Hello everyone. My 2016 Jaguar XJL has been sitting for several months now. I had to replace all of those cheap plastic parts that were causing coolant leaks. Now that they have been replaced, the big problem is getting into the trunk open to change the battery. We've tried supplying power via under the hood. It didn't work. Now we are trying to supply power via the area behind the rear seat. We were able to remove the bottom portion of the seat but are unable to figure out how to remove the back part of the seat. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The dealer wants me to have it towed in, but I am reluctant because there have been horror stories about mechanics tampering with vehicles causing issues in order to get customers to pay large sums of money to have said issues fixed. It's puzzling to me that the manufacturer did not think it necessary to have a keyhole installed in this model so that the customer can manually open the trunk.

Sincerely,
Tired of walking

 

Check out the "Sticky" at the very top of the opening page, "Getting into the trunk with the battery disconnected". The basics are; there is a connector behind the rear seat back, that when supplied with 12v, will open the trunk lid.

wombat

 

Is the battery still connected or has one or both terminals been removed?

I had trouble getting the top section of the back seat to fold forward as shown in the workshop manual.
I have circled in red the bar the straps pull on to release the seat back. I had to pull very hard to get the latch to release.




In the thread listed by Wombat above you can see this tail sticking out from under the seat back.




But no matter how hard I pulled the strap I could not get it to release. So keep at it as I finally got enough force on the strap to release the seat back.
Now it folds forward but is still attached to the car so difficult to work around.



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The battery is still connected. I'm going to check again for the strap, but I don't remember seeing. I'll get back to you.

 

powering it from the jump points underhood won't give you enough to release the trunk with the button?

 

From my old manual

 

I had the exact same issue when I tried to hinge the seat back forward by pulling in the straps … there was not enough range of motion in the straps to do it . No amount of pulling helped. The only way I got it removed was to take out all the bolts at the bottom ( the ones that anchor the seat back along with all the seat belt accoutrements, then wiggling it while pulling in the straps that got the drivers side unhooked . Then I used a long screw driver to depress the metal arm out of its retaining bracket on the passenger side. My seat is still out since I have to fix a speaker issue. But when I put it all back , I am planning to cut the retaining tabs shorter. On mine, they are just way too long to use the straps . Good luck with getting yours off . It’s a pain for sure