Hi, this is Martin in Menifee, CA. My car is a 2005 X Type Estate (BRG and Champaign)
Recently, when driving at night with the headlights in high, the lights and the dash illumination failed.
Getting over panic, switching the lights to low brought on the lower lamps and dash lamps, and then moving stalk to high brought all back on.
This happened on the I15 freeway at 70mph and was nose-bleed dangerous. Happened twice within 10 minutes.
Where to start to find fault - relays, stalks, switch, wiring or grounds? No previous problem with this.
Also, I understand there is a mini-battery operated tone device somewhere but not finding it. Heard that a dead mini-battery can cause multitude of problems.

Thanks for your helpful advice,

Martin

 

There is no “mini battery” hidden in any Jaguar as far as I know. But as a recovering BMW owner, I have experienced the stupidity of a hard-wired mini-battery in the dash.
Your problem may lie in the light switch on the dash or in the column light switch, given that a return to low beam restored proper lighting.

 

Martin, I think you may be mixing 2 different cars together. The newer cars with the AUTO START-STOP feature, have a small 12 VDC battery that maintains the accessories when the engine turns off. This feature was never put into the X-Types. As sov said, there is no second battery in the car unless a previous owner did some modification. If this is the case, hard to say what they did and why.

As for the headlight issue, replace the turn signal stalk. This will fix your headlight issue. sounds like the high beam portion of the turn signal stalk is starting to go and is the source of your grief. Because you mentioned that the high beam indicator went out, this is almost confirming that your problem is the turn signal stalk.

 

C2S17356

 

Thanks to SOV211 and Thermo,
Parking the car at night, I found that the headlights flickered when turning the switch to OFF, and continued to flicker after a few seconds in the OFF position.
So for a start, I'm going to get a replacement headlight switch since there is clearly a problem with this.
Could still be an issue with the bright beam stalk, but going one repair at a time. Hesitate to buy used switches from eBay, but not a lot of money.
Another issue is the Information Panel (mileage and other data) which has weak lighting. In the daytime, can't read at all.
Is there a solution for this and how does one get into or behind the lamp?
You are both correct about the lack of a mini battery - my bad.
Thank you for your advice.
Martin

2005 X-Type Estate Wagon BRGd)
2000 XK8 Coupe (Phoenix Red, black)
1987 XJ6 van den Plas (Sand Beige, ivory)
1967 XJ6C (Old English White, tan)

 

mj, when getting a new headlight switch, please note that there are 3 different switches that you may run across. In short, there is a Canadian one, a Scandinavian one, and a all others. The first 2 are going to make your headlights do funny things that you may not be used to and if you don't have all the parts needed, may not even work. So, please pay attention to that.

As for your ODO not being readable during the day, unfortunately, that is the backlight for the LCD and I am not sure if that is truely repairable or if you would need to get a new instrument cluster (can't just get a different cluster and call it good, it needs to be programmed to the car). You may be able to send the instrument cluster off to a repair shop and they could fix the backlight issue for you. If you know something about electronics, you could find a part number and do some soldering yourself. But, if electronics are not your forte, probably best to let a shop repair it for you.

 

Thermo:

The Daytime Running Lights feature for the Canadian cars, as fitted to the 2005 model, activates ALL the exterior lamps with the ignition ON (and this feature is not dependant on putting the gear selector in D).
But the dash lights are not illuminated with this system. Therefore the dash-mounted lighting switch must be used to turn the dash lights on or to enable the front and rear fog lamps. This is the system in my 2005 Sportwagon.

The system used on the earlier X-Types (perhaps up to 2004?) has ALL the lights, exterior and the dash lights, on all the time, triggered by the ignition switch. My wife has driven her 2002 X-Type daily for 17 years, day and night. She has never needed to touch the light switch…and I am not sure that she knows where it is! The way this system functions, the dash illumination, and that includes the central display, is on, but dimmed as it would normally be for night use. That does make it more difficult to read in daylight, and no doubt this was the reason that the system changed for the 2005-on cars.