hi i have a problem my 2.1L xtype 2003 RHD manual gear change, keeps the engine light on, codes say fault with cam sensors both of them,replaced them both yesterday,erased the light, after 2 miles it came back on,saying 2 faults again with cam sensors,does anyone know what to do next?it has started to missfire for a split second now and then,i am in birmingham england uk thanks for any advice in advance, peterw

 

Peter, looking at the diagram for your car, there is only 2 things that are common to both camshaft position sensors. You have the ECU (possible, but normally you have other associated issues) or there is a shield around this wire that is shared. So, if you look on the plug for the crankshaft position sensor, you will see a black/green wire on both of the plugs. If you follow this wire, it will ground itself at the ECU. Make sure that this wire is grounded (simple resistance check). If it isn't, then what is happening is that there is noise interference and the computer is seeing too many pulses for the engine RPM, therefore it is popping the code. You will need to ground the wire (either end works, just need to add a wire to shunt the undesired stuff to ground). You can try momentarily adding a wire to ground to see if that helps anything if you don't have a multimeter. But I don't recommend this as you can get circulating currents and that can lead to more issues than things it fixes.

If the shield checks out good, then I would look at the wire bundle and follow it back to the ECU (should be able to follow it all the way since the ECU is in the engine bay) and make sure that there are no nicks/cuts in the wire bundle. That can also lead to what you are seeing.

If all else is good, then it somewhat only leaves the ECU as being the suspect. I hope you find something else to be the culprit. Doing a look at the plugs to make sure that there is clean contacts inside the plugs would not be a bad check either. Hate to see you go through a lot of work for something as silly as corroded pins inside the plug.

 

code p0345 now erased after checking and cleaning connections,now just left with p0346,my scanners hand book says"P0346 GENERIC CAMSHAFT POSITION SENSOR.A-BANK 2 CKT RANGE./PERFOREMANCE, does anybody know what this means, greatfull for any help please,thanks peter.

 

Peter, the possible causes for this sort of code are:

1) bad sensor (rule that out due to new sensors installed)
2) dirt on the face of the sensor (rule that out due to new sensors)
3) sensor disconnected (rule that out due to installing new sensors and I would really doubt you would fail to reinstall the plug).
4) wiring issue where one of the two wires is either touching ground (most likely) or is touching power. The only way to find this is to do a hand over hand of the wiring and see if there is any damage to the wiring harness due to the cable rubbing up against something.

I would also recommend looking at the connections inside of the plug and seeing how they look. You may need to pull the pins out and give them a good cleaning. Sometimes water can get inside the plug and create some general problems.

 

many thanks,your help is so valuable,you are a top gent,i will procead tomorrow morning to do all the checks you advise ,again thank you for taking time out of your day to help me ,a very good afternoon to you sir,peterw,uk

 

Peter, not a problem. This is actually a fairly new problem with our cars and I am keeping a running tally of what the problems with our cars are and what it takes to fix them. Helps me come up with more direct ways of fixing our cars in the future. Thank you for taking the time and keeping me updated on the progress.

 

good evening,i have followed your instuctions inch by inch,i cleaned the face of the cylinder head, the contact point of the cam sensor with P600 wet &dry, sprayed with WD40, then followed along the wireing loom as you suggested,i also cleaned the sensor on top of the engine next to the oil fill cap,i believe now that was the SCOUNDRELL that was misbehaving, i would like if you would exept my gratitude for your help,you have saved me and others with this problem ££££££££££££££,i hope fortune comes your way,god bless peterw uk.

 

peter, not a problem. Sometimes it is the easiest things that will make your wallet scream the loudest. Imagine what you would have spent if you had needed to take it somewhere to be repaired. I can only imagine what they would have charged you for a new wiring harness, getting that installed, etc. So, smile, enjoy the codes being gone, and be happy that you learned something new.

 

Had exactly the same issue. Car seemed to run fine but the car had an extended crank time and smelt a bit of petrol. After changing Camshaft position sensors I had the same codes again. I cleaned as many connectors in the engine bay as I could find but did not seem to clear the fault. It was not until I read an unrelated post which said that a Crankshaft position sensor fault would not throw a MIL engine management DTC code in 95% of cases that I decided to look there.

The Crankshaft position sensor is on the side of the engine near the bottom where the pulleys and drive belt are. If you take off the wheel and remove the centre section of the inner wing it is there on the engine directly in front of you. 1x 8 mm bolt holds it in. I removed the sensor and cleaned it and the connector and that seems to have cured my problem.

Been OK for 2 weeks now but if the fault returns you can buy the sensor fairly economically on EBAY if you buy from the US £25 instead of £150 in this country. You can also get a replacement connector from the states for £20 ish.

 

Update, I had to change both the crankshaft sensor and the connector. Seems to me that the connector went bad and caused the sensor to fail.

I purchased the connector from Simtek UK as I could not find anyone else who would sell me just the connector. Jaguar and all other auto electrical retailers wanted me to buy a new wiring loom. The connector was £12 including delivery versus £120 for the loom. Any connector you want can be found on their catalogue, I just sent them a picture and they figured out what I needed. Very helpful people.

 

New information


This fault re-appeared and took me ages to track down and finally turned out to be unrelated to any engine management fault as it was the battery. Some cheapskate had fitted an underpowered (Too small) battery to the car which caused a weak Start/Crank. Seems the ECU counts this and if there are more than five per forty, slow or weak engine starts then you will get a MIL engine light. This is hard to diagnose as even if you change the battery you will still get the light for a few days as the codes are still stored. By the way disconnecting the battery does not reset these codes, I know I have really struggled with this fault. Hope this helps someone else as it took me a year to diagnose this one and no-one, not even Jaguar specialists have helped.

 

I had to change all the plugs as the fault came back , been fault clear now for 10 months,(FINGERS CROSSED)

 

Hi Peter did you change the battery? I have had no issues now for a few weeks and was hoping that I had found the cause. I also had some symptoms you may not have experienced like the headlights seeming to go dim on occasion but are now also fine.


The fault was intermittent to start with and would sometimes go away for a few days but over time it got worse and was occurring every start. The only times it didnt were first thing in the morning when it hadnt been used for a while or the one occassion I charged the battery which led me to finding my problem.


Did you experience the same?

 

Yes,i changed the battery it was a factory fitted one so had lasted 10 years , I have had no problems since, I fitted a more.powerfull one £120 gbp happy motoring lol

 

Thanks Peter, you were right, in that the fault returned after a month. I changed the plugs yesterday fingers crossed that this works. The old plugs were Ford Mondeo spec ie Motorcraft AWSF22FS and the gaps were enormous around 75 thousandths.

 

no problems