The warning light that alerts the driver to a burnt out bulb is illuminated on my 1990 XJ6. The only light bulb that appears to be burnt out is the one for the vehicle condition monitor (VCM)' that is located on the right side of the steering column. I did as the Haynes manual says, but when it came to lowering the switch assembly after depressing the retaining clip, nothing happened. I'm reluctant to apply too much pressure for fear of breaking something. But is that what is required?

Also, the manual states, "Later models are equipped with airbags." Does the 1990 XJ6 have an airbag?

 

The bulb fail modules on these cars go bad and can show a blown bulb warning even if you have no blown bulbs anywhere on the car.

I have lived with mine for years (kind of like an old friend). I just got into the habit of making a quick visual check of the lights, like we used to do in the good old days.

There are articles about them in the Kirby Palm XJS book and The XJ40 Book in the FAQ (IIRC).

I was not aware that an instrument illumination fail would activate a bulb fail light. Could be wrong here.

Go careful with that clip, I broke one once, ended up super gluing the thing back together.

Are you saying that the little keyboard type pad does not light up? If so have you tried pressing the small light switch on the leading front edge. Only seems to work when you have the exterior lights on.

Re airbag, I doubt that your 1990 has one my 92 does not. However if your steering wheel looks like this from my 93 then it has a bag.
Indicated by SRS on the wheel.



As you can see this did not deploy!!!

 

Trust me , driver airbag came on standard from '93 . (Late '92s in UK might come with that too ..Well just like you can see '94 X300s in the UK )
'94 and up models came with the dual airbags .
So, since you own a '90 you don't have an airbag and you have a different shape of steering wheel unlike Translator's image

 

Richard,

That looks terrible. I hope all came out of the wreck okay.

Robert

 

Yeah it is not too good is it. But 5 adults on board and no injuries at all.

3 rolls and a large tree as a brake. You can see that the roof is just about on top of the passenger seat back!

I was given the car by the driver after the accident he was obviously going at one heck of a lick, but the thing that got me was the fact that the air bag had not deployed, and neither had the inertia switch triggered.

I drove it into this garage location, without even a check engine light on. Go figure!!

 

That was a huge incident considering three rolls .Nice to see everyone was ok .It seems Jaguars built almost like a tank

 

Thanks for the information on the air bag, SuperMod. And thank you Richard for the tip on the pushbutton for the lights on the switch panel. I've checked every single light bulb on this vehicle and can't find a single one that is burnt out. Ah, well.

Robert