2010 XFR 65,000 miles

After owning this car for 3 months, I have been fighting the urge to fly to the UK so that I can tour the Jaguar facilities. One so that I can congratulate the mechanical engineering team on beautiful and powerful beast of a car, but more importantly so that I can be introduced to the head of the electrical team and punch him in his god damn throat!

I have never seen a car with so many electrical gremlins, or more likely buggy software systems. It is as if the car is running on Windows ME. (Who here remembers that piece of crap?) Here are the problems I'm struggling with:

1. TPMS - constantly indicates that a tire is low and can't decide which one it is. It just cycles through each tire every other trip. I have seent he advice to have the module reflashed, but I have also seen posts that it just recurs after that.

2. Brake Pad Low warning - except they are not.

3. Touch Panel Issue 1 - Once in a while (every 20 or so times), when I enter the vehicle and start the car, the display remains on the initial logo screen and I cannot use any of the functions for Radio, Nav, etc. The only resolution that I have found is to park the car, turn off the ignition, exit the car, walk away far enough that the key fob is out of range, and get back in, and restart. (Remember the old joke about is Microsoft built cars?)

4. Touch Panel Issue 2 - quite often, the radio presets will all display as "--". This is a fairly simple workaround by just switching the input and returning to the radio and they repopulate.

5. Headlight Delay - Randomly, when I exit the vehicle and the headlight delay is active, I will notice later that the headlights have turned off, but the parking lights remain on indefinitely.

Does anyone have thoughts on these issues?

Thanks!
Ben

 

1. TPMS - constantly indicates that a tire is low and can't decide which one it is. It just cycles through each tire every other trip. I have seent he advice to have the module reflashed, but I have also seen posts that it just recurs after that.


Are you using an adapter that plugs into the accessory plug for a phone or tablet? Cheap ones interfere with the signal. I had this problem on my Lexus and on my XF. Using a good quality adapter cured the problem.

 

I have a USB charger plugged into the 12v accessory outlet in the console, as well as a Tune2Air plugged into the iPod connector. I think the issue started before I added either, but I'll have to disconnect both and see if the problem resolves itself. Thanks for the idea!

 

Have you checked the age and condition of the battery?
99% of electrical gremlins in an XF are caused by a battery which is on it's way out.
Once the battery gets to about four years old it is due to be replaced, I see your car is a 2010 and if it's still on the original battery it is well overdue for replacement.

 

Is the brake pad low light on all the time? It's just a circuit with a wire that is run into the pads and gets worn through when the pad gets low. Sometimes if the wire isn't clipped in properly it can move around and rub on the tyre, wearing it through and triggering the light. It's an easy check - take off wheel (think it's front left and back right but search here to be sure as I can't remember for sure) and you will see the wire - check it looks intact. You can get replacement online and doesn't take long to fit it in (see instructions for brake pad replacement here and they cover it too)

Agree with advice above re battery. Worth checking to make sure.

 

I had all kinds of TPMS module issues when I bought mine. Turned out someone dropped a drink in the car on the passenger side. It seeped into the TPMS module and corroded a bunch of connections. Everything has worked flawlessly once the TPMS module was replaced but diagnosing it was a real pain.

As for your brake sensor it's just a wire that connects into the pad "I believe front driver inner pad and rear passenger inner pad". I cut mine after it fell out and manually spliced the wires together "it's a cheap part to replace". I also keep an eye on pad wear when removing the tires. The back pads wear faster due to the dsc applying them to prevent wheel spin.

Lastly the battery should definitely be checked out. I bought a charger that has a variable float charge. Pulsetech Xtreme Auto Charger, Black/Red. It's real slow and you need to use it over a long period of time to rejuvenate the battery but I'm pretty convinced it has helped my tired battery.

I have the original battery in my 2011 xfr and after using this charger over most of the winter I've noticed the battery will take a charge much faster and voltage appears to remain higher for longer periods of time when not on the charger. This car has many computers and requires a quality battery and constant charge when not in use for days. You may want to check the voltage at the battery when the car is running to ensure it is being charged properly. Also check that the radio turns off the display when not in use. I've noticed mine stayed on once in a while contributing to battery consumption.

I have the B&W system in mine. I believe it came standard on the XFR. The interface leaves much to be desired. It's slow, if you have sirius you can only program 6 channels. Scrolling through the sirius channels or an mp3 folder with 100 songs is very slow "borderline ridiculous". It's very finicky about external devices. My ipad 3 runs spotify fine but I would obviously prefer and IPOD touch due to size. Sometimes it will disconnect or the radio will reboot itself and get stuck in a loop if I plug in an iphone 5c for example. Perhaps someone has figured this out. Likely something to do with the version of IOS running on the device or compatibility issue.

All that said I'm very pleased with the way it sounds streaming spotify using the maximum bandwidth setting. Kind of makes up for some of the shortcomings.

 

Thanks for the battery idea. I'll put a meter on it and see if I'm getting the right voltage and look for a date stamp.

The Brake Pad Wear warning comes and goes as well, so it sounds like it could be a shorting wire. I'll have to check on that as well.

I appreciate the responses!

 

Remember that the brake wear sensor will start to come on with 4mm left on the pads, which leaves a ton of pad if you change them then. Mine was irregular for some time before it finally stayed on permanently.

With regard to the charger in the 12v causing issues, I had that TPMS issue but it was consistently the driver rear wheel that indicated it was low. It never went to other wheels and only when the phone was plugged in.

 

Replace your battery. This will resolve most of your issue's.

 

I agree on the battery being the cause especially when restarting the car is needed to get around false errors.

Almost all of my odd glitches have been battery related. I also agree that the group that worked on the electrical system should be punched in the throat. If they had done their job correctly the car would recognize when there is a battery issue and pop an error instead of causing various issues with sensors throughout the car. The current low battery warning light is junk. There should have been a lot more testing to eliminate issues from a weak battery, at least to a point, so the car isn't so sensitive to it.

 

Gremlins are annoying, but at least it's not as bad as the Lucas era when the wires would short and the car would catch on fire!

 

Allegedly if you were the proud owner of a Triumph TR7 and the wipers started up all by themselves you were advised to abandon vehicle before it burst into flames...

 

And I thought having to reboot the car was humorous -- this is fantastic!

 

Well, I finally got around to digging my multi-meter out and checking the battery. Sure enough, only showing 12.0 volts, and that was after having just driven it for about 15 minutes.

New one in, and the cooled seats are immediately working again, but I am still getting the rotating TPMS warning. I did remove the phone charger to see if that was the issue also, but apparently not.

Does anyone know if there is a software package or tool that allows you to reflash/program the car without going to the dealer? I hate letting others work on my cars.

 

At six years old it's common for the TPMS module and/or the sensors to act up or fail, and it's hard to tell which problem (if either) you have without replacing one or the other, and of course that might not fix the problem anyway. Get yourself a good OBD2 code reader which might help you identify the problem(s). As for reflashing/programming the car, that can only be done with the specific JLR SDD software and equipment, which only dealers and a few independent garages and individuals have. One thing which might work is to reset the electrical systems - remove the battery leads, touch them together for about 5 seconds, then wait 5 minutes and reconnect them. But unlikely this will cure your TPMS problems.

 

If you're brave (or other suitable word) there are clone Mongoose / Mangoose devices to let you use IDS/SDD. See the threads about it and read with diligence as inevitably you might brick something.

 

Hi OzXFR - any advice on code readers? Will any OBD2 read all the specific Jag codes eg for tpms etc. or are there some that are better for a Jag? I'd like to get a code reader - don't want to spend a fortune but would like to be able to read in full detail. I also have an LR4 so ideally something that is good for both. Any guidance?

 

I have an LR3 and an XFR in the family. I already had the GAP Diagnostic tool for the LR3 but bought this

Jaguar Diagnostic Scanner Reset Erase ABS Code Reader XJ XF XK F s x i930 II | eBay

for the Jag. It also happens to work on Land Rover too. It has access to the specific ECU for the Jag and also has some "service" functions like reset the service indicator, push the EPB into brake mount mode etc.

It's not the cheapest out there but if it works for both Jag and LR it probably works out fair. I believe GAP diagnostic have acquired a XFR for testing purposes to see if they can use the same hardware for the Jag too. Wouldn't surprise me as a lot of the ECU stuff is related.

I did look at the Mangoose solutions but a 4000lb brick on my driveway isn't too appealing.

 

Yep, I have a Carsoft i930 as well, works a charm, brings up just about everything you could ever want. As stmcknig said it's a fair bit more than the el cheapo OBD2 readers you can get on Fleabay, around 10 times the price, but it does an infinitely better job.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

I LOVE IT.

I don't want to rain on everyone's parade, but I seriously cannot understand the patience with which people handle the myriad problems these cars have. Soon-to-be-former 2010 XF owner, here.

Here's one: scrolling through my iPod interface....you have to scroll name-by-name. I usually gave up around artist "L."