Hello,
I am a new owner of a 2011 XJL Supercharged, loving the car so far.
When we bought it, we noticed that the glovebox and reading lamps fuse was blown. No response after tapping either three lights or the glovebox. After taking the seats out, and replacing F57 in passenger compartment fusebox, the problem went away.
It is now one week afterwards, and the fuse has again blown. Car has only been started three / four times and has sat on the driveway, never been driven.
However, three days prior to the fuse blowing I was listening to music in the car with the reading lights on, when I noticed that both sides reading lights would randomly turn on/off.

Not sure where to start, thinking that putting the fuse back in will just lead to it blowing again.

 

Sounds like you have some type of short/excessive resistance in the wiring.

 

Do you have the wiring diagram? Maybe see what else is on the circuit?
Can't remember seeing this problem before so don't think you will get much help?
.
.
.

 

theoriginalbabu, Fuse F57 has more than just those 2 things on it. The following is a list of what all is powered from Fuse F57:

-glove box light
-all 4 of the vanity mirror lights
-rear overhead console lighting

So, based on this, odds are, you have a vanity mirror that is starting to go because the wiring has been damaged and now is rubbing a piece of metal that it occasionally will touch, blowing the fuse.

This is my thought: I would start with unplugging the rear overhead console. I would then open up the glove box so I have a light that I can see I would then cycle each vanity say 10-20 times. If the light remains on, then that vanity is probably good. The light goes out, you have found your problem. If you get through all 4 vanities and not blow the fuse, then I would close the glove box and drive around for a bit with the rear console out. (may take a few days). But, if the fuse does not blow, then your rear console is bad (intermittently grounding). If the fuse still blows, then you have either a bad glove box switch or the wiring harness that joins all this is damaged.

A potential that you could also try is getting your hands on a circuit tracer. You can then plug it in on the downstream side of fuse F57. This will send a tone through the whole interior of the car on this circuit. With everything plugged in, you take the associated wand and you start following the tone. If the tone drops in an area, then you may have found where the wiring is grounding. But, this is really only helpful when you have a solid fault, Intermittent ones can be a bugger to figure out.

 

What size fuse is in F57? Is that the size it's supposed to be, or was a smaller capacity fuse put in there at some point?

 

Per the diagrams that I have, thta fuse should be a 10 amp fuse.

 

i need to know which red or black plug goes to which pole on the glove box light switch 2000 XK8, i took it apart and forgot to note which went where

 

Mudjag2, since you are only dealing with a light, it does not matter which plug gets plugged in where. Just for reference, the red/white wire is your positive wire. The black wire is your ground. So, if you happen to see say a "+" and/or a "-" near the terminals, you can potentially get them back to as you found the plugs using those The red/white wire would go on the +, the black wire on the -.

 

the positive and negative wires are very short, making assembly with the clips attached problematic. Attaching After assembly requires a contortionist with really skinny fingers. So i will splice in some jumpers to make the reconnect as simple as possible, thanks!!