Low Battery Warning, AGAIN on my '12 XJL!!!

This is getting old. This car has the absolute worst electrical management system that I have EVER seen in a car. Of course, I have a new (6 months old) battery due to frequent low battery warnings. If I park the car for multi-days I always lock it and put a battery tender on it.

Yesterday I drove the car about 80 freeway miles, plenty for charging the battery. This morning I came out to load it than walk back to the house for 10 minutes while leaving the car un-locked with all lights off. Come back out just to be greeted with the usual Low Battery warnings. Come on Jaguar, this is just ridiculous!!!

Albert

 

Out of curiosity, when you attach the battery tender, do you connect the negative cable to the battery or to a ground point on the car? There is an old thread here where it was discussed that there are electronics in that little box attached to the negative battery cable that monitor the health of the battery. If you charge directly to the negative battery post (vs a ground point on the car body), you bypass the electronics and it gets out of sync with the actual charge of the battery and a dealer visit is necessary to reset the battery monitor.

 

Very good point to bring up. Yes, I do know about that and I attach the tender to a chassis negative. Regardless of the tender, I just drove the car 80 miles the night before so, it should be fully charged. The issue is the huge amounts of power that the electronics pull when you open the door and the two screens come up. I measured it previously with an ammeter and I was astonished by the power drain. That is what I mean by bad power management. There should not be such heavy power drain when opening the doors. And, plus, I have all the interior lights turned off, just to avoid adding to the power drain.

Albert

 

Hmmmm... out of curiosity how much power drain occurs when opening the doors?

 

I ran several variations of tests and I forget the exact combo results. But, if my memory serves right just opening the door was 16-18 Amps draw. If you turned ON the accessories and the radio it went to 26 Amps.

Albert

 

I too get frequent low battery warnings on my '11 XJL even though they put in a new battery less than two months ago and I trickle charged it to full capacity. My Jaguar dealer said this is normal. Wierd.

 

Holy cow. So if a car battery is 30-40 amp hours, just having the door open for an hour or two would drain it completely!

I wonder why Jaguar didn't have a separate auxiliary battery for all the accessories as there is in some Mercedes.

 

I believe the battery is closer to 100 Amp/hour

Albert

 

I've the same problem for quite some time. My dealer has changed the battery and the connectors; but the problem persists. I've just ignored it since then. I have gone away on vacation for a couple of week right after I've seen the low battery message and have no problem starting the car after I returned.

I have heard that it is actually not a battery problem. Instead, it has to do with the software program that is checking the battery level, which has a software bug. It is erroneously determining that there a battery problem when there really isn't.

 

I too have a problem but it presents itself differently. I only get the low battery warning when it is *really* low - so low that the nav screen and radio doesn't even turn on. I can tell the battery is fairly low before the warning appears when the nav screen starts flickering and gets "wavy" (image on screen flutters up and down like waves rolling through it). Charging the battery through a tender fixes the problem.

I had the dealer test the battery and it tested fine.

 

I left my car for 3 full weeks at a parking garage while out of the country. It started fine upon my return. So, it appears that there is no problem with battery drain while the car is parked AND locked. The issue is when you open the door and use some accessories without starting the engine. That is when that excessive current draws occur. Such large draw of current will quickly lower the terminal voltage of the battery, hence the low battery alarm. At one of my alarms I did check the actual battery voltage and it was in the very low 12V range. Still enough to start the car but, you have been warned at that point to either start the engine or to abandon what ever is causing the current draw. Jaguar officially insist that any time you use any accessories you must run the engine. Even for 10-15 minutes of use.

I've recently purchased an other new car from a different manufacturer and went on for a couple of hours with the accessories turned on, while I did all the settings/programming and loading all my music and pictures into the car's hard drive. All that without the engine running and without running down the battery. That is what I call "good power management".

Albert

 

This is exactly the same thing that happens with my '07 XKR. Even the flickering and wavy lines...

 

Albert,

Sorry to hear you are still having problems. It's corrected in the 2013 model, or I least I don't have a problem yet. I routinely leave my car unlocked in the garage for several weeks at a time, with no issues. I bought a CTEK charger/minder and it topped up the battery quite quickly which would indicate it was well charged. I haven't bothered to use it again since.

Have you asked about a system software update?

 

Nice to hear that the 2013s do not have this issue. Wonder what they changed since the problem must be coming from the very large current draws that occur when the doors are opened. It is more of an irritation than real problem. Like I said, I left the car at an airport parking for 3 weeks and the battery held up just fine. As long as the car is locked, no issues. But, if you repeatedly come and go, keep opening the door without starting the engine, it will draw heavily from the battery.

I can't imagine that they would have replaced the components for the 2013s that draw so much current, rather, they probably reset the low battery alarm threshold to a lower value of voltage.

My main issue with my '12 is still the ride. I've been bugging Jaguar of NA for nearly 3 months now to do something about it, after the ride being declared "abnormal" by my dealer. Thus far, Jaguar, or the individual rep, has done zero to even set up a meeting to look at the car. Kind of disappointing, particularly given my long time ownership of 5 Jaguar cars. This week's promise is that she would arrange for me to borrow an similar year/model car so that I could drive it for several days over some distances to see if my car is normal or abnormal in comparison. We'll see where that takes me.

I'm pretty sure that I traced the issue to springs that are too stiff for the dampers. When going over certain road surfaces that induce high frequency vibrations, the dampers are unable to dampen then out, resulting in oscillating wheel/tire movements. To prove my theory, now I am driving with only 21-22 psi pressure in the tires, which effectively lower the total spring rate and the ride is far better, almost good. So, they either have out of tolerance springs on my car or bad dampers.

I still love the car, altogether, and fixing the ride could entice me to keep it or get a new one when my lease expires in 18 months.

Albert

 

I'm not positive, but don't the 2013's have a 2nd battery? I think it was added to help with the start/stop function.

 

I actually have a 2013 XJ loaner because my '14 LR4, that I've had for 3 weeks, died because of some connector related to the start/stop battery (there is an extra battery just for the start/stop).

Drove the XJ home yesterday for 2nd day fine. Went out to go to the office this afternoon and the thing won't even start. Everything works fine but when I try to start it this strange humming sound is heard then all electronics go off like I've turned the car off.

I'm on my 5th LR3/4 with NOT ONE issue before this. I hope they didn't just ruin their improving reliability ratings with this new start/stop system. :-(

 

Yes it does, a second small one. Not sure it makes a difference in power management though. I don't seem to get the drain others are experiencing. I used to lock my car based on the threads and experiences posted here, but I started leaving it unlocked for longer and longer times. Now I leave it unlocked parked in the garage all the time.

 

Perhaps some things never change. English cars have always had a well deserved reputation for poor performing electronics, (i.e. Lucas). . Anyway, is there any way to turn off the Jaguar "Leaper" screen displays just because I opened a door? I don't need this "Gee-wizz" display to remind me of the make of car I own.

 

In the center of the polar vortex that is Wisconsin, I can say that after the initial steering wheel shacking left and right, that was resolved with replacing brakes and rotors all around and two new front tires plus road force balancing, it rides great. After the initial updates, it seemed to ride smoothly, yet tight like my 11' XF SC. Now it really rides nice so maybe it's broken in or the solution maybe driving in -6 F temperatures "tunes" the suspension.

The battery low condition seemed to occur when I left my iPod plugged. It may continue to run when the car is turned off, so now I don't leave it plugged into the car. I don't lock the car in the garage and still don't get the low battery even in this obnoxiously cold below -0 F temperature ranges. I really like the car.

 

Same problem guys, going to get a CTEK charger CTEK sound great, but its just inconvienent