I bought a 2011 Jaguar XJ new from Jim Coleman Jaguar in Columbia, Md. The car was plagued with electrical issues the first time I drove it. The heating system keep failing. Jim Coleman did eventually fix that. The radio works about 4 out of every 5 times I drive it at the blue tooth works about 50% of the time. I have recently been plagued with what is best described as a catastrophic electrical failure. The car goes into "limp mode" and almost every "failure" possible scrolls across the dashboard. The car has only 53,000 easy miles (of course just outside of the warranty period..lucky me) on it and I have kept the car in mint shape. Both a local repair shop and Jim Coleman Jaguar can not find the problem and have both stated that I should scrap the car as regardless of how much money I spend on diagnostics, they can not make a guarantee they can ever find the problem.

Jim Coleman refereed my to Jaguar "CRC" to file a complaint and see if Jaguar would assume some responsibility in finding out the problem. I did file the complaint (8000474463 in case they actually look at this forum). So far, after three weeks, I've only been ignored by Jaguar CRC. Has anyone had any experience with them or is just a fraud and they will never answer me and hope I just go away?

 

Sorry to learn about your electrical problems. It's easy for me to be a Monday morning quarterback, and the brutal truth is that as soon as your warranty expires you are at the mercy of the manufacturer. Your best hope of getting any help from Jaguar corporate is to get your dealer on your side and provide all the service records and say that you've been a great customer and have done everything "by the book" and that they want to retain you as a customer.

A 2011 XJ with only 53,000 miles is low mileage. If most of your driving was short trips, all of your electrical problems could be due to a low battery. I'm retired and drive both of my Jags around 5,000 miles a year, mainly short trips. That's why I keep them on battery maintainers. I recommend the CTEK brand. Lots of threads on this Forum.

Good luck and keep us informed.

 

Stuart,

Thanks for the reply. The battery has been changed and it still happens. And I do keep it on a tender when not driven for a week.

The Jim Coleman Service Manager has been an advocate and sent all the information to Jaguar....some 95 pages of documents. Jim Coleman has also serviced the car for most of it's life. I'm a car guy and own Italian exotics, Jaguar seem totally uninterested in me even though I should be "The target audience".

I'll keep the board informed if Jaguar ever responds and how they do.

 

Calm down, throwing a hissy fit all over the forums isn't going to help anything.

I've spent my life working on jetliners and I can tell you there's not a car or plane that cannot be fixed.

I fixed a plane once that others had been working on for a year. It just takes patience and someone who cares enough to look at it. Obviously, you haven't found that guy yet.

A friend of mine had a transmission burn up while the car was still under warrenty. The dealer said it was too close to the end of the warrenty and they weren't going to fix it unless she paid for the entire job. It happens. She finally got them to fix it.

The question is how much do you like the car? You bought a lemon obviously, it happens, that's why some states have a lemon law and they mark the title as a lemon. I saw several when I was looking for mine. A friend once bought a lexus new and three months later it started on fire right over his head. They discovered a burr in the metal and it wore through the overhead wire harness and shorted out. I suspect you have something similar going on.

Perhaps one of our Jag techs can help when they find one of your posts or maybe they would accept a PM in such a severe case.

As a novice to Jaguars and since no one else seems to be able to fix it, I would suspect one of the busses has failed. If I remember right it has an optic bus which connects all the computers. If it fails you would have something similar to what you have I would think. A bad computer could also cause your problem. Too bad they don't put two of each monitoring each other. I had a system once written up by the pilot, interrogating the failed computer showed it faulting every part in the system. The second computer faulted the other computer and nothing else. Both worked on the ground just fine. I sent the bad computer to the shop and recommended they check the I/O section for faults when cold soaked since it only happened at altitude.

 

Just curious why you didn't contact Jaguar corporate long before the factory warranty expired.

 

The thing is there are two different kinds of shops in the business. The kind that makes their money off of water pump changes and those that actually care about the customer and their car. The trick is to find the latter. He's obviously found the water pump changers so to get rid of him they told him it's not repairable. It's out of warranty so Jags not really going to care much either. If he's a car guy he should know this already. I learned it many years ago. When you find the right shop you should stick with them. I could tell a lot of stories about bad shops but that would probably bore people. Keep trying 'til you find the right place. Usually it's not the best looking because they don't maximize profits but actually fix cars.

 

Me too. You say you bought this car new and it has been trouble right from the start. That's six years! I don't know whether your state has a Lemon Law or not, but even if they don't, that would have been the time to go after Jaguar USA to get some sort of resolution.

Dwayne

 

Thanks for the input. I'll try and attempt to answer the questions in one reply.

I live in the State of Maryland and we do have a Lemon Law. I did try and get Jaguar to buy the car back but they would not and to be truthful, it was not crystal clear that I did trigger the requirements. You need the same issue to happen three times combined with a number of days in the shop. The lemon law does not have a long runway to it and has long since expired. This happened with the heating issues when I first got the car. What's interesting is that Jaguar was actually engaged with me and I was impressed with their responsiveness. They even sent me a car cover for all the inconveniences. While there was numerous inconveniences, the dealer, Jim Coleman was great to deal with and up to that point Jaguar was engaged. It's a beautiful and nice car to drive and at that point, with Jaguar seeming to stand behind it I was OK and figured we would work out all the kinks in the car.

As for Jim Coleman, the dealer in Columbia. I've found them to be very ethical to deal with and in addition to be fair to deal with, made the buying process pretty nice. The car has been worked on a lot over the last few months including a change of battery and a new start button. Jim Coleman told me their next step is to remove the dashboard and that would cost $800.00 just to remove the dashboard before any work was done. They could have recommended for me to do this and continue the effort but recommended against it. I also suspect they have out in a fair amount of gratis effort in on the car. I actually respect them for telling to stop the efforts and not incur more cost as their could not guarantee to ever find the problem. Jim Coleman also recommended me to pursue the issue with Jaguar CRC which I did. I do trust Jim Coleman and respect them for the advise they have giving. I think both Jim Coleman and the local repair shop have always treated me very ethically. I could be tens of thousands of dollars in this and not just thousands of dollars and still be in the same place. I do agree with the prior poster, when you find a good service provider, stick with them

The warranty did expire in 2016 and yes I should have gotten rid of the car as the warranty expired. I got pretty sick in 2015 and had to have numerous operations through 2016 and the car was not much of a focus during that time.

To rhomanski, thanks for your input. You mention the Optic bus. I'm not technical but the dealer service manager did mention the fiber line as maybe being the issue as it connects all the computers. I'm not technical and your clearly much more mechanical and technical then me, I'm a dreaded lawyer, but my guess is by the way he said it that would be a costly repair. The problem I face is that I can't get to a "X is wrong and it's going to take Y in cost to repair it" place on the car. And your right, for someone like yourself with the technical ability, you could totally do an autopsy on the car (or plane) and find the problem. The problem I have is I have no cap on what all this may cost me. Being a lawyer, and reading about these "black holes" in law school makes me more sensitive then most to not get caught in one.

R-

 

Fair enough explanation. I went through a similar situation with a new Cadillac in 2000 here in Virginia. The longest period of time I had the car at home during my entire ownership period was four days. Usually after two days, it would end up going back to the dealer on a rollback. The dealership bent over backwards to fix that car but nothing ever worked for more than a few days! I understand the thought process where you believe that eventually they'll get the bugs worked out - I went through that too and, by the time I ultimately accepted that was not ever going to happen, the time limit had run out on the Virginia Lemon Law requirement. So... I bit the bullet and took a tremendous financial loss in order to rid myself of the car. Fortunately, I was able to afford it although I would have much rather avoided taking that route. I'm going to assume that, being a lawyer, you can also afford the hit so I'd recommend that you just bite the bullet and do it. It hurts, but you DO get over the pain. Also, if you've otherwise been happy with the car, don't shy away from another one. I've owned three Cadillacs since my "lemon" and they've all been great cars. As a rule, Jaguars are great cars too and the odds of you getting another lemon are pretty low. Your dealership sounds like a good one so I'm sure they would cut you a deal of some sort. Good luck with whatever course you decide to take!

Dwayne

 

A very calm and reasoned response, thank you. Fiber optics are a new and difficult skill to acquire for some. There are bound to be teething problems when you pick up new technology. We find that all the time on aircraft, you just have to work through it. When Rolls Royce redesigned the RB-211 engine and called it a Trent, they kept one running 24 hours a day to discover any problems they weren't expecting. They found one, the wire harness would vibrate enough to short out eventually. They came up with a new way to tie them up and sent a representative to show us the new process. Before he went back to England he gave me an RR ball cap. I enjoy wearing it occasionally. Although I should be getting a Jaguar cap in the mail today. It may become my new favorite.

I would suspect a defect in the optic bus or another secondary bus on the vehicle. Your dealer is probably right the dash and perhaps more of the interior may have to come out. It is not unrepairable. The question is do you want to spend as much as $5000 to repair the car or not. A good independent shop just starting out but with a good mechanic could probably fix it for up to that amount. I suspect your dealer does not want to bother with it. I've had shops tell me that before on much simpler cars when the fix was only a $10 part. They just don't have a good enough technician that they trust.

Most shops are in business to do easy repairs. They make a lot of money changing alternators and very little running down wiring problems. They get kickbacks on major parts but nothing on wire. You'll have to find a shop that cares about your car and you too I suppose. Lol.

 

dga57. I understand your thoughts. For me it's more a frustration with the totality of the situation versus just a financial one. Sure, I'll take a bath on the car but will still eat. I've owned a lot of cars and been lucky and never had an issue like this before. I would never buy another Jaguar or Land Rover again if they don't engage with me on some level of fairness.If they do I would probably buy another in the future and will need another SUV in the near future and would debate a Land Rover if Jaguar answers the bell.

My biggest struggle, and would be interested to get rhomanski's insight, is why would Jaguar not try and figure out what is wrong with the car. There seems to be a two fold reason. First, I'm a car guy and like cars. The Jaguar looks and feels better then the S-Class Mercedes and BMW 7 series, two cars I looked at, the Jag just seemed like a more emotional car to me. British luxury cars are similar to Italian sport cars, they sort of should occupy the top rung. Quality has always been, or at least perceived to have been, the weak link. In my simple mind, if Jaguar matched the quality of the German cars they would be in a strong position. My wife drives a Mercedes. It's a solid car with great reliability and service but lacks the emotion and style of a British luxury mark. It's a truly awesome car when everything works. People are always asking me about cars and my thoughts because of the different ones I own. I use the Jaguar primarily to go to and from work and home with a stop to drop the kids at school.

Second, I would think Jaguar would want to know the issue with my car for their own engineering database. It would add to their data base and allow them to make changes/quality control updates to build a more robust car. I'm not asking for a blank check, just have Jaguar finish the diagnostics to determine what is wrong. Physical hardware I'd probably be ok paying for.

I'd really like to get some insight into if this Jaguar "CRC" is ever going to engage me or continue to be elusive. The Jim Coleman dealership speaks highly of them but so far I'm not seeing anything. Don't know how much longer I will wait before I do what you do and just cut my losses. I'd love to get someone thoughts on their dealings with CRC.

 

My first impulse was to write a long boring comparison between aviation and automobiles. I stopped half way through, your welcome, so let me boil it down to just money. Aircraft are so expensive partly because they are required to be individually tracked and all records kept. Manufacturers are required to keep up with failures and solutions. Resulting repairs are issued to carriers and maintenance carries out the repairs at the manufacturers expense.

As expensive as a new Jaguar is, it is nothing compared to what it would be if they were required to meet those standards. If they didn't depreciate so fast I wouldn't have mine. That's more a symptom of the ones in charge taking as much as possible from working people. Now there working up the chain. If it keeps up Jaguar will be down to the same position Cord was many years ago. Probably will suffer the same fate. As Henry Ford discovered, you can't sell something if nobody can afford it. Manufacturers already know the reasons for failures if it's systemic. An old car like yours has already been studied and lessons learned and incorporated in the 2012 and on. There is really nothing for them in your car. It's either a one off failure due to a misroute by a new guy at the factory or something similar. Douglas misrouted the steel cables that run the flight controls on one of our planes. We discovered it when the cables became too hard to move. Tearing out the interior we found one had cut through the little wheel it runs on and had begun cutting through the structure. It happens.

If it was out of warranty, we would have paid for it. Fortunately it was still under warranty. I'm afraid it's the same for cars. Douglas was interested only in proving the mistake was their fault because it was under warranty. They would still send a rep if we had requested it, at our expense. Jaguar would do the same for you but it would cost more than the car is worth. Follow up gets worse as you go down the food chain. Do you remember a Japanese company called Sansui? They built high end Stereo's in the seventies. They constantly made changes on the assembly line but never bothered to put those changes in the paperwork. Sometimes the changes would increase reliability but most were to save components and therefore money. Technicians just had to do the best they can to figure out what the engineer was doing.

Sometimes repairs come down to more than just a book. In the military they have a high turnover so they simplify it down. The gear gives you a code and you look it up in a table. Your given the most likely part at the top and the least likely at the bottom. Sometimes you run through the whole thing and still it won't work. In that case you have to look at what those components do. Check through the manuals and follow that signal changing other parts in it's path. Sometimes you have to do other things. One box was very easily damaged and the first thing I would do when coming behind someone else was to look for damage. I could usually get one working in about an hour. Others would spend 12 hours out on the plane and get nowhere. They were the ones causing the damage. Usually they got promoted for doing it too. That's another thing I found out, if your good at your job you will not get promoted unless you force the issue. When I got bored they would move me around to other jobs and then bring me back after a while.

And here I've made another wall of text. I'm going to shut up now. Good luck with the car.

 

They'll be a franchise.

If they didn't fix things properly years ago then escalating to Jag Corp would have made sense.

It still may but if you're now out of warranty Jaguar (Corp) may not be very interested at such a late stage.

You can see you're a very rare sufferer. Near enough unique. Jaguar (Corp) won't learn much if anything from this, as has been posted.

Here's hoping Jaguar (Corp) decide to help. It sounds like they don't have to and don't have much of anything to learn if they do.

 

Since you live in the Washington, DC area I recommend that you take your car to Top Line Jaguar in Springfield, VA. They have a great reputation fixing Jags for almost 30 years. When I was in the market to purchase a Jag XJL I researched independent shops in the area that I could take the car to. They have really good ratings. One of my friends who owns an XK8 takes his car there for major and minor issues.

 

Thanks Thousandaire,

I'll give them a call. About getting ready to head over to the dealer to see what I can salvage for value for the car. I'm debating maybe buying a new Jaguar as leverage to maximize value then immediately trade it in for another brand in the auto park. I trade in with less then 1 mile, should be interesting.

Sincerely,
R-

 

Just like a lawyer, stretching it as far as you can. Devious.

 

Interesting idea; let us know how that works out!

Dwayne

 

I visited Jim Coleman Jag today and told them I wanted to trade in my "car" for the cheapest new car on the lot. That car happens to be a 2017 XE, VIN number SAJAD4BGXHA974554. The invoice price is $38,995.00. It will be interesting to see what deal I can negotiate...ie the most I can get for my trade in and what I can negotiate off the sticker price. They will get back to me on Monday because....and here is a shock, the General Manager will need to approve.

So it will be my trade in plus cash for my new Jaguar!! I'll be a repeat Jag buyer....who would have guessed it!!!

I have a copy of the sticker and will take it to the local Chevy dealer tomorrow, I'm going to buy a Vette, I'm going to pre-negotiate the trade in value with the Chexy dealer before I do the deal as of course I want to be hedged so I take no risk. It will be interesting how much a Chevy dealer gives me for a new Jag with less then 10 miles on it. I need to figure out a way to assign the car to the Chevy dealer so that I don't have to pay taxes and tags (Legal research tonight for me rhomanski...at least I'm on my turf now though I actually found your perspective quite enlightening and interesting).

The insanity of the situation. I was looking at my XJ tonight, I keep my cars in really good shape. Not a ding or scratch on it and the leather looks as good as when i bought it. It looks like showroom condition. I may actually own a car for 10 minutes or so.

 

I've got a 'vette I've been happy with for many years RD. Hope your as happy as I've been. I'm afraid though, mine was the last reliable one they made. Cast iron block and cast iron heads and still gets 26MPG on the highway. They came out with the aluminum heads right after mine was made, like, less than a month later. It's no ways as fast as the newer ones but it's gone over 200,000 miles without touching the engine internals. I'm on my second interior with it and it's due for a paint job but still not bad for a 31 year old car.

I'm thinking someone will get quite a deal on your Jag. They may fix it or part it out. Might even be bought by a shop for a flip. I just can't imagine it would take too much to fix, at least in parts. Might take a few days troubleshooting. Just hate to see you having to take a loss with it. Anyway, good luck with the 'vette and don't forget to wave when your driving it and see another one.(It's a tradition.)

 

I already have a 2000 dark blue C5. Awesome car. And yes I've always loved the waive tradition of the Vette owners. Go to the Maryland Corvette Club event in the fall, basically just leave your hand in the waive position.

Wish I had someone like you close by I could trust and help me out on the Jag to try an salvage it. I'm sure over a couple of weekends it could be done. I just don't have your mechanical abilities, I wish I did. Another poster mentioned a repair shop in Northern Va., not far from me. I'm going to call them on Monday.