Hello everyone, this is Mike in Mammoth, AZ. I am so glad to have found this forum as I have got the first Jaguar blues. This is also my first time joining a forum. I have always wanted a Jaguar so this week, on a whim, I bought a 2005 Jaguar XJ8L, instead of the mini van I was supposed to buy for transporting my dogs!
The car is absolutely beautiful inside and out, the lady selling it said it only needed a coolant temperature sensor, she also said it ran fine when she parked it, she never over heated it, and that the engine and tranny were good, but the battery was dead. I thought to myself well that's an easy enough fix.
I handed her the money, she handed me the title, and I called AAA to have it towed to the AAMCO that I had used in the past as they had done such a good job for me in the past and I knew I could trust them, they were close by, and I was a long way from home.
A while later they called with what I thought was going to be good news! You can only imagine my great disappointment with what was to follow.
The Man on the phone asked me where I wanted to go with this car? Confused I said I had just bought it, I want to be able to drive it! I was expecting him to say wow nice car Mike, you scored. Instead he told me it would cost me at least $6,000, and he didn't know if I wanted to throw that much money at it.
Well he was right, I didn't want to throw that kind of money at it, not right off the bat so I sent a tow truck to pick it up. What I had bought was a beautiful piece of yard art!
Lucky for me AAMCO doesn't charge for checking your vehicle out, and he was happy to give me the ever so long list of codes they found when they put a battery in it.
I was in shock and awe at this list, never before had I seen such a thing as this! I have done my fair share of diagnostics and repairs on my American made cars and trucks, but nothing could prepare me for this!
Now, I am an optimist so my first thought was there must be some kind of mistake, they must not be familiar with Jaguar protocols, I'll just check out the forums online. It seemed impossible that there could be that much wrong with this car, and it turns out the car had been sitting with a dead battery for some time, Maybe I am wrong, but I thought when the battery is disconnected from a vehicle the codes that were stored were automatically cleared.
When ever I remove the battery in one of my American cars I have lost any and all of the stored information.
I am at a loss here, I am way out of my league, that's why I have the 1st Jaguar blues!
Thanks for listening everyone, sorry to be so long winded, I'm still optimistic, this has to be some kind of mistake, there are 99 trouble codes on this list. How is that even possible?

 

What is the number of kilometres/miles showing on the instrument cluster?

Does the engine turn over using the starter motor, and does it run?

With a fully charged battery installed indicating a minimum of 12.6 volts available on a voltmeter, use a diagnostic tool, or a smart phone with the Torque app to communicate with the ECM/PCM through the OBD port. Begin by clearing the codes, and with the ignition in the ON position, see if there is any fuel pressure indicated prior to engaging the starter motor. If the vehicle hasn't run in several years, most likely the fuel pump has seized requiring replacement.

Begin with these steps and report back. At a minimum, the fuel system must be drained and flushed, and the engine oil changed to get the engine to run.

 

Welcome aboard Mike.

 

Mike,

I have moved your thread from the New Member Area to the forum for the X350, which is the Jaguar factory project code for your 2005 XJ8L. Here you will find knowledgeable owners of similar cars.

I would echo NBCat's recommendations, and would add that it is very, very common for dozens of diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) to be triggered due to low voltage events. Once you install a healthy battery and clear the codes, you'll only need to be concerned with any that recur.

Cheers,

Don

 

These cars do not like to sit but if the lady you bought it from is telling the truth it shouldn't be too bad to get it running. How long was it sitting and what is the mileage?

I wouldn't worry about the codes right now, low voltage will cause a lot of false positives. I don't know your AAMCO shop, but for anything more then basic maintenance I would recommend a European independent shop.

 

Thanks for responding NBCat,
It has about 160,000 miles on it, and as far as I can tell from the title having been signed on November 25th, 2024 it's been sitting for at least 6 months, could be more, but I have no way to verify that info as the seller wont reply to any of my messages since I picked up the car.
I will do as you suggested, and get back to you, thank you so much!

 

Thanks Don,
I will do as you and NBCat have suggested, and again, Thanks so much!

 

Thanks Jim, glad to be here!

 

Thanks Snowcone551,
Sitting 6 months (guessing), around 160,000 miles.
Thanks again, Mike_in_Mammoth

 

These cars are VERY sensitive to low voltage, and by "low" I'm talking 12.1 instead of 12.3 can trigger some of the failures and diag codes. Mine wouldn't sit for two days without telling me it that Cruise was not available, or cannot set parkbrake. All of that nonsense went away with a new Diehard battery.

These things take a monstrous battery, by the way, 900 cold-cranking amps capacity.

The car in your blurry picture is sitting on the bump stops, which implies fairly serious issues with the air suspension. Maybe because it sat for months, but maybe because the air suspension system is shot. It might rise right up and be fine once you get it started.

As others have said, don't worry about the long list of codes. Clear them all, put in a brand new battery, and worry about codes that appear after that.

If the air suspension remains problematic, I would strongly recommend going with replacement coilovers and abandoning the air system. The air system on these cars is well beyond its design life, and while there is a dryer in the compressor, it's not serviceable without disassembling the compressor, which nobody does, so I can pretty much guaranty that there's water in the air system, and there is NO WAY to remove it. Valves will rust and freeze up.

 

With regards to the car not liking to sit for long, my car is now only used in summer and have no problems sitting for 6 months.
But you dont say wther the cars starts or not. If its only the codes bothering you I would not worry so much.
If the car is dead even with new battery and good charge then you need to start fault finding.

 

Hi @Mike_in_Mammoth ,

Beautiful car and welcome to the forum and Jaguar ownership! These cars have a lot of quirks, but most are manageable. Being in AZ, you may not have to worry much about the dessicant in suspension air compressor. Sitting on the bump stops, may or may not be an issue. As everyone has pointed out, the codes are meaningless until you properly install the correct battery and clear all of the codes with a code reader. Please do that and report back any new codes you see, especially before taking it to another mechanic. Most mechanics are unfamiliar with these particular cars (X350), and even specialists have trouble understanding the clutchless A/C compressor. Most of the electrical problems arise from corroded or loose grounds, and seconded by clogged sunroof and cowl drains, so be sure to search the forum and/or ask us for guidance on these, as the can cause some very troublesome problems. Good luck and we are here to help!

-j

 

I would like to thank everyone for your quick responses to my dilemma; I have ordered a new battery for the car and it will be shipped to my house after the holiday so I should receive it next week. I will post an update after I have followed your suggestions, again, thanks for all of your help!

 

Welcomme to the forum, Mike!
You're in the right place, folks here are willing to help! If you have some wrench experience, good back and knees and willing to spend some free time, you should be OK.
1. Take whatever mechanic tells you with a grain of salt, unless you trust shop implicitly! I am talking from experience: if I would listen to my independant shop specialyzing in european cars I would have spend in excess of $20k for three years. In reality, the largest expence I had so far is 4 tires and aftermarket android head unit! Knock on wood, it still passing inspections and no noises to worry about!
2. +1 on battery! That is first thing to do.
3. when you replace battery you will get warning related to rear break. The only thing what car is asking push on break and release it! You see this car has electric parking break. Every time you put car in park and turne ignition off it engages parking break. What car wants to know is how hard to pull 'break lever' when first time you turn ignition on, after battery was disconnected, it wants you to step on breack, not hard, just enough to engage rear breks, so car can remember the position of breaks. that is all! If you do not do that it can give you greeve that DSC, ABS and something else is not working.
I am not going to go through all my experience with this car, I will just say that mechanic, even knowlegable, without experience with LRJ product can missdiagnose problem. Shops, now days capitalizing on their experience; they are not paid for learning from experience of others! Some folks will take exception from this statement.
Wellcome to forum, Mike.
Don't get dissenchanted yet!
Are you going to drive your dogs in the Jag? 15 years ago my saint chewed on back seat hand rest of otherwise perfect BMW!

 

Hopefully most of these codes disappear with the new battery. My battery went bad last year and the car started saying things like brake fluid low, dsc not available, etc. all of which where false positives.

 

They won't necessarily disappear, but he should start by clearing ALL codes and then just working the ones that come back.

 

I also bought my ‘04 from a retired gentleman who said it should drive just fine , no problems. See it was sitting in his driveway way for 3 years, occasionally getting it jump started to drive it to the winter storage facility and back again. It never got to stretch its legs.

The first thing I learned is that even well meaning older folks lie too, or just have selective memory.

Getting a good battery in it and started, I put my ICON T10 on it and did a full topology scan and counted 37 fault codes, yes 37. Now, to a transmission service center Gen Z mechanic this would be an insurmountable number of issues but a deeper dive would have revealed are what I call soft codes numbering about 32 of those 37. These soft codes were anywhere from the trunk CD player not responding or the driver’s seat has lost its calibration to the reoccurring RH outside mirror CAN comm error.
These normally won’t show up as a CEL, but maybe as the lighted amber “pill” on the cluster.

What you’re after is the HARD codes set, the O2 heater circuit, fuel pump module communication error etc. etc. These codes will survive a dead battery, absent battery or whatever. Even if you find a bank 2 o2 sensor bad and replace it simply clearing that code won’t mean it won’t come back on right away. Lots of late model cars need to complete a drive cycle to verify to the ECM that indeed the rear O2 is reading properly.

It seems to me, that Jaguar’s ECM is about 10 years ahead of domestic US car manufacturers approach to trouble codes or fault code logging and clearing of those codes.

So, don’t get discouraged, I bet 70% of your codes are irrelevant to day to day operation of your Jag.

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