It seems quite a few years back I read a TSB or some other Jaguar issued bulletin about the instrument clusters having a problem with a solder splash or some detail that related to a fault condition. It seemed that were instructions on how to fix this with some minor trace or solder clean up. I generally save all the TSBs I come across but I cannot find any trace of this item in my Jaguar folder.
Is there someone out there that may recall this bulletin?
I had gotten a DTC P1638 warning which caused some weird problems with many dash warnings including the radio flashing ER and the car would not reliably operate. I replaced the instrument cluster a week ago an have not had the problem since. I'd prefer to get this fixed as the original one has 98K miles and the one I installed has 145K miles showing.
Thanks much! Dave

 

Hello,

I managed to find the TSB that I was looking for on anther computer. Posted for the group.

 

I created an account on here just so I could thank you for your post. I just started working at a new shop and got handed the boss's 2001 XKR that had this happen to it after sitting over the winter. Lots of people had already looked at it. I managed to narrow it down to the instrument cluster but that took a lot of work. Had to individually verify all the other computers were fine. Put them each on an oscilloscope to verify they were outputting a good clean network signal which they were. The cluster is the gateway module between the different networks so I was going to tell bossman he needs to find a new cluster. That's when I came across your post. This car's an '01 so I don't have this TSB listed in our service data for it but sure enough, same problem. Kinda wish I saw your post sooner. Would've saved some long nights!

Thanks again!
Eric.

 

Hello Eric,

Did that solder splash removal fix the problem? On my cars it did not and I had to replace the cluster with one from the junk yard. I was thinking about trying to repair the clusters that have gone bad on my cars. At one time I took the circuit board out and noticed there is a surface mounted RS232 driver chip near the connector though I don't recall the chip number. In my past life, some of the equipment we worked on had those same chips and would fail on occasion; there would be no communication to/ from the device. Sounds like you're familiar with oscilloscopes and the normal pattern of the signal. If you cannot find a replacement cluster, perhaps replacing the chip would fix it? Not an easy repair if you're not equipped to do it though, and of course, the driver chip might not be the real problem....just a guess.
Hope you get the car repaired!