Hello!

I just acquired a 2003 XJ8 for winter beater duty (long story) and today the resonator part of the intake broke off triggering a p0138 code and rough running. Easy enough I thought to replace the the pipe with a new one and then clear the code.

Well, I plugged in my scanner and it linked with the car as normal and will pull all the stored codes in the ECU. HOWEVER, when I try to erase the codes, It says it can no longer establish a link with the ECU. If I retry it, same story. I have heard of other who can’t even read codes so the fact I can read them but not clear them had flummoxed me. I’ve already checked the fuses under the rear seat and tried the 30 second negative lead to positive lead hard reset to no avail. Any advice on where to look next?

 

Try another code reader.

 

Well, the scanner works well on my other vehicles so I assumed that wouldn’t be an issue. Are X308s really that picky with scanners?

 

Yes they are quite picky.

 

If you have aftermarket radio, alarm, keyless start, etc. .... Any of those things can interfere with communications to ECU.

For a winter beater, I can't think of many worse choices than an x308.

 

Agreed

 

Hi Swagger,

P0138 is an oxygen sensor code. With your broken resonator, I'm surprised you don't also have lean codes such as P0171 and P0174.



Regarding your scanner behavior, check to be sure none of the pins in the cable connector have been bent. You checked the fuses in the right heelboard fuse box (fuse #10 is the relevant one which provides always-on battery power to the data link connector). Did you also check fuse #4 in the left heelboard fuse box? That's the ignition-switched power to the DLC.

Cheers,

Don