Hi there

I inherited a beautiful black Jaguar XJR X308 from my Dad.

Details: Jaguar XJR 4.0L S/C from February 1998

The car stood for 5 years in the garage and i thought i bring it back on the road,
doing a lot myself as an engineer.

So i changed the fuel, oil, sparkplugs and filters and it started right up with the first try with the original battery.

It idled for around 30 minutes and after the tappets stoped running rough, every thing worked perfect. All the eletronics worked and even the AC was cooling well.

I then put new tires on it and took it for a test drive.

I then brought it to my local garage so they can check the emission and present the car for inspection. Every thing seemed to work go perfectly well, until i got a call from the mechanic that he had a breakdown a few meters in front of the inspection.

Before the inspection they cleaned the engine, so my suspicion is that they hit the electronics with a jet of water. The engine compartment fuse box smells funny.
The garage didnt admit any mistake yet.

I just visited the garage and they showed me the car. The car wont start up anymore and doesnt even seem to try. I turned the ingnition on and the following six errors appeared on the dashboard, sorry for my poor translation:

"System Check, Gearbox error, electronics jammed, suspension error, engine emergency mode and wrong component"

Before the washing the car worked flawless. So never a probem in all the years my dad drove the car. The gearbox was in perfect condition, never a problem with the suspension and they didnt swap any component. So my guess is that they really broke the car by spraying water on electric parts.

What can i do? I dont want to spend all my money on a hopleless project car.

Thank you for your help

 

It's a bad mistake to wash inside the engine bay without extreme care (or better, not wash at all).

They broke it, make them fix it.

 

Thank you.

Does anyone know which fuse boxes or relais in the engine bay are responsible for the error messages: "System Check, Gearbox error, electronics jammed, suspension error, engine emergency mode and wrong component"?

Then i could atleast narrow down the possibilities and where to look.

 

If it's one of the later years the fuses might be slightly different. I've attached the 99 handbook which has the fuses listing, also suggest getting an electrical diagram on jagrepair.com

 

Thank you nilanium.

All the control modules for Adapting Damping, Engine Managment and Transmission Fuses are located in the same location under the the fascia, on the bulkhead on the passenger side. So maybe it is not only the fuse box which got wet...

Thank you for this great hint!

 

I NEVER pressure wash under the hood of any of my vehicles. Any crack in the wiring will lead to a short or corrosion of the wires. I usually will lightly spray water on areas not around wiring or sensors and immediately use a towel/rag to wipe down the engine area. In 20 years of detailing my cars I've never had a problem. Most likely they shorted the fuse box main wiring and one or more of the ignition modules/coils. Absolutely their fault and unless you gave them permission to power wash your engine, they are on the hook. Go after em!

 

They pressure washed the engine. Good intentions gone wrong.

Doesnt look good at the moment. Engine doesnt even crank. They will call me on tuesday and tell a sugested solution. This will become a insurance case anyway, because who know what happens in a couple of weeks if they can make it run again. Corrosion, creeping current, malfunctions and more problems, will show in time if it got wet at a certain point.

This really bugs me, at the start of summer.

 

There is a row of plugs/contacts right behind the engine and a really large one on the bulkhead.. if you get water in them i woulnd be surpriced the car goes totally nuts.


Maybe they can be opend/separated and carefully be dried out with a blast of air..


Most plugs/contacts are to some extent enviromentally protected though.. i mean, if you drive the car in to a big puddle of water at speed, the enginebay for sure gets blasted with water.. and it would be quite annoying if the car went to a dead stop with a bunch of faultcodes thrown at you then..


With a little luck, maybe it would be enough to put a heater or two under the bonnet and let it sit for a day or two... 50-60 centigrades.. something.. meanwhile.. disconnect the battery i order to not mess up control boxes..


/E

 

This would be my advice as well, assuming you don't want the hassle of taking them to court over it which is your prerogative. Have them tow it back to you, pull the battery and go over all the connections one at a time. Once she's had time to dry out she may recover........may.

 

You could also pull the TCM and ECM and inspect the connections for signs of water damage/corrosion, and the resulting scorch marks from shorting which could indicate further damage. Same for the fuse boxes. If you got a burning smell there should be visible scorching somewhere.

 

Wow, since when is it a good idea to jetwash an engine?
Obviously this is the cause of the problem, so all the electrical connections should be checked for water ingress.
WD40 or similar should be used on these connections, and checking the fuse boxes for failures.
Mechanically there shouldn't be a problem - ie the gearbox will be fine.

I would also suggest a new battery as they don't last forever and these cars are very sensitive to voltage drop.

The last thing is bore wash. I can image short runs and shutoffs while waiting for the checks so this is something the garage will not be aware of but certainly maybe an issue.

Once you start the car of this model year, it's good practice to let it run up to temp before shutting off. If not this can lead to overfueling (cold start cycle uses more fuel) and washes the oil from the bores, leading to zero compression and long cranking without ignition.
2 things to sort this problem, 1 hold the gas pedal to the floor and crank, if this doesnt get it running, then a drop of oil down the plug holes to bring back compression.

 

I'm not experienced enough to try and pinpoint the errors you mention but, I had very similar errors on my car. It turned out to be the sensor behind the accelerator pedal (RHD) and everything worked after a pressed the top of it to reset everything? Think it's called an Inertia/Inertial Sensor? The only thing is, when mine needed resetting, the car would even turn over let alone start!

 

I have a 2001 308 4.0l.
I had all of those errors and I replaced the battery earth (ground) lead and the engine earth lead. Both were in poor condition.

A quick fix, is to remove both of the battery leads, hold them together for 5 / 10 minutes (Use a cable tie) which will discharge any build up of static. Reconnect and it should start. You may need to do this twice or 3 times.

In relation to the "Wrong component", it could be the anti-knock sensors picking up dodgy fuel. Drain the tank, refill and go for a drive. Keep accelerating, then let the car slow down naturally at least 10 times to re calibrate the sensors.

Never ever power wash an engine bay! Use rags and mild household detergent.

 

Meanwhile they found the error.

It was the inertia switch.

I dont know why it triggered though. Any ideas? The car newer has been in an accident.

 

check your bumpers: somebody backed a car into yours!

 

As I posted earlier, I suspected it was similar to my problem, too many similarities not to be, all I did was jack the car up on one side. I was doing some welding which involved some banging and shaping of the plate I was welding, not sure if that dislodged the Inertia switch or jacking it high on one side... either way, resetting it by pressing the black rubber button on top sorted it. Point is, I don't think it necessarily means it's been bumped, maybe you were knocking something under the car, or it simply 'failed'? Main thing is it's sorted now, obviously pretty sensitive things these sensors!

 

Good news, all works fine now. It was indeed the inertia sensor.
Thank you all.

 

just where is this inertia switch ? I think it may be good to know
Thanks

 

On UK cars (RHD) it's behind the accelerator pedal, mounted fairly high up on the bulkhead. Not sure if it's reversed for a LHD car, sure there's someone out there that will know though.

 

I have a LHD car, so it is in the passenger area close to the glove box.
The inertia switch looks like in the picture attached, you simply press it and everything works fine again.