I don’t know what deity I have pissed off but for the past few months everything I have touched has turned to poop.



First I wanted to install a ceiling fan in the master bedroom, a simple enough procedure I thought. To make a very long and painful story short, the fan ended up costing slightly over 3 grand. Now onto my 2008 XK. The cigar lighter fuse (#9) is blowing instantly even when there is nothing in the socket. There is obviously a bad short somewhere between fuse #9 and the socket.


Before I go tearing the car apart trying to trace the power wire to the socket I thought I would ask the brain trust here if anyone happens to know if there is an area where this type of short is likely to be.


An OHM meter indicates the side of the cigar socket goes to ground and ALSO to the power wire from fuse #9. The center contact in the socket appears to be an open circuit as it does NOT go to ground or to the power wire.



From what I can tell looking at the repair manual, Jaguar does NOT make it easy to get the cigar socket out to check it for problems as pretty much the entire center console needs to come out to remove the socket.


Any words of wisdom will be appreciated.

Paul

 

Your socket is haywire, the center is the HOT and the outer side is GROUND. If your outside is showing ground and hot on the same contact point that is your problem. I would start by taking it out and see what is fubar'd in there, perhaps a previous owner tapped into the power in the back of the socket and chopped up your wires. When they removed the device they jacked it up!

Just a thought.

 

the center pin is open because of no fuse or blown fuse. Like tampamark says, the center and ground are shorted. I agree it's probably in the socket.

Maybe you will get lucky and find something metal fell inside the socket.

 

Well piddle. I was really hoping you guys were going to come up with something i could actually get to without too much trouble. My gut was telling me it was the socket also but I REALLY don't want to rip out the console to get to the darned thing.

Looks like i will get a new socket and have at it. At least it looks like less of a problem than the "World's Most Expensive Ceiling Fan" i dealt with last month.

Paul

 

I wouldn't order anything until you know what is going on, a socket is a very simple apparatus with two wires. One hot, one ground. I would see what is needed first.

 

Very good advice but seeing as the XK is my daily driver I don't want to find myself in the position of having the car torn apart and then having to wait for the part to show up, if it is needed. If it turns out I can fix the existing socket I call always return the new one.

Paul