I finally bought the car I've always wanted and brought it home yesterday. It took years for me to get an X-type. I now have a 2003 X-type 2.5 The car is nearly perfect, 89,000 original miles, and garage kept since new. I knew when I bought it that it had a misfire. Seller told me he fixed it, he didn't and it came on driving it home, it was still running good but will need attention. Home is about 150 miles from where I bought it. That is no big deal, I figure with the miles, it probably needs plugs and maybe coil packs.

I shut it off in the garage, then restarted it to program the radio and learn about some of the buttons and switches. I noticed after it was running for a bit, that the battery light came on. Then I noticed when the cooling fan cycled, the interior lights would dim. So, I thought, ok the battery is weak. I checked the water level, a couple cells were a touch low, so I added water and put the charger on it on the "start" setting. The car fired off as it should, ran for about 10 seconds and shut off. All the interior lights went out, the radio went dark, and the dash went dark. Now, if I turn the key, there is nothing. No dash lights, radio, interior lights, locks don't work, its totally dead. I disconnected the charger and checked the battery again, it's showing 13 volts. slightly high charge, but not unusual.

What happened to the car I've waited years to own?

 

Check all of the grounds and battery cables for loose point or for corroding

 

Bad battery

 

I did check the cables leading from the battery, both positive and negative. I didn't see anything loose or worn, the battery is about 3 years old but seems to be holding a charge. I checked it again this morning and it is maintaining at 13 volts.

 

If you have a set of jumper cables hook them to another car and instead of hooking them straight to your battery hook the positive side up correctly but hook the ground side up to the engine in your car and check for dash lights and all that. If they still don’t come on the move it from the engine to a spot on the body like a clean strut bolt or something. To lose all power like that you have either blown the main fuses ( unlikely just by starting the car ) or you have bad connections between the battery and car. If when you move it to a point on the car everything lights up then you do have a bad connection. Also take the terminals off and give then a cleaning. Even if the battery is bad having 13 v you should still have lights and etc. also just hooking the charger up but not on its start setting you should have everything light up. If you don’t then you have bad connections