Yes, I've had the problem and read here it's very common. The only way I can get it to go on is to press it before I ever take it out of park the first time after starting it. That's pretty much how I get it to turn off too. I can't see any difference driving it in that mode and gas milage is still the same so I just leave it off.

 

I have had this problem and what I did was to turn off car..press sport button...turn on car and it came back on. My switch tends to turn itself off when it wants to

 

I leave it in Sport mode all the time - and I hope that isn't a bad thing to do...

I do that because when its off the car randomly wanders between gears constantly (and I have read that complaint in some reviews). I believe Sport Mode causes the upshifts to occur at higher RPMs, which seems to reduce the random gear wandering.

 

I leave mine all all the time for the same reason as you meatbag. I received a noitce from jaguar that there is a transmission update recall for the automatics. I have not brought my jag in yet to find out what its about but when i do i will see if what they say about the s switch

 

I'm curious to know more about this transmission update? What years does it pertain to and how much difference does it make?

Also u guys mention that keeping sport mode engaged helps with gear-searching and rides the rpms out a bit higher? I wonder if this wquld yield in higher gas mileage due to not lugging the motor out with the ridiculously low downshifts?

 

I know this is a really old thread, but I've just had this same problem and I think fixed it. My sport mode button wouldn't work, no light when pressed, kickdown still worked though.

I removed the left carpet panel off the transmission tunnel/centre console and then located a large green connector for the j-gate selector, unplugged it for 5 minutes, re-plugged it and now it's been working for a few weeks now.

Just thought I'd pass this information on here instead of a new thread.

 

I had the same problem when I bought my car, the only way to enable S mode or disable it, was to press it before I turned on the car.

But It got solved once I replaced my battery, my battery was a little low I guess because my car cranked really low, anyhow my two cents are that when I replaced my battery its now working with no problems like it should, I can turn it on or off while driving or while being parked.

 

Had the same problem, I just changed the battery and now it works every time.