Hello, I am a new member of Jaguar Forums. I reside in Montreal, Canada. I am truly hoping one of the other members can help me with the problem or should I say problems I have been having with my 2000 Jaguar XJ8 recently. I purchased my car about 2 years ago used. The body was in exceptional shape and the inside really clean. My Jaguar currently has about 110,000 miles on the odometer. Shortly after I purchased the car a problem developed where I would get in and try and start the car. I would turn the key and for a split second the tachometer would jump to about 500RPM and then return to 0 and I would get nothing, no sound whatsoever when trying to crank it. The digital readout would cycle through all of the messages, ie: Gearbox Fault, ASC Not Available, Trac Not Available etc... and it would not start. Often I would try it again and again and perhaps after 15 minutes or so it would just start like nothing was ever wrong. Also,I began having another issue around the same time with the non starting, I would be driving along and suddenly without warning the car would make a sudden bucking motion just once with a sound that sounded like a backfire and the car would just stall out. I have always managed to get it going again from the side of the road but it definitely rattles ones nerves being stuck on the breakdown lanes on busy highways. I should mention I had started to notice a rather serious vibration coming from the engine at about 40MPH. I thought after reading various postings on this site it might be the Crank Position Sensor. I changed the CPS and that did seem to cure the vibrations however, the stalling out issue which hasn't happened in a while returned yesterday with the car stalling out twice in the space of about 1000 meters. I was accelerating to get onto the highway when suddenly the car sputtered and stalled out. I tried to start her again and at first got nothing, no noise like it was trying to start, nothing. Waited about 2 minutes and tried again, this time it sounded like it was going to start, it would crank but not catch. I tried for about 7-8 seconds and stopped and waited about 10 seconds and tried again and this time the car caught and she started. I put it in Drive and began to accelerate to merge onto the highway as i was getting closer to the highway I gave it more gas to get up to Highway speed when the car did it again, it made a jerking/ bucking motion once and cut out. Again, did the same as above, first time it wouldn't catch, waited 10 seconds and it caught. I immediately exited the highway and took a secondary road home just in case the car acted up again but surprisingly at a lower speed on this secondary road without gasing the car too hard she was fine the rest of the way home. My question is: I am thinking the Throttle Body could perhaps use a good cleaning? Is it necessary to change the TPS as well? I'm hoping that perhaps just a good cleaning of the Throttle Body and cleaning the contact pins on the TPS might do the trick. Anyhow, that is just my theory, perhaps other members might have had a similar experience. I would really appreciate any advice and a hand in the right direction to solving this extremely annoying problem. Other than that the car when it is running runs great. Thanks

 

cb68,

I've copied your post from the Intro section to this new thread to get advice here from members with the same model as you have.

Graham

 

2000 MY was a bad year for the instrument pack.

Read the TSB/Service action and see if it applies.

bob gauff

 

Thanks Very Much Graham, Much Appeciated

 

Hi Bob;

Thanks for your input. I didn't realize the 2000 MY was a bad year for the instrument pack. Defintely one of the symptoms decribed in that TSB applies to my car. If when the car won't start I try and shift it into N and start it it will not shift into N and when I try and take it out of Park I get a quick pulsed Beep Beep Beep sound. Only way I can get it out of P is to remove the star shaped screw to the left of the gear selector and use a screw driver and depress something inside that will allow me to move it into N without the car running. Would a faulty Instrument pack cause all of these problems including the car cutting out and not starting? How much is the fix on this or is it still covered under some sort of recall by Jaguar? I'm hoping it won't be too expensive to fix as right now unfortunately I'm between jobs and money is a bit tight. Also, do you think the Throttle Body or TPS could still be the culprit based on what I've mentioned? Thanks

 

Have you checked for codes?

 

Hi Gus, Thanks for your reply. That's the funny thing, The mechanic has scanned for codes and the computer is not registering any fault codes. Don't know why but I guess it is obviously something intermittent that the computer is somehow not catching. Any idea's on how to proceed? Thanks

 

Do you have a OBDII scanner if not you could get an inexpensive one and plug it in and take the car for a run. When the car stalls or shuts down the scanner should capture any temporary fault. Take the codes document them then post them on this forum. If I had to guess I would say it is your throttle body but that is a guess! I attached a link with a little information on my TB problem.

Link JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource

I hope this helps!

 

Hi Gus and thanks for your reply. I don't actually have a scanner but do have access to one from a friend of mine. I'm taking the car to my mechanic tomorrow for further testing.

Another thought occured to me, is it possible that an ignition coil and or the ingnition control module is bad and is causing this problem. I did some reading online about the ignition and the coils and seems this could be the culprit.

I was reading that on the 2000 Jaguar XJ8's there is no seperate ignition control module but rather it is incorporated into the Engine Control Module. ( ECM) Would you know if that is in fact correct and if so, any way to test and see if the ECM is faulty? Thanks for all of your help so far, really appreciate it.

 

Yes one can speculate but let’s not! Install the code reader and see what takes place. My guess is a throttle body but that is all it is a guess..

 

Hi Gus;
Took the Jag to my mechanic today and he hooked it up to the scanner. As I thought might happen, there were no fault codes registered in the onboard computer. We spoke about the problem for a bit and I said did he think it was a faulty coil pack? As he said, you would normally get an error code if the coil pack failed or wasn't running properly.

He thought perhaps it could be the fuel pump on the way out? Rather than spending $$$ on changing the fuel pump I asked if perhaps changing the ECM might solve the problem? I can get a used one on ebay relatively inexpensively and as my mechanic said, it would take less than an hour to install the new one and he can do the hard reboot required.

If you could perhaps advise further your thoughts about going this route and also, would you know if I will have to have my key reprogrammed if I change out the ECM? ( Hopefully Not )

Would a faulty ECM potentially cause the stalling and the car running rough and vibrating above 50MPH? Also, one other thing I should point out, when the car has stalled out, when I go to restart it and it won't start right away it will read Err on the digital readout where the temperature is displayed and also, I have the car temperature in the cabin set currently to 20 degrees celcius and this will for some reason unbeknown to me reset itself to 24 degrees celcius which I believe is the maximum setting.

Thank You again for your help in solving this problem, I truly appreciate it.

Chris.

 

Let me tell you a short story and believe me I am making it short! I have been experiencing an unsteady idle for a long time (1 year+) with no codes. I found several vacuum leaks and fixed them recently (past 2 week or so). Then it recently gave P0300 & P1316 could not find the problem and cleared the codes then about a week after the car stalled and I got P0300, P1316 & P1121, ABS & Traction control fail along with transmission trouble. I removed the TB and in the process of removing the TB I noticed that the cover on the TPS appears to have come open. It is now on its way back to ASI for them to check it and make repairs. Remember that this is the second time my car experienced this problem I will give you a link to the first time it took place.

Link JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource

Is I possible that the fuel pump, coil pack or the ECM could be bad YES, however, before you throw money into the car I would be looking for codes first. I should mention that I got my codes when I had my OBDII reader installed when I was driving and trying to make it throw a code. I cleared the codes that made it drivable to get it home. Caution, this procedure of clearing the codes to make it drivable is not recommended in all situations but I was cautious. I should also suggest you document the codes before clearing them.

FYI my time has been limited on working on my cars and that is why I just let it go for a while, I should not have done that.

 

A scan of ONE module might not tell the whole story.
I ALWAYS scan EVERY module to see if another one points to some other module or network fault.

You CANNOT scan other modules with a generic code reader.

Modules interact with each other.

bob gauff

 

Hi Gus;
Thank You again for all of the valuable info you've been able to provide. If your ever up in Montreal I'll have to take you for supper and you can meet my mechanic. I just want to say again how appreciative I am for your knowlwdge and support.

I think in light of what you mentioned and my mechanic had agreed too with that assessment that perhaps the way to go is to drive around for a while until I can get the car to throw a code when it does infact act up. You mention reparing several vacuum leaks, could I ask where these leaks were coming from? Perhaps it is something worth having my mechanic take a look at just in case.

I saw you also mentioned about getting an ABS and Traction Control Fail message. It is funny you mention that as I had never had that message in the past and then about a month ago I would get that message on start up. I would drive the car for about 5 - 10 minutes, turn it off, restart it and the message would disappear. This continued on for about 2 weeks and then miraculously as only a Jaguar can do, I stopped getting that message all together at start up and it has never reappeared since in over 2 weeks now. I would have thought during the time it was appearing though it would have registered and error code but as I mentioned, when my mechanic scanned the car yesterday no error codes were present.

As you said though, I think I'll go the route of the OBDII and keep it hooked up until I can get it to throw a code ( Hopefully sooner rather than later) The thing that is un-nerving about a sudden stall on a highway is you have seconds to react and get out of traffic and hopefully onto a breakdown shoulder. Let's hope I can get to the bottom of this soon. Thanks

Chris.

 

Hi Bob;

Thanks for your input. You mention about not using a Generic Code Scanner. Could I ask what scanner you have found works best for detecting various fault codes. I just want to be sure that the scanner I hook up will do a proper job of scanning the system. Thanks Very Much,

Chris.

 

The vacuum leak was a cracked intake manifold and a vacuum line under the TB. As for the ABS your symptoms lead me to other causes but for now focus on the stalling. I am working on a post for my page going over it in detail.

 

I use WDS for most of my Jaguar repairs (I have a Mongoose with SDD software but gave up trying to keep it updated every few weeks).

WDS works for Jags up to 2006MY.

I use Ross Tech VAG COM for Audi/VW diagnostics.

bob gauff