That sucks, and I know how you feel, but in time your anus will recover and you will be able to enjoy the plush seat of that Jaguar again....

It is unfortunate that the dealers have such a bad name, they have certainly brought it on themselves. The worst repairs I've ever had to my cars have been at the Jaguar and Land Rover dealerships, and you pay top dollar at them so you think you're getting top work, but that's simply not the case, they have literally done permanent damage to my cars.

 

I just registered with jaguar forums as I had been looking for information about how to get the rear seat out since I can not find the center passenger seat belt buckle when I saw your post. I had a similar problem with the smart key not found on my 2014 XJL. In my case the car had just been sitting in the driveway, and when I tried to use the car the doors would not unlock and there was no response to any functions on the remote. After manually unlocking the door, the smart key not found message appeared when trying to start the car. I ended up having the car towed to the dealer (It was still under warranty), and a few hours later they called and said it was fixed. The explanation was that the entry control module had to be reconfigured, which sounds like the computer went off in the weeds and had to be reset. (I suspect the problem may have been caused by a lightning strike during the thunderstorm the night before) Sorry that your problem does not seem to have as simple a solution.

 

update on this .....dealer has had car for one week. They had to order the KVM and keys and such. Today I was advised they installed the new KVM and it "has power" but is not communicating with "the cluster".....so now they are awaiting some form of factory technical guidance or a computer programming jiggy thingy. and that perhaps tomorrow will have it figured out.

I have to say, as I have insisted in other formats......technology is killing us and will be the downfall of civilization.

 

I hope they don't charge you for replacing a part that sounds like it might not have been faulty...

 

That sucks JD. If it were me, I would call and make sure they keep you old KVM and key so they can re-install it to see if they were bad. I have a feeling their poking around.... I'm sure you've already thought about that

 

yes, I'm in a terrible pickle. I am senior on limited income and bought this really beautiful car from a used car dealer about 3 months ago. Was driving great until this episode. Now I have a car that I invested $11,000 in that probably doesnt book for that much and unuseable.

Getting into a shoving match with a dealer has never worked out for me truthfully.
I am very frightened. As I reported early in the thread, this all occurred instantly when I changed the car battery because it was dead and barely cranking. At that moment, the smart key was not found and stopped communicating any and all functions. I did have an indy mechanic attempt to re inititiate the key as well as the locksmith who claimed he did Jags all the time. Neither was able to get the key recognized any more than I was.
Then the !@#$%^ tow truck driver told the dealer when he offloaded that I had attempted reprogramming, so guess what......dealer is now using words like corrupted, infected etc.

 

guys...need opinions...dealer just told me that now the instrument cluster is also bad and now the bill is up to $3300. When I asked him if the KVM was definitely bad, he said yes. When I asked him if I could buy an ebay cluster instead of a factory new one, he said absolutely not. That any cluster out of any other car would not work. It MUST be a brand new factory virgin cluster.

So now I have a car in a dealer service center that I am into for $2,000 if I tow it away not running. Or pay $3300 to let them have their way with me.

thoughts?

 

From this thread, they talk about it needing to be a new unit, and also that the cluster does have something to do with the keys and immobilizer.

https://www.jaginfo.org/showthread.p...cluster-change

I am surprised a new cluster installed and programmed at the dealer is only $1300.

Sounds like you don't have a lot of choice in your situation.

After you get it fixed, you might want to consider selling it. Jaguar is a premium brand, and that means premium sized repair and maintenance bills, and not super reliable. If you are short on money, and don't have a good earning potential, none of the premium brands are for you, especially one that is 10 years old that you bought used and can't be sure what the previous owner did to the car. Why would you want to spend your final years on earth in a constant frightened state of expensive repair bills that you can't pay? There will be more with your car. Have you heard about the cracking cooling pipes and rattling time chain tensioners?

You should be in a Camry or Accord. They are appliances meant to last and be inexpensive to own while still having a nice car.

 

Sorry Jake, I only have some anecdotal wisdom. When I was changing my dash, I seem to remember running the car (my memory isn't always 100% though) without the gauges and screen installed. If that's true, how can a bad one keep the car from running?
Like we were discussing in another thread, this parts swapping by the highly trained and well paid dealers is why we don't trust and want to spend our money with them.. This appears to be an obvious case of parts swapping. Again, sorry

 

That's pretty wild that you would start the car with the cluster removed. That definitely doesn't seem like a good idea considering how confused that could make the various control modules that are all linked together.

I had a 2008 Town Car that the cluster was integral to the car, and you couldn't just change it out. Dealer didn't want to program used ones for those cars. So when mine had the lcd screen go bad, I sent it to FordClusters.com and they fixed it for $180 so I didn't have to mess with the whole dealer hostage situation because new clusters aren't cheap for those cars either.

So it wouldn't surprise me if this modern Jag would have the same or worse difficulty with changing clusters.

 

I actually never even gave it a second thought until this thread, ignorance is bliss I guess. I remember finding a bunch or rotted seals at the vents and wanting to check the rest of the A/C while I had the dash apart, but I honestly can't remember with 100% certianty if I was able to start it, but I don't remember not being able to either, I do remember being able to check the A/C functions though.

 

spoken like a rational person. However, as I am learning from personal experience, and have lived my entire life you only go round once and can never know what life holds for you. I would have never guessed during a very successful career that I would have become a statistical casualty of the 2008 meltdown, nor that I would somehow endure and rebuild. Your comments on practicality are fair but when you've been married to a still beautiful girl for 44 years, and one that you have provided 4 corvettes, 2 Mercedes and 4 jaguars for over those years.....it's hard to tell her "can't do it anymore, times up".
yes, selling it might be the prudent thing to do and I might, even though I have not been prudent my entire life.

 

Hear anything yet Jake.

 

Wardo.....the dealer advised me on last friday that after consulting with the factory, the instrument cluster was deemed bad. When I again asked if they were sure the kvm was also bad, they said positively yes.

I begged for mercy (literally) and they agreed to discount the whole job to $3400 out the door. New KVM, new keys, new power supply I guess for the kvm and a new cluster. And they say that will do it. Waiting for part to arrive.

When I asked if I could buy an ebay cluster, he said no way Jose unless I like just throwing my money away in futile programming attempts.

I should get it back by end f week. Problem is now I'm scared of the car. In 50 years of car ownership and maintenance, I've never destroyed a car's ability to start by changing a battery. Oh well....they got me.

 

Kind of crazy that it happened from changing the battery, totally agree, then its compounded by shady dealer service. I get it, not a good place to be.

 

final verdict on this one.....got the car back yesterday after 2 full weeks at dealer. NOT completely fixed. After replacing the kvm, a power supply, 2 new keys and the instrument cluster and reprogramming all, they got the new keys communicating and functioning and car running. They claimed they took more than $1000 off this job "as a courtesy" to this retired customer. Final bill for all was $3400. ALL THIS AFTER I SIMPLY CHANGED THE CAR BATTERY.

They have no explanation of how or why it happened, but since they became aware that I attempted reprogramming with a 3rd party, they can not or will not let that part go....the system was corrupted by a 3rd party reprogramming attempt, EVEN THOUGH I KEEP TELLING THEM THAT THE KEYFOB LOST ALL COMMUNICATION IMMEDIATELY AFTER I CHANGED THE BATTERY. The loss of communication had something to do with that battery change, but can't get dealer to accept that.

NOW.... the car is not 100% repaired. They were unable to establish communication between the new keys and the docking port. The docking port will not work if I needed it and they still dont know why. They are awaiting more guidance from the Jaguar factory engineers on that one, but I wanted my car back and they wanted it gone, so I took it with the agreement that when the factory offers reasonable cure, I can bring it back for fix at no additional charge.

As I was waiting for my car to be washed, I asked the service guy what was the buss bar thingy I saw on my negative battery terminal. He said that was the battery monitoring system and it is supposed to moderate the battery charging rate (I guess) and that it is supposed to be reconfigured every time the battery is changed and they did not do that. I reminded them I had just installed a new battery and was worried that now the bms had not been reconfigured. The service manager toldthe technician to put it back in the bay and reconfigure the bms, which alarmed the tech, him replying that with all the problems he had with the car, he was afraid to do a reconfigure and risk blowing the whole thing up again. That was NOT reassuring.
They did the reconfiguration (or so I was told) and off I went.

So the car is home, ...........

p..s.......in closing, I was advised that there is a 16 pin connector at the transmission which enters thru a seal that is leaking. and that while the seal is a $20 part, the cost to repair is $1,000 with a new pan, new trans fluid, seal and labor.....I said but there is no fluid on the ground in my garage at all. They said the fluid level was down and they topped it off and I should get it back in there sooner rather than later to fix that seal.

 

Glad you have it back and functional although sorry to hear that it ended up so expensive. Not sure what happened but never heard of anything like that on this forum. I guess some electronics ended up getting fried
It is possible that the attempt to program the keys caused more issues with the control cluster - have you followed up with the person who tried that to say that it sounds like they may have caused more issues?

Re the transmission leak, that's unfortunate but you need to get that fixed if it's leaking. If you run the transmission low and it fails they are very very expensive to replace...

 

Glad you're back up and running Jake!

 

it is possible that attempt to reprogram it caused more problem but impossible to tell. The key ceased communicating with the battery disconnect and when inserted into the docking port, it messaged "check smart key". That symptoms were the same before and after programming attempt. I called the guy who attempted it and of course we are in cya mode, but he said it would be impossible to corrupt a computer that he could not communicate with. I just gotta hope for the best now. I will get to that trans sleeve leak, but I am definitely buying the parts from anybody but a dealer and I may ask local indy to do install. I could do it myself but I don't like crawling under a jacked up car on stands. Gives me the heeby jeebies.

 

Really sorry to hear about the problems you've encountered. Unfortunately what lotusespritse said in terms of the repair bills is very accurate. I had my first year with no issues, but after that what's been done so far:
Rear view camera ($500 new, but I managed to fix the old one), rear tail light ($300), new windscreen to fix a leak ($800), new egr valves ($400, and I replaced them myself, took two days and saved almost a grand in service), fixing a leaking diff ($300), rear bushings ($400), fixing a leak in the boot ($200).
The car is now ab. 10 years old and this is the way it goes. It's just something that's good to keep in mind, albeit a really sh**ty situation. I still love the car, though, but it's expensive to keep on the road.
Edit: and all the "easy" stuff like brakes I also fix myself. Saved probably almost another grand there last fall.