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Recently, I've become the proud owner of a 2004 Jaguar XJR. The car is a beauty with most of the options (including the polished 20" Sepang wheels). It's got 66,000 miles on it, which is unbelievable for a car this old, and quite frankly, that's why I couldn't pass it up. I bought it for a very, very fair price from someone I know. And, I know this guy takes care of his cars.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. As soon as I bought it, I was all over this forum, reading about what could go wrong and such. And most of the potential issues have already been addressed. Except for one.
On day 6 of owning this Jag, I went out to start it and drive to the store. Turned the key and everything lit up as expected. Turned the key to position III to start and...nothing. Not even the tell tail clickitty click of a dead battery. Nothing. "What have I done? I kew I shouldn't have bought a Jaguar." Okay, I pulled the battery and took to my local AutoZone. They tested it and the battery was fine.
The security system wasn't the cause because the doors locked and unlocked. The inertia switch wasn't it because it wouldn't crank at all. No fault codes showing. But, I couldn't get the shifter out of park. That was a clue.
I hit this forum and I read about the shift linkage bolts falling out or coming loose. Surely that couldn't be the problem. So I went out to the driveway, looked under the car and saw a silver 8mm bolt laying under the ca
r. Eureka! That's it. After jacking the car up, and lathering those two bolts with LockTite, I was back in business and all of my anxieties about Jaguar ownership where gone. I was back to bathing in luxury and exceptional performance (now to get that brake peddle travel shortened).
I just want to say thank you to all who post here. It's great to see such a vibrant (and well behaved) community of car enthusiasts offering up solutions and good advice.
Welcome to the Jaguar Forums donniefitz2, it's great to have you with us. That's a beautiful Jag and thanks for sharing your problem and solution. Learning from one another is one of the great benefits of this forum.
As someone born in St Albans, I can share that these particular British cars are great drivers, assuming you're willing to do some homework and crawl under the thing once in a while
Compliments on sorting the shift linkage. Many (in the gold neck chain set) would have it towed and spend $2400 for "repairs"
Thankful for this Forum
