Dear all,

I just bought my very first Jaguar 4 weeks ago, an 1997 X308 3.2 Sport (VIN 823650) with right-hand steering, and was happy to find this forum with so much intersting information, and obviously, nice members.

My X308 is in a good condition, obviously well-looked after, and so far ran wonderful smoothly. There were minor electrical issues which I repaired, e.g. the boot lid button and the broken wires under the boot lid hinge (7 of them !), and also re-build to the original wiring (one of my preowners had made workarounds for the broken wires). BTW thanks to all of you - without your valuable information, I guess, I never would have found the cause of these isses.
Having the boot electricals fixed, I rolled my Jag back a meter to change the wheels yesterdy. I remember that it ran slightly less smooth than usual, but I did not mind, the engine was cold. I changed the wheels, also did some cleanup under the hood, and when I started the engine to roll back again, the starter turned over, but the engine did not fire. During several retries, I could hear a couple of single ignitions, but no use. When turning ignition swith to pos 2 (without starting) , display directly says "check engine".

I then decided to recharge the battery over night, since I already had some similar stuff when the battery was empty.
Today, I retried. Same problem.
I then with a friend checked the following :

- checked all fuses in boxes A and B (next to the engine). Checked most other electrical functions (lamps, radio etc), OK.

- I tried to press down the inertia switch (lower kickpanel, right hand to the throttle pedal), but it seems that it already was in "down" postion, could not push it further

- took out one spark plug and restarted. There IS a spark. The plug's tip was dry and looked normal.

- The air inlet hose's fixation (with 2 screws on top of the throttle body) seems to be broken since a long time, and obviously somebody had tried to fix that with glue. During one of my retries, a flame blew out of there once and lifted the hose up. We then tied it with binders to the throttle body.

- with the ignition switch in position 2, there is a constant , quite noisy sound coming out of the throttle body, with quite a strong vibration of it. By touchning, it seems that the vibration comes from one of the actuators inside the body. I remember, that there ALWAYS was a sound there in position 2, but I feel like it is louder now. What kind of actor must be kept running inside there ?

- during trying to start, battery voltage (measured on batter plus pole) drops down to about 11V. Adding power from a second vehicle by start cable, obviously does not change anything.

- fuel pump fuses are good. Turning ignition switch to pos 2 activates fuel pump for some seconds. When activated, fuel pump vibrates a bit, and the fuel line cools down a bit. Guess this is good.

- trying to "wash cylinder" by holding down the thottle and then fire the engine for about 1 minute does not help, but leads to a fuel smell.

- throttle obviusly does follow the throttle pedal. Throttle position read by ELM327 OBDII-Adapter (iOS App "EOBD facile") seems plausible.

- ELM327 with that software always says "NO errors". With just in pos 2, no starting , "O-04-0 Calculated load" says 63% ?????

- measured idle current at the battery drops down to about 200mA some minutes after locking the car. Assumingly no permanent bypass current.

So, any ideas ? I have not checked the chain tensioners yet, but since the display already says "check engine" right after battery reconnect and switch pos 2, I do not expect a mechanical problem like that here (there also is no chain rattle noise).

BTW , is there any way to get more information by the ELM327 (maybe using specific commands in OBD terminal) ?


Many, many thanks in advance !!! I just fell in love with that car, and hope that it comes to life again...

 

I don't have much experience with the early X308 but if you started the car and shut it off again before it reached operating temperature, you may have what I've heard some on here refer to as "bore wash". Especially with those early years I think the nikasil (sp?) lining can contribute to that problem.

I think putting a spoon full of oil in each cylinder through the spark plug hole is supposed to remedy the problem.

Just speculating of course, a no-start situation can have SO many possible causes.

 

Before you resort to the oil fix try holding the pedal to the floor and engaging the starter several times for about 10-15 seconds. Then with the throttle part open see if it starts.

Holding the pedal to the floor shuts the injectors off.

 

Guys, I can't believe you helped me that fast !!!! The cat's running again !!!
In our own retries, we obviously held the throttle too far down. Giving burst at about 70% did the trick !!!!

Gosh, I cant express my releave... many, many thanks !!!

Looks like I'm finally home...

 

But now that it's running you've exposed yourself to many future problems.

 

lol