Hi all. When I take the key out of the ignition, the seat moves back and the steering wheel moves up, despite the Auto switch being turned off. However, when I put the key back in the ignition, the steering wheel moves back into place, but the seat doesn't move forward. Until recently the seat and steering wheel stayed put permanently, courtesy of the auto switch in the OFF position, but that seems to be overridden. I tried replacing the Auto switch, to no avail.The day before all this started, I squirted some Inox into the drivers door lock to free it up a bit, as we used the key, rather than the fob. Would that have any effect? Cheers.

 

I suggest you add the vehicle to your signature via the CP area.

Makes life simple for all.

I went looking in your profile and found you have 2 X300 cars.

Cannot see the Inox having anything to do with it, nice thought though.

My suggestion from across the ditch is to disconnect the battery, have a beer or 2 or 3, reconnect. Sometimes? it is a memory glitch in the control module, and that loss of electrickery is enough to reset it.

 

Hi. Sorry, I'm new at this. This is a problem I have with a 1995 4 litre Sovereign.

 

Hi Grant. Thanks for that. I'll have another go.


1965 Daimler long gone, 1989 4 litre XJ6, 1989 3.6 Litre Daimler, both retd, 1995 Sovereign (hers) 1995 XJR mine.

 

If one of the seat potentimeters is slightly out of range this will effect memory settings.

The way to check this is as follows................

Turn on the ign.
Move the seat fully forwards.
Press the M button on drivers door switch. If the red light in the switch illuminates then that pot
( potentimeter )is ok. If the red light didn't illuminate then that's the faulty pot.

Now repeat this with every seat movement to full extremes. ie fully backwards. Fully tilted. Fully recliened etc...

If you find a faulty pot it will need turning slightly to bring it back in range.

Normally it's the fore aft motor pot that goes out of range.

I haven't looked under an x300 seat for years but Move the seat back and forth, find the relevant motor and on the end of the twisted rod should be a little black plastic thing with two wires. That is your pot. Note it's position and turn it one way or the other slightly. Now move the seat to the bad position again and press M see if red light illuminates.

I hope that makes sense. Its a lot easier to do than to type.

 

While the instructions about checking the potentiometer functionality in the post above is correct in that it will detect an electrically faulty pot, it will not detect what seems to be the more common failure where the pot is still electrically functional but mechanically is no longer "turning".

In that scenario (which I have in my car), the test above will show a positive "light" and "chime" but in reality the pot is no longer turning with the seat movement.

More info here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ations-134056/



BTW, the info above may or may not be your issue. Other than your auto exit function no longer being defeatable, does your seat memory function still work? If so, then the pots are fine.

Since you describe the auto feature as no longer being defeatable, I'm not sure what else to check other than to replace or clean the switch which you have done.

What happens if you unplug the column "Auto" switch entirely? Will that stop the auto exit movement of the column/seat?

.

 

Well, after going through the potentiometer checks, today I disconnected the battery again (having tried that heaps earlier with no result), and, so far, success! Seat and steering wheel remain in their settings when the key is removed. I'll see how it holds during the week. Thanks Grant Francis for the nudge and Melhookv12 and Al for the potentiometer stuff.

 

Ahh the default, "reboot" procedure!

Glad to hear it worked!

 

I'll keep my mouth shut next time then !

 

A short success. The seat is back to moving rearwards and the steering wheel upwards when the key is taken out of the ignition. I have disconnected the battery a few times, run the seat through the potentiometer/ memory light test a couple of times, and still no lasting joy. When we bought the car 80k/10 yrs ago, I didn't like the growl in the seat forward/back drive, so I turned the auto off, didn't use the fob, and so it stayed until a month or so ago, when out of the blue, the seat moved back when the key was taken out. I'm bamboozled. The seat rear doesn't go up and down, though the motor sounds like it's going, but I don't think that bit ever did, and the memory light/chime seems ok. The next step is to disconnect the auto switch or take out the fuse for the seat forward/reverse, but that seems a bit brutal.

 

The up/down problem is likely caused by the drive cable from the motor to the seat lift backing out. This is a common problem, but a very easy fix.... you just pop the cable back in and secure the cable back to the bottom of the seat with a zip-tie!


https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-lower-128604/


Hope that fixes at least one of your issues!


.

 

Hi Al. I tried disconnecting the auto switch, and the seat still moved backwards when the key was taken out. The seat memory, otherwise, is nonexistant. Pressing the memory buttons does nothing, the seat remains at the back of its travel. I've taken the fuse out, which stops the forward and back travel, but I'm still looking for a cure.

 

When you say "the memory buttons does nothing" do you mean it also does not light the led in the panel and does not chime in any position when one of the three memory setting is memorized?

Or are you simply saying that the seat does not respond to the memory settings?

If the former (no light, no chime) then that problem is likely at least an electrically broken pot as melhookv12 described with his post above, or the pot is stuck out of range physically from what we understand from various folks testing/troubleshooting.

Your issue with the seat moving even with the auto switch "off" (and now removed) is a mystery to me as well as I don't know the circuit well enough. Maybe someone else can hopefully post another suggestion to test.

As an aside, my front cushion up/down cable apparently popped out again yesterday .... I guess I'll have to figure out a way to more permanently mount it than the single zip tie I tried last time.


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Hi all. And hi Al, thanks for the info on the seat up and down. Update on the memory problem. I had the seat forward and back fuse out for a while, but had to refit it last week, and blow me if the seat didn't remain in place when I removed the key. So far so good. I'll take the win! The auto off is off again. I don't think the memory works worth a damn anymore, but I'm happy with manual adjustment of the seats.