I was driving the car yesterday through some absolutely torrential rain and the engine started cutting out with the orange warning light (above the message centre) blinking on and off, each blink coinciding with the losses of power. I had reduced my speed to around 50 m.p.h. because of the poor visibility.
The light did not stay on. I brought the car to a halt as soon as it was safe to do so and checked all the basics to find that all was well and so I started off again. The moment I hit some more bad weather I had a re-occurrence of the problem.
Again, the light did NOT stay on but blinked momentarily as the engine lost power.
Up until the cutting out/light coming on, I had driven some 200 miles through intermittent rain without problem.
After the problems, I drove the car another 200 miles or so to home, driving through some more rain along the way. Today, in fine weather, there were no problems at all. I re-checked the basic to again find that all was as it should be.
Has anybody else experienced such a problem, if so what was the cure? I'm new to the X-type and thought a diesel would be more reliable in wet weather.

 

I have a petrol 3.0 v6 sport and I had a similar problem yesterday I was driving in heavy rain and got gearbox fault, gone into limp mode(loss of power) stuck in 3rd gear, rain stopped for a bit I stopped turned the car off for about 20mins came back everything was fine today, iv done about 200miles and was ok, I suggest plugging in a obd scanner and see what the results are, My said that there is a fault with Can Link ECM/ABSCM Circuit / Network Malfunction, possible cause Water/moisture damage but will check it out next week .
I might not have the same problem but its good to point it out.

 

Sparkster, from the sounds of things, because yours is based on bad weather, you will need to access the ECU and then put some dielectric grease into the plug and then make sure that the seal on the plug is good and clean. That should fix your problem.

As for where the ECU is, assuming you have a left hand drive (US) car, you will need to open the hood and then remove the windshield wipers, followed by removing the black plastic cover under the wipers. Now, if you look in front of where the passenger sits, you will see a 4x20" filter and to the left (outside) side of the filter, you will see an electronic module. That will be your ECU.

What is happening is you are getting a lot of water to come down the windshield and it dumps right on to the ECU if you don't have a good seal on the cowl (the black plastic piece).

 

Many thanks for both posts. For the record, the car is 2008, two litre diesel X-type, right hand drive but I was driving down the west coast of France; when it rains here, it really empties down.
I drove it today (Monday) through some wet weather, though not as bad as a few days ago and it didn't even pink. Thanks again for the replies, really useful advice.