Hi Sean, To be honest I really don't understand the exact mechanics of the fault I and a few others have experienced. When I initially started getting this fault I assumed it was a bad battery and looked at the usual Jag issues with low voltage so replaced the battery checked the fuses and relays, bought a new key ( I needed one anyway) but even with a brand new battery and all the basic checks done it would still occasionally go into failure mode and it seemed really random apart from it would always start when in the garage but sometimes fail on the street or worse at a filling station. Diagnostics were hopeless as if there is no ignition you can only get limited information, fortunately once the battery had been disconnected for a while it would usually power up ok and ignition would be restored, Then once (fortunately I was on the drive) it failed again and every time I tried to reset the car I couldn't get the ignition on, after trying for an hour or so I realised the key wasn't in the car but on the bonnet of the wife's car a few feet away. When I put the key inside the car and connected the battery the ignition was restored and the car worked fine so that gave me the clue it was something to do with the Smart key and how the immobiliser signal was being interpreted.
The reason the car would always start in the garage is my garage is quite tight so i'd open the garage door, squeeze in and unlock the car with the key very close to the drivers window, subsequent experiments proved if I was 6 feet away from the car when I opened the door I had a 50% chance of having ignition, 10 feet away or more and it was 100% failure. SDD wasn't a great help when it was in fail mode at you needed the ignition on to perform diagnostics, even trying to force the ignition on with SDD wouldn't work.
It was suggested to me to try and reset and reconfigure the instrument cluster but when I started going through the procedure on SDD, that operator information message popped up which perfectly described the fault that I was experiencing, it also stated I needed to delete the keys which terrified me so I didn't proceed. Since changing the cluster I can open and close the car from any distance as normal which is a great relief as I was loosing confidence in the car.

 

I have this exact same problem and wondered if there was anyway if the cluster can be repaired and if not what the part number is for a new one, Really would rather try and get fixed but everything in this thread makes me think best to replace

 

Hi, I got my cluster repaired by TotalTronics. The guy was excellent and very knowledgeable . I sent the cluster to him and got it back after a few days.

A great job.

good luck,

Ian

 

oh that sounds promising and was it repaired for this exact issue ? Or something different ?

 

This thread seems to point to a cluster or fuse issue.

The key fob close to window was interesting..

Going to try all this this afternoon

Thanks to all


Car started.

Taking it to the shop for testing...