Update:

My wife arrived home from Florida last night. Just over 1,700 miles have been put on the car since the throttle body was replaced and the new cowl cover was installed. Thus far we've seen no repeat issues. Several hundred of those miles last week were at 70 mph on I-95 and I-4 during heavy Florida thunderstorms. Hopefully the "limp mode" experience was a one-off deal for us.

She has another Florida trip planned for the last weekend of June. If she experiences no problems during that trip as well, I think she'll be able to gain most of her trust in the car back. We'll see....

 

Other than that, how does she like the car??

 

She really loved the car prior to her "limp mode" experience. That understandably scared the hell out of her. Now she still likes the car but has become overly sensitive to every little quirk and transmission shift. That is solely due to her loss of trust in the vehicle after "limp mode" struck her. As I've stated before, I hope she can gradually regain her trust in the car because I really don't want to have to sell it. I have no need for it so if she won't drive it, it will have to go....

 

Update:

No further recurrence of Limp Mode since my wife's frightening experience with it about five weeks ago. Hopefully the new throttle body and cowl panel have indeed solved the problem. She drives back to Florida next Wednesday to spend another week with her parents, so she'll put another 1,500 miles or so on the S-Type by the time she returns home. Once she gets back, I'll have about three weeks of the factory warranty remaining on the car so I'll be scheduling an appointment with our local Jaguar dealership for the free 40,000-mile service (which will be performed at about 32,000 miles on our car) and to resolve the items on my updated warranty punch list (the stupid plastic fuel filler latch yet again, a sporadic whistling fan noise coming from the rear deck area when the A/C is cranked up to high, a small intermittent rain leak at the rear of the headliner which I believe is caused by a slow or stopped-up moonroof drain, and a couple of instances of the steering wheel column not automatically moving up and out of the way when my wife has entered/exited the car over the past two weeks)....

Our factory warranty runs out on July 19th. Based on my continuing research, I'm still leaning towards not purchasing an extended warranty but instead putting that $2,600 or so in an interest-bearing S-Type maintenance account to be used as needed. We'll see....

 

Jon, glad to hear that. I have not had recurrence. Looks as though a throttle body replacement is the answer. Arent you glad you didnt just settle on them replacing that cowl?

 

Yep, I wasn't about to let them get away with just doing the J004 ECU reflash and a cowl panel replacement when the code thrown pointed to the throttle position sensor....

Glad to hear that your Limp Mode issue also appears to be history. Now it becomes a matter of the wives regaining trust in the vehicle. Mine is slowly coming around. Still worries about every little noise or sensation. Don't know if she will ever trust the S-Type 100% again, but at least she is driving the car most every day and willing to take it to Florida and back. It remains to be seen how the end of our factory warranty next month will affect her willingness to take the car on the long trips that we bought it to perform....

 

natekalb,

My friend has a Focus - what do you say is common with the S-Type?

If you bought a 2008 car, why hasn't it been fixed under warranty?

What makes you think it's an American car?

 

Warranty??? How the hell would you have to spend $7500 in repairs?

Haha, Stype = Ford Focus, thats a f'n joke. I want whatever your smokin, must be real good.

Jaguar IS considered a European car you nitwit, and S Types are assembled in England.

 

natekalb,

The S-Type is really a global car, just like the vast majority of cars being built today....

My original 2005 MSRP sticker says that our S-Type is 35% North American, 30% British, 15% German, and 20% Asian. Sounds pretty "global" to me....

With a 2008 S-Type, I certainly hope that you haven't paid even a penny for anything that may have gone wrong with it thus far. Look up the phrase "factory warranty"....

Yes, these S-Types have their quirky maintenance issues that we all have to deal with, but so do all cars regardless of who builds them or where they are assembled....

The worst car we've ever owned was from J.P. Powers' quality ratings darling Lexus, a 2000 RX300 AWD that needed more than $9,000 worth of warranty work to keep it running during the 4 years that we owned it. So don't believe everything you read about superior Japanese quality....

 

First: So, you have a 2000 S type and a 2008 S type?
If so, why would you get two if they were so bad? And if your just pissed about the error code that you originally posted about, what did you expect from a police auction car.

Second: You should never get a high end car without the acceptance of the price to maintain it. Remember, even posing isn't free!

Third: The S Type is a co-designed platform with Ford, done during Ford's ownership of Jaguar. The Ford products that shared a platform with the S Type are the Lincoln LS, the last generation of the Thunderbird, and some stampings formed the basis of the '05 Mustang. These are all RWD cars. The Focus BTW is actually a shared platform that was developed in conjunction with Mazda. So, based on your "educated" comments, the Focus is Japanese. Also, the S Type is built in England, and last time I checked, England is part of Europe. So, car lesson over.

And Finally: By coming on this forum and bashing the brand with, based on your previous post, what seems like fabrication, you've pretty much sealed you fate on getting anything but scorn and sarcasm from a group of people that can be very helpful and understanding.

 

Update:

My wife arrived home last night from her latest trip to visit her parents in Florida. No new issues, she said that the S-Type handled beautifully throughout some drenching Florida summer downpours on I-4 and I-95, and the odometer is now showing nearly 30,500 miles. So she's put nearly 4,500 miles on the car since the Limp Mode issue bit her in mid-May. She's made two trips back and forth to Florida since the throttle body was replaced as the primary fix for the Limp Mode issue, and her confidence in the car continues to improve....

So I now have until July 18th to get my final factory warranty punch list resolved with our local Jaguar dealership. That A/C whistling noise in the rear of the car comes and goes when the fan speed is high, the stupid plastic fuel filler latch pin assembly (which has been replaced twice since mid-December) still refuses to lock on occasion until you press the dash button again, and the moonroof drains probably need to be blown out with compressed air to clean any debris out of them. Other than those issues, our S-Type should be good to go. I'll see....

 

It has been raining in the Northeast for like 3 weeks straight. I am driving the vehicle everyday, mixed between hwy and city....No problems whatsoever. That makes me feel good but this rain is making me want to commit myself.

 

We'll take your rain here in central North Carolina - we're pretty parched and if this continues, more summer drought can be expected. Please send your rain our way....

 

Oh man, please TAKE it. Not even joking when I say its been raining for 2-3 weeks. Everyone is all P*ssed off, road rage has become prevelent, rude people everywhere in every store you go into, etc. etc.

 

If you have any rain left over, please send it to SoCal, we're in the middle of a prolonged drought. I'm having a hard time of ...."three weeks straight" rain. We're lucky to get 3 days in a row..

 

It may be the throttle body - but it also may not be. Find out the stored code(s) in case they help.

It's fairly expensive to change the throttle body so I'd expect you don't want to do it unnecessarily.

 

If your throttle body does indeed need to be replaced, expect to pay more than $1,200 for the job (parts and labor) if you take it to a Jaguar dealership. An independent shop would cost you a bit less, but it will still be expensive. As has been previously pointed out, find out what codes your car's computer threw before you choose a repair strategy....