I have an X300 XJR -95 with the straight 6 compressor engine.
I used to have the occasional non starter turning the key but it always started on the second try.
Then in September -11 it absolutely refused. Instrument lights went on, something clicked loudly but then nada...

5:30 pm at a remote airfield.. Dead car.. not funny....

Loaded it up on a truck and got it to a well reputed Jag service shop. There it fired up instantly. Sigh...

After some discussions we decided that a starter motor refurbishment would be a reasonably good shot in the dark. It wasn't, a week later the car refused again, this time fortunately in the garage.
Since I don't drive it at all during winter it sat there for 7 months. I tried to start it now and then but no luck.
I checked different Jag fora and sure enough there were other people with the same problem but most of the discussions petered out w/o a resolution.
There were no lack of hypotheses though and inspired by these i finally opened the box aft of the battery in the trunk (see below). I wiggled the cables coming out of the box (at the bottom of the picture) and Bam! my love started on the first try.





Since then i have driven it about 200 miles and started it about 30 times w/o problems.

There was a definite temporal association between the wiggling and the restored function but can anyone supply a convincing causal explanation for this?

Happy motoring,
/RS

 

Nothing esoteric here :-). Your wiggling restored continuity to a loose or dirty connection.

Cheers
DD

 

Yes, that seems a natural conclusion. Does anyone have more specific information like "That´s a known issue with the CRM-114 unit, a poor connection will result in failure to start" or something similar?

(Note: as far as i know there are no CRM-114 units in Jags, however, for your slightly off-topic entertainment, I supply the following link)

CRM 114 (fictional device) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

 

Well, as we all know, Jags are female.

Females like a little wiggle from time to time, or so I am told, HAHA.

Yours just wanted a ride on a truck.

Doug is spot on.

That battery cable connection I see in there is my best JD guess as a starting point.

Maybe the lack of use, and general feeling of neglect (they have feelings you know) was just "I will get you" from the car.

Our XJ-S does this a bit now, as it hardly ever gets driven, I simply cannot get into it anymore, the pins in the spine wont bend, bugga.

The actual -ve battery cable connector does strip its threads with gorilla intervention, that is a known issue.

 

Others might chime in but without knowing exactly which cables you wiggled it's hard to get more specific.

I think most of us, though, when confronted with weak connections, simply remove-clean-tighten the offender and perhaps do the same with others that are close by and leave it at that.....as weak connections are not uncommon on any car as the years go by.

An exception might be a water-damaged connection. In that case an investgation as to where the water came from is called for.

I suspect year-after-year exposure to temperature extremes might play a role in loose connections <shrug>





Heh heh. This reminds me of "It's due to an innacurate coefficient of linear expansion".......a phrase I use to explain "why" something has happened when, in fact, I have no idea!

Cheers
DD