52k on my 2015 XF. Noticed the ECO did not activate yesterday. Then on the highway, the RED Warning - Battery Not Charging comes on. I shut down radio, nav, nothing else running. Keep driving. Then I start getting yellow warnings about other things shutting down. ABS, headlight go out, traction control....not looking good. I decide to pull off into an office complex. Just as I'm parking the gearbox failure message shows up and we are dead.

Towed this morning. Did start, but went into Battery Not Charging in about a minute at the shop. They started it with meter on it and said the battery isn't getting a charge to it.

 

Tech said the computer is saying no charge coming from alternator so that is being replaced. Since the battery is 5 years old, that is also being replaced. For those that use forums like these to search for symptoms, issues, and other related information, know that when I got the "Battery Not Charging" message, my car completely shutdown within about 10 minutes, to the point where many items in the car were shutting down one by one. Don't get caught on the highway...snowstorm...where ever if you see this message.

Will update with the final info once the work is done and if it fixed this issue. Anyone have their secondary battery replaced at the same time?

 

Not like the old days anymore. I remember driving home after Fourth of July fireworks when I was a teenager. Had borrowed dad's old truck to take picnic supplies to the lake for a large group of friends and heading out of the park the charge light came on the dash and the headlights started getting dim. Then a police officer pulled me over and kept hollering at me to shut off the engine. I kept hollering back that if I did that, the truck wouldn't start again. Took a bit to get him to understand the reason he was pulling me over, to tell me my lights were dim was because the alternator had gone out, that I was driving on the battery and that the longer he kept me there, the less likely I would make it all the way home about 20 miles away. He finally let me go and I made it with my friends following close behind in their car, but barely. Fast forward to 2016, the XJ8's alternator went out on my way to a business meeting. I made it and it had just enough juice left to start the engine after the meeting, but the headlights kept getting dimmer as I neared home. Again I made it about 20 miles, but was dead on arrival.

With all the modern computerized modules in the XF, there's probably even greater current draw than the XJ8 and surely three or four times that old truck. I wonder if it goes through some sequence of system shutdown, eliminating non-critical circuits in a pre-set order or if its just randomly that different components quit working as the amperage drops below thresholds? Curious how far you made it before you pulled off and shut it down?

 

Phil D - I only made it about 10 minutes, maybe 4 miles before things started shutting down quickly.

New battery and alternator. $1300 at my Indy. Seems to be all set now. Just not sure about the smaller secondary battery now. I did notice my ECO feature is working again, so that was a tell tale sign that something was amiss with the battery.

 

Ok, so you were in some traffic then. But bottom line is to pull off to a safe place soon as you see the error message. Not like the old days when you could shut off the AC, radio, etc., roll down the windows and make it another 10-20 miles.