My auto trans stays in high gear and doesn't shift. The gear lever and electric switch have no affect. I've tried to switch from sport to normal to no 1st to no avail. Park, reverse work fine. The car apparently just stays in high gear. Any thoughts?

 

as additional info, I had the inboard mufflers replaced today with straight pipes. The exhaust guy had me put the car in neutral and he positioned the car for his lift. Somewhere I have read that moving the car with the ignition off and in neutral causes some issues??? Help

 

high gear?

do you mean a numerically high ratio such as 1st gear, or numerically high in selector sequence such as 4th gear?

 

CURED! I had a jag tech check it on his computer. There was a code for a faulty park switch which locked the car in 3 rd gear. The tech reset it and life is good.

 

Limp mode on a ZF gearbox is 3rd gear. So any fault will lock it in limp mode.

 

Hi Ken!

Your TPS could be bad, or there was a member in the other Jaguar forum that figured the problem on his 94's ZF transmission was an uncrimped transmission connector this is what he posted :

"thanks to jaglover and any members who helped and xj40 book
i hope this would save sombody a headache in future .
I was able to fix the transmission on my 1994 xjs After days of
diagnostic and months of car sitting in the yard as a lawn
ornament , the problem was the transmission connector that gets
hooked up to transmission
it had a non crimped ( they forgot to crimp it )connector that
would intermittently loose connection.
The orange green wire for transmission pressure control valve
solenoid.......................................... .
Now I need a connector, of course nobody sells a connector and I
have to buy the entire rotary switch , I have placed an advert for
it , hopefully somebody would reply to my advert .
I guess any zf 4hp tranny would have the same connector "

Hope this helps!!

 

This is day number two of my ownership of my 1995 XJS, and it was in "Limp Mode" when I bought it. The mechanic said it's because the transmission is cold, to take it out and drive it around some, pull over, shut it off, restart the car and that should take care of the issue.

No such luck. It worked the first couple of times, but now the limp mode comes on immediately when the car is started. Not sure what gear it's in, it takes off slow like an old go cart with a centrifical clutch, but then never shifts gears and tops out at about 30 MPH.

Any help? Suggestions? The mechanic said it's 2 sensors in the trans that don't like the cold weather that need to be replaced. Was hoping there was a way to temporarily reset this at least for a couple of months.

 

Jaguar spend a lot of time and money testing cars in extremes of weather so I can't believe that a couple of parts 'don't like the cold weather'.
Can you get the car to a garage that can plug into the onboard diagnostics and read the fault codes?
That would be my first step.
If not, try disconnecting the battery, have a coffee and then reconnect it: make sure that you have the radio code.

 

I took it to a transmission shop on the way home last night, and they said that there is a break in the circuit for the cigarette lighter. Said that their OBD can't connect if all the circuits are not completed. He mentioned to me to pull the plug off from the transmission, check to see if I have power to the transmission. Thinking this might be outside of my expertise or availability to tools.

I am thinking that with it being winter time, here in the next week or so, I will drop it off with them and have them do a check on the whole car. HOPEFULLY it will be something simple. But yes, I will try the battery disconnecting trick first to see if that helps.

 

First advice from me, according to the above post, get a new mechanic.

 

No kidding. I should have figured something was up when I walk in, and the first thing I see sitting on the desk next to the grease coated computer monitor is a set of empty Bud Lite 24 oz cans.....

I am just not sure who to believe at this moment. One shop told me there are two sensors on the trans, that from heat over time deteriorate and get sensitive to cold, the next shop which is a transmission place told me they couldn't hook up to the computer because the cigarette lighter circuit is not complete. I did check, the fuse was pulled. Not sure why, didn't have a spare 20 amp to replace it.

To Steve M, I do not have the radio code. I have the VIN number, the key code and everything else about the car except the Stereo Manual, or the radio code. The person I bought it from told me he never had to enter one when he replaced the battery so is this something that if it never got set, then it won't matter? I had a Kenwood CD player that way. If you never set a code, then you could disconnect it from the battery and it didn't matter.

 

Disconnected battery, pulled it indoors for a couple days. Put it on a battery tender. Got it fully charged, put it back in tonight. Car fired up, the Trans Limp Mode light didn't show up. SWEET.

Then I took it out for a drive...... I have ZERO forward gears, the light came back on. I had to drive it back home, in REVERSE.... at night. Did I mention I have no reverse lights?

Got it home, checked fluid levels of everything. Seem's the trans stick is dry.... also heard a weird metallic grinding noise at low RPM's.... I am thinking the torque converter is hosed.

Other bad thing, I broke one stud on the Blazer tonight trying to change out a thermostat so now I have NO ride to work. And it's been in the singal digit temps so riding the Harley is out of the question....

 

Well the transmission has been rebuilt. Got a call from the garage yesterday. They said they got it in, checked everything on the rack. Said it shifted into drive, as well as reverse. Then they took it out to road test it.

Won't shift out of first/ second gear.

They brought it back, hooked their computer up to it, said that it was connecting to the engine computer, but not the transmission computer? Any ideas? Suggestions? They had the battery disconnected of course while they did the work so not sure what the deal is. Hoping it's just a loose ground or something somewhere.