This has now happened twice. The first time, driving with headlights on, the warning light came on suddenly and stayed on. I cleared it by starting the car with lights set to on (and watched them do their thing at startup) and the warning went away.

Now today, several weeks later, the warning came on again, this time driving with lights off. Again, after returning home, I set the headlights to 'on' and then started the car, and the warning cleared.

In both incidents I think I went over a bump when it happened. So I'm thinking maybe it's a bad connector, loose wire, or poor ground. When I get round to doing the air filters I'm going to examine the grounds in the wheel arches.

 

Could be a ground connection behind the wheel on the right hand side of the wheel, the lug is open to "atmosphere" - mine was intermittant and corroded.

I posted some pics of one of the ground lug locations here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...7/#post2673680

And what I did here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...cators-240302/

 

As it is an ‘09, and you are in Surrey, check the status of the wiring insulation.
Cheers.

 

I can't resist asking: what's the significance of me living in Surrey? I am actually only a mile or two away from the border with West Sussex. Does that affect the wiring insulation?

 

Have you noticed if one side failed movement or both of them? Neither?

 

I wasn't able to determine whether either lamp had actually stopped moving, and the fault hasn't recurred (yet). On both occasions, firing up the car with lights ON cleared the fault and I saw the up/down left/right thing happening at start up.

To be honest, the one time I've driven the car in the dark since I bought it, I didn't really notice the movement anyway, even at parking speeds. I guess it's a subtle effect? Maybe when my new glasses come next week that'll make a difference!

 

The movement is quite easy to see, especially at slow speeds while weaving back and forth even just a little bit.

 

My daughter's sent me this pic just this morning. I had to look it up. Oh....

 

Hmm... I will have to do a controlled experiment - at night, line up towards a wall or garage door and observe. To be fair it was probably difficult to observe on that one trip I made because I was mainly driving in an urban setting with bright street lamps everywhere.

I assume that since (a) the warning light came on and (b) it's not on now, the adaptive headlights have to be working.

 

Corroded ground lug on mine was intermittent - could be 2-6 weeks between faults and then no fault indication.

 

Oh indeed - I've taken note of your advice on that. My pathetic excuse is I'm so busy with work at the moment I can't find the time to put the car on stands and take the wheels and liners out. I'm saving that job for when I put in new air filters and spray out the MAFs.

 

Curiosity piqued, I popped out to the car at dusk and:

set headlights to ON and then started the engine
saw the lights do their calibration thing
turned the wheel gently to one side
nothing happened until a quarter turn, then the corner light came on - the one that comes on with the indicators.
The corner lights also came on if I operated the indicators, regardless of steering position.
I didn't see the main lights moving.
The car was stationary and in park.

So, this sort of corresponds to what the owners manual describes as the "Cornering or static bending lamps", not the "The Adaptive Front Lighting System (AFS)" However, the spec sheet for my car which I obtained from the original supplying dealer says "Headlamp variant: Adaptive Front Lighting". (Also, I believe all MY10 XKRs had AFS as standard.)

But, my reading of the owners manual suggests 'static bending lamps' are triggered (only) by the indicator being on.

So... various possibilities. The spec sheet is wrong. The owners manual is wrong. The AFS is broken but not displaying an error. The AFS system only works if the car is moving/in drive/or something. There's a setting either in the vehicle prefs or in module programming that turns this functionality on and off.

My first rabbit hole with this car.

 

As far as I know, they are also speed-dependent. Mine don't move either while the vehicle is stationary.

 

That's interesting. I didn't know that. What about the corner lights? Do yours come on when turning the wheel or only with the indicators?

 

I don't have side-cornering lights.

 

Hi. My car ‘10 XKR cab occasionally has the adaptive lamp warning come on and flash at me. I found that if I turn off the ignition and on again three times (without the foot on the brake except for the third time thereby finally starting the car) it will clear the warning. Don’t ask me how I discovered that but it works every time. This has been my fix for a couple years. Sometimes it will go months before happening again.
Scott

 

I have had intermittent warnings over the 10 years I've owned my 2010 XKR. Surefire way that I've cleared the warning is to turn off the car and lock the doors with the key fob and then unlock and lock again. Most of the time that will clear it and it won't come back for months or even years. Sometimes, it's more stubborn, and in addition to locking and unlocking the car, with an open hand, I will slug each headlamp three or four times, very hard, then unlock the car and start the engine. That procedure has never failed to clear the warning, and it typically does not return for quite a long time.

 

@Cee Jay Really? I thought if you had AFS, you had corner lights. I feel another thread coming on.

 

I had a play on the way home from work last night and the corner lights on my '10 XKR come on when stationary if I turn the steering wheel backwards and forwards. The indicators were off.

 

That's great - thanks for letting me know!