Hi Everybody. And greetings from Finland.
Could anybody help me with an electrical issue on my 2011 XJ 3.0 D. I am aware there is many threads about common electrical issues on this forum, and I have spend a couple of nights reading them, but have not really found an exact similarity to my problem.
We have only quite a few X351 cars in Finland and even the Jag dealer hadn’t heard about such a problem:
after starting a car and driving few minutes electronics goes crazy:
- the multimedia screen / radio starts to go off
- blower stops working
- warning lights ”Blind spot System NA”, ”tyre pressure monitoring NA”,
- park sensor beebs sometimes
- blinkers does not work (green light) on the dash, but blinkers works outside ok
- electric seats does not work properly
- if I then stop the car it does not find the key???.

When I keep on driving the radio comes on and off every few minutes. Sometimes when I stop the car, remote is totally dead, ”key can not be found” so I have to disconnect the battery for few seconds and after it works fine for few minutes again. It has been like this now for few weeks and nothing I have done seems to help. I have charged the new battery 100% full with ctek, but still after 5 min same problems pops out.

1. I have a new battery and car is charging properly ( I assume charging 15.1V is still normal, or is it ”too much”, can not cause these problems?)
2. Someone on Jag workshop said it could be a groundproblem. He told there is 11 groundpoints on the car. I have not found any map to show where they are located, but I have found 4 in trunk, 2 inside the center console + 1 on passenger right wall, and 2 points under the hood in front of wheelbase. So I am missing 2 more somewhere under the hood, right? The points on the motor or firewall I can not see / find at home when the car is not on the lift? Any idea where they could be?
3. On the other hand one guy was suspecting a failure in some control unit, and if so, which unit is this and where is it located? So
could anybody tell me does these above mentioned symptoms on these functions travel through same control unit, or same ground?

In Helsinki area we have only 1 official Jag dealer to search for the problem on my car but they are fully booked for the next 3 weeks, so I wish I could get some advise from You guys to solve this problem myself.

Thanks for helping me out already
Johan

 

Are you sure you got the proper new battery? The battery has to be and AGM type of battery

 

It’s a new silver-calcium battery 95A. I had similar battery before too and it never made any problems. Yet I bought now a new one just to be sure and I have even charged this with ctek charger, but it makes no any difference between the old battery. Symptoms are just the same after few minutes driving. When car is standing still overnight, i measured from the battery 12.6-12,7V. I guess it shouod be enough.
I had earlier similar XJ 2010 3.0D too and it never made any problems with similar batteries.
I would assume that this time it should not be a problem with a battery, right?
(Btw my car has now around 80t miles on it)

 

Sure looks like a battery problem? Are you sure the car is running at 15.1 VDC? That's way high?
Sorry can't offer much help but if you can rule out the battery we really need to see the car hooked up to SDD and get a code read out.
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Hello Johan,

Fellow Finnish XJ owner here. (we are rare)
Thinking a moment you wrote, without knowing for sure is it so, but more than 15V sounds bit too much.
Maybe faulty voltage regulator in alternator causes overvoltage and systems are shutting down for protection?
Does everything work when engine are not running? Press start button without brake pedal to turn ignition On -> leave everything on for ~10min and see if systems start to play up again. (it will drain your battery, but should not be a broblem with good battery. Systems will eat 10-15A in a hour)
If everything works when engine are not running, i would focus on overvoltage/alternator.

 

15.1V is too high and will make your battery boil… as said by Vasara, check your alternator as a first step.

 

IMHO a lead calcium battery is not the same as an AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt)

 

When my battery dies, I think I’ll switch to lithium. They have come down in price and so many advantages. Positive reviews for F-types. I just did the upgrade on my golf cart to lithium.

 

Yes, lithium is tempting, but will the X351 conventional alternator and battery charging system be able to handle it?

 

It’s been a simple swap for other Jags. No issues reported and all very happy. I like the idea of having a lot more ampere hours for our hogs and some batteries have a reserve for jump starts so you’re never left hanging. Definitely bonuses for earlier Denso XJ.

 

There seem though to be rare situations (for instance heavily discharged battery and then driving only at low RPMs) that could induce overheating of the alternator:

 

@FinnJag69 Do you have anything permanently plugged into the OBD II port? Such as one of those cheap, Bluetooth dongles? This can cause all sorts of electrical issues. Ask me how I know.

 

Hi Guys!
A landsman, how cool 🇫🇮. Maybe we should arrange a sunday cruising in Helsinki some day (IF my car is driveable ever again &#128553.
Thanks other guys too for Your messages 👍😁
Sorry it’s been a while I was here, due to a fact that I predictably have to work now my *** off to earn that large amount of cash to be able to repair my Jag!
Anyway, I bought a new AGM battery with no help. It was a 300$ try.
I also bought a divice to show exact V from cigarettelighter. So my latest observations are as following. When I start and drive the car everything works ok for few minutes, showing 14.4-14,5Volts, but after few minutes start to climb to 14,7-14,8V, then radio shuts off and other devices shuts off (blower, lids warning lights etc).
Charging can reach up to 15-51-1V! Problems starting as Voltage reaches 14.7-8V.

A. So I was thinking: is it too much charging? Can it cause these problems? And the reason for this? Regulator not working? (I heard that after battery change it should be reprogrammed for a new battery, but I assume it can not solve this problem?)
B. Does anyone know where is the groundpoint in engine or firewall in 3.0 Diesel (from where to reach them, from up or from below?).
I guess checking the last 2-3 groundpoints somewhere in front (as soon as I can find them) is all I can do myself anymore. Then the next step is to get it to costly Jag workshop and here it’s always minimum of 1000-1500euros even to search for the problem (+ repair/parts). So this is not looking good. Damn elecrical problems!! Anything else is ok to diagnose and repair but these +/- problems are so depressing… 🤬
Thanks for Your help.

 

Hi John.
No, I don’t have anything on that port. Btw, where is it on car?

 

On my RH drive car, the OBD II port is located low down to the right of the steering wheel. I assume it would be mirrored on LH drive cars, so to the left of your steering wheel.

 

Sure, but lets wait nice, sunny and warm spring days. In Kaivopuisto even seaguls are walking now...

If the systems are shutting down by overvoltage, there should be faultcodes/events in a DTC historylog. Have codes been read?
Factory SDD can read events far back from history.

 

FinnJag69, for your problem to happen, this can only happen 1 of 3 ways that I can think of. 2 involve the ECM, the 3rd one involves the alternator itself. I am going to explain a little bit about how the alternator controls the voltage and this will help explain how the various problems are potentially causing what you are seeing. When you have the motor running, the ECU/ECM is looking at the voltage coming to the ECU/ECM and comparing it to a reference voltage that it is expecting. if the voltage is where it wants it, it continues outputting a voltage to the alternator. if it is too low, it raises the voltage going to the alternator, and if it is too high, it lowers the voltage. This voltage powers the field windings of the alternator which then directly affects the output voltage of the alternator. More field (due to more voltage), the higher the alternator voltage will be. For simplicity, lets just say that a voltage of 6V to the field will output 13.7 VDC at highway speeds and 7V will get the voltage up to 14.5 VDC. From here, as you put more electrical loads on the car, the voltage will naturally want to drop, so the field voltage has to raise some to make up the "lost" voltage from the added electrical load. This is why an alternator has a maximum output (ie, the field can only get as strong as the voltage applied and since the car is limited to 14.5 VDC, there is a maximum current it can output).

In your case, if the alternator has an internal issue that is related to heat (ie, something starts shorting as it gets hot), this could put more voltage on the field windings, driving the voltage up and possibly for atleast a little bit, the ECU/ECM can overcome this. But, at some point, the ECU/ECM is trying to output 0 VDC but the fault is now in full control of the voltage regulation. As you can imagine, finding this would be fairly difficult unless you pulled the alternator out of the car and had a special test rig. The second possibility is the ECU/ECM not controlling the voltage correctly. The 3rd possibility is that either the power wire to the ECU/ECM that the ECU/ECM uses to monitor battery voltage or the ground wire for the ECU/ECM has a problem in it and this is causing the ECU/ECM to not see a correct voltage. This would cause the ECU/ECM to attempt to drive the alternator to make the voltage correct, but in reality, it is driving it too high. In this case, the power wire would be dropping a little voltage due to a high resistance connection or something of the like or the ground wire would be suffering the same resistance issue, but this case, causing the ground voltage inside the ECU/ECM to rise, making the ECU/ECM see a lower voltage.

Now, you can possibly see the wiring issue in the ECU/ECM if you look inside SDD and look at the ECU/ECM voltage. This is where you would see the ECU/ECM saying it is happy at 13.7 VDC, but the actual voltage would be much higher (15.1 in your case). If the ECU/ECM is up at 15.1V, then this would pretty much confirm a bad alternator.

Hopefully this sheds some light on your situation.

 

I had the same problems as you mentioned in your first post, but only when my stepdaughter was in the car.
After some investigations and trials it came out that this problem didn't appear when she shut off the bluetooth of her I-phone.
Later I went to the local dealer here in Mexico to ask about it and they told me that all the Jaguars and Landrovers have this interference problem with the bluetooth of any I-phone that has a configuration number op to 15.00.00 or 15.00.01.
From 15.00.02 and up it doesn't occur anymore, they told me.
I didn't check any voltage, but when my stepdaughter shuts down her bluetooth in the car we have no problem and when she doesn't we do.

It can also happen when you change smartkeys, than you have to reset the key you are using again by locking the car twice and unlocking the car twice with the key.

Worth checking and trying, let us know... Good luck!