmeter to read the available voltage across the battery terminals. There should be a minimum of 12.6 volts indicated on the voltmeter. If not, charge the battery for five hours at 2 to 5 amps and retest. If the voltmeter still indicates less than 12.6 volts available, the battery is suspect and should be replaced.

Many random DTCs and instrument cluster warnings are the result of a failing or weak battery.

 

With the age and miles of the car I would plan on a fluid swap with pan/filter replacement. Also read up on the sealing sleeve that leaks and yours is most likely leaking now.
But you came to the right place to find and fix your problems. Your cars problems have long since been figured out and discussed on the forum.
Also take a look at the UK forum too.
UK Jaguar Forum


After you get a few more posts you can post some picture of that "R"!
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I have a 2003 S Type R., having 60,000 miles, bought used about 5 years ago. I had so many "fault" messages just like you are experiencing. gremlins over the first two years, drove me crazy. Took me a while to figure out my case which I think is most likely the same situation. It is probably no coincidence that the first person to respond hinted to a low battery voltage situation. My experience is the battery is borderline, it will start, but being at a borderline charge level the gremlins will appear and keep on coming. Not necessarily the charging system, although I did replace my battery terminal cable belt during this learning process, as they were not clamping correctly.

The Big Picture is this: when the car is parked (speaking of my S Type R), the battery is slowly belng bled of juice. the car is draining the battery, as it should because it is running many electronics during their sleep, such as the alarm system and memory settings for all the luxury gizmos. The electrical system sensors do not like borderline voltage readings. This is what was causing all sorts of fault messages often causing the car to drop into "creep mode". If you are a daily driver and take long trips with my car, no issues; but if I only drive once every two weeks or worse, every two or three months, you will seem to experience a plethora of faults and shutting down into creep mode. Track the codes: the can be cleared and all seem fine until another two months out of no or rare driving. I don't drive the car much, but ever since I put my car on an intelligent trickle charger, my gremlins have disappeared. My car has become finally reliable. I plug it in, in our back lane when parked and no longer have to worry about it. My mechanic told me a few years ago that this car loves and needs to be driven, faster is good too. Now I know what she meant. It all seems to make sense now. If you chase faults you will suffer. Plan A is to keep the charge up, if I have a fault now It is usually a real fault that is solvable. This stuff not often mentioned in the shop and certainly not in any documentation or manual. But, hey, that is just me; might not apply to others. Good Luck and have run...I really enjoy my ride now and my wife is much less scared of driving the cat. Cheers, Rich

 

It's wort checking the current drain (*) after about 45 mins with car off. Look for threads about quiescent current.

(^) you can do it via the charger using a voltmeter if that's convenient

If it's not shutting down properly you can then go on to hunt for why.

 

Right listen to JagV8. Your car has a drain that needs to be fixed.
It's a common problem and Jaguar has a TSB on what the limits are for different models.
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