After some spectacular storms over the last few weeks, the car had been standing outside and unused for a few days.

I needed to pop into town and when I turned the ignition on the dash lights had a bit of a flashing frenzy and there was continuous clicking and strange sounds coming from the dash/front of the car. There was no sequence to this, the dash lights just went a bit ape and the sounds were not normal. All of the dial needles did a full sweep clockwise and then anti-clockwise and all in unison. When I turned the key to start it just clicked some more and the engine didn't turn over.
Immediately I thought this must be the battery.

So I fetched a multi-tester from the house and opened the boot.
Checked the battery voltage with no ignition on and it was 12.7 V.
However the boot had some water in it. First time in 2 years.
Nothing major but enough to almost fill the wide kind of gullies in the boot floor pan. So I cleared everything out of the boot and got a large industrial roll of blue workshop paper and mopped it all out. Putting the wet cloth in carrier bags and then in the refuse wheelie bin.
Once it was wiped dry I got back into the drivers seat and turned the ignition key. Everything was as normal. So thankfully it looks like I got away with it. Its been fine ever since over several days now.

However as I looked at the floor pan in the boot I was wondering where to drill and put a drain hole ? and then fit a rubber grommet.
I don't want to drill into something underneath so someone must have done this job already.

I suggest checking your boot/trunk to anyone who's car has been left outside in the storms. I was lucky not to have any damage.
The water was only about 1/2" deep in the indents in the floor pan.

 

I forgot to say the electrical issues were caused by a loose and corroded clamp on the battery negative lead. The clamp is not an original I would say by the look of it. It is very thin metal and looks nothing like the big chunky positive lead clamp.
I could easily have waggled the neg clamp right off by hand it was that loose.
So after twisting it back and forth to get a good connection I tightened up the clamp with a spanner. It took a few turns to get it good and tight.
Looking on eBay for a decent clamp now.

 

When the new clamp arrives, I would clean and burnish BOTH battery terminals and clamps for good measure....

 

Good tip thanks Jon89.
Then I know its done.
The Exide battery is about 4 or 5 years old from the stickers. Its still good.

 

Hi Busa, water in boot is a too often reported issue across these forums . . . plenty of threads pointed to fixing or fitting new boot seals etc, although with all the snow and rubbishy weather we hear you are getting, your warning is timely.

IMHO, drilling holes in boot well is not the preferred solution. Suggest you examine the seal and plan on fixing the source of the water problem . . . or corrosion won't be limited to battery lead connections.

Cheers,

Ken

 

A common spot to leak is at the taillights.
I put some silicon sealer along the area in the boot opening and stopped it.

 

you don't need to drill holes. there are some already there. taped over with black underseal type stuff. stick a big biro through and all is well !

 

What melhook said....except on my 2005, they already have flapper-grommets in them. The kind that are normally used on the end of the HVAC drain on most cars....Rubber fitting that looks like a grommet on one end, but then is a tube ending in a slit on the other end. A loose sort of one-way valve.

Haven't looked at the 03 lately, not sure whether they are on it or not.

Anybody know if clogged sunroof drains can deliver water to the boot? Or is that strictly for the cabin floor?

 

Zane,

I think it would be unlikely for clogged moonroof drains to send any water down to the trunk area. In my 2005 model, the right rear moonroof drain is the one that has clogged twice on me, and it is positioned so that the overflow runs right down the rear cabin to the right rear floorboard below. Based upon the positioning of the front moonroof drains, if they clog they would most likely send water to the front floorboards....

 

I had the sunroof drains block on my Shogun years ago, you could hear the water slopping about in the roof pan, nothing that a good strip out and compressed air didn't solve. Mind you, the entire roof had to come out, pig of a job with one person.
I second the opinion that drilling holes in the floor isn't the solution, I'd locate the leak and sort that out whether it's the boot seal or tail light seals. A new boot seal wouldn't be a bad investment given the age of the car, even if it isn't the cure.

 

The main culprit is the boot gasket. If you can get a new one, it will well worth the investment. Then make sure you silicon the complete seal to the ridge preventing any water to be sucked over the ridge which it does so often if you don't have any sealed barrier. If the water gets too high it will ruin the electronics and you will find that you have a parasitic battery leak. There are tons of posts about the water in the trunk and the fixes.

 

Hmm! This is what I found that caused ingress of water in my trunk.

Link JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource

 

Thank you all for your input on this. It's very informative and usefull. Sorry for my lack of response until now due to comouter failure and also broadband supplier issues. Got a new refurbished pc and it's working right now. Same can't be said of Virgin BB though.

 

My previous car a Ford Mondeo had a major boot leak. I wonder if the S type has a similar cause?

The Mondeo arches were corroding and the lip design between the outer wing and inner panel was such that when corrosion started it let water into the boot. Once I had stripped the paint and corrosion, I resealed the lip and painted inside the wheel arch panel with Hammerite then the leak stopped.

I don't doubt at all that the rubber boot lip seal is a causal factor. Just wish to make it clear.

 

Apparently not, judging by all the posts so far and the fixes.

 

Noted Gus and yes a very apparent location for ingress. Exactly the same on my Mondeo.

 

Thanks Harry, yes I picked up on the boot gasket leak issues and fixes early after joining the forum. The weather here is against me doing anything on the car atm.

 

Thanks Ken.
The earth lead clamp looks like it came off a tuc tuc or an old caravan.
Before I had disconnected it I could see it was cracked in one place, but as I removed it and placed some emery paper near to it, the one side of the clamp broke off in my hand from a different crack. So I had to buy a generic earth lead clamp from a local parts shop but before driving down there I had to improvise. No way could I get a hose clip around it to hold the clamp together so I opted for another trick I've used before in an breakdown.
I had a small G clamp in the workshop and after filing it down slightly it would fit over the clamp body and the broken part to clamp it tight on the battery terminal. It was good and solid and certainly ok to drive to the parts shop and back. So I've got the new earth lead clamp on and its not going to come off in a hurry and by the way Jaguar sell the lead and clamp as one for £50. A generic earth lead clamp was £5-00.

Still got the boot lid seal to sort out. But we had another 3" of snow last night and its freezing cold outside. I'll get on it as soon as. In the meantime I will be keeping a close watch on any water ingress and I've put a roll of industrial kitchen roll in the boot just incase.

 

Having already written 2 replies on this thread days ago, my old PC crashed meaning I lost the posts before actually posting them. I was a tad annoyed.
So I bought a nice refurbed Dell PC and Dell flat screen monitor.
500Gb hdd, 6Ghz speed, 8Gb RAM, dual core and its quite nice.