Thank God I wasn't on the street or I might not be here (knock on wood thank you God). Just to get you up to speed: I had my X stop working about a week or two ago. I determined I had a corroded terminal (positive side), battery had melted in one spot, the positive cable was shot and looked charred.

I have a local tech who took the car and replaced my already new battery with a newer one, tested the alternator, replaced the terminal (non jaguar), cleaned the cable and hooked it back up and worked fine. No battery indicator light back on I'm happy - 400.00.

I was driving @ work and left our parking lot and on a slope my car shut off. I couldn't jump it off and I couldn't get it out of P gear. I eventually had it towed and it is now with the tech again. The only bit of information I can give you is that when I turned the key to on the car electricity seemed to be crappy, the lights, radio, ac didn't come on. I had a flashing light on the dash for my abs (been there before hand) and still no batt light. AAA guy came out thinks its a fuse or alternator.

What should I do guys? I hate to take it to JAGUAR DEALERSHIP but it appears they will have to get my car again unless my tech can fix it.

 

OK, I'm going to make a leap here. You said that the battery looked melted at the terminal and also the cable looked cooked.

THAT'S NOT NORMAL and is an indication that you have a more serious electrical issue. If the original tech looked at your new battery and saw it had arc'd enough to damage the terminal on the battery and cooked the cable, and his repair was replacing both I would run, not walk away from him. I'm not a fan of dealerships but if you look at a 400.00 reapir bill and you have the same if not worse issue, you need to re-evaluate 'your guy' doing repairs. I have found a couple of guys near me who only work on Europian cars and the reapai lot is always full, I can never get my car in there the same day but when they fix something it's fixed. That's who you should be looking for. But get it away from the guy who did the last work.

 

Well basically the previous battery I had installed (which was new), upon my inspection of the electrical system, the battery had corrosion all over the positive terminal and the negative not so bad.

Once I cleaned the connectors on the battery and terminals I noticed I had an indentation on the battery (read power cable burned into battery) just below where the terminals would rest (sorry for lack of pix it was night time). So I let the tech know and he came at me with I need to replace the belt (I knew that already but good look), battery (not sure why cause I wasn't 100% sure a cell had gone bad), cabling (due to being CHARRED), and alternator (since it was putting out higher voltages which apparently I didn't know it could but I read up on and accepted it could be possible).

I just don't understand how a diagnosis and a new battery and terminals could be 400.00. I could take it to JAG and get it diagnosed for under 100 per http://repairpal.com.

The terminals didn't take a scientist to install but hey I've never had to install those and I am scared of being electrocuted or messing up the system otherwise i'd rip the entire positive cable out and install a brand new one. The battery duhhhhhhhhh anybody could install that. I wouldn't even bother with the alternator since its not like my Expedition I use to have and not as easy for me to install since I have no experience doing it.

 

To any techs (Thermo included) - what should I do considering I want this car to run (I just completely paid it off and I'm not having any fun by all means). As far as I know, the cables, battery, alternator can/will be culprits. I'm not sure if the starter is shot to H3LL but I believe its a bad connection somewhere and/or faulty alternator.

On a side note while I had the hood up I noticed some "fluid" just below the battery in sight on the block (not sure if its from the rain or an actual leak it did look brownish but again I've read about some of the leaks on here but I'm not sure about seals and stuff. Anyone could point me to a FAQ or post or advice I'd be giddy

 

@ sidewalkman - Typically I'm a guy who will take the car primarily to the dealership for average and hard issues with the car and the minor stuff take do myself (if able) or take it to a reputable place and if on rare occasion let someone do it. The tech did pretty good work, he works on my other family members cars (Mercedes etc) so he's fair on most prices (I do triple check anyone's work regardless).

I hate having to wait 2-5 days for a repair that should take one and still be charged almost as high as a dealer in SOME cases not all. Seriously it doesn't take 5 days to look at a battery, cable, alternator, test them, and replace what is messed up. That is one thing that pisses me off............

The one thing I'm really perplexed about is the actual cable length for the positive lead. HOW LONG ACTUALLY IS IT AND WHERE ALL DOES IT GO? Cause push come to shove if it ain't hard i'd do it my dang self.

 

Kris, when you say the motor just turned off, was it like the ignition key was rotated to OFF or was the car stumbling, fighting to remain running?

Should this happen again, what you can do is remove the trim from around the gear shift and there is a button down there that will allow you to move the gear shift out of P. This will atleast allow you to put the car into NEUTRAL and allow you to move it around.

Making the assumption that the engine just turned off suddenly and having the car not be able to shift out of P, that would lead me to believe that the ignition switch is toast. For the car to shut off, you would have to kill power to the ECU. For the car not to shift out of Park, you have to kill power to the Tranny computer (TCM). These are powered off of separate sources About the only other possibility would be a CAN network problem and that is causing the whole system to get confused, leading to the car shutting down to protect itself.

 

Oh, by the way, having the battery cables get hot like you saw was all caused by a high resistance connection/bad wire. Essentially the higher resistance was a big heating element and that cooked the wire and lead to the battery damage. The corrosion should have been your first hint. Due to the cable dropping voltage, that will cause the alternator to output a higher voltage to try and maintain the voltage at the battery.

 

Kris, when you say the motor just turned off, was it like the ignition key was rotated to OFF or was the car stumbling, fighting to remain running?

Basically no indication that I had a problem (no LHM) the battery light wasn't on. Car started fine (in fact it's been the best I've seen since having it even in cold weather) and I drove off and in 10 seconds later the car shut off.


Making the assumption that the engine just turned off suddenly and having the car not be able to shift out of P, that would lead me to believe that the ignition switch is toast.

I think that is exactly what he replaced 4-6 months ago

For the car to shut off, you would have to kill power to the ECU. For the car not to shift out of Park, you have to kill power to the Tranny computer (TCM). These are powered off of separate sources About the only other possibility would be a CAN network problem and that is causing the whole system to get confused, leading to the car shutting down to protect itself.

Oh God if the fiber net is screwed (I'm a IT Tech) then kiss the car goodbye LoL I'm sure Jaguar Dealership would love to troubleshoot it for a lot of money


<---- Wishes THERMO lived next door so he could fix this for some $$ and a few beers