I bought my 2003 XK8 in February in new condition with only 2700 miles on it. The car had been sitting for 4 years, I never heard it run but the price was too good to pass up. After getting the title I did all the maintenance which needs to be done to a car sitting that long. As expected the battery was completely shot so I replaced it with a new one. When I went to start the car the ignition turned on but the car would not crank at all. After checking all the basic things I found no obvious reason why the car wouldn’t crank.

I decided to tow the car to the dealer which happened to be the original dealer it was sold from. After speaking to the service manager there they told me that the car had already been in twice under warranty for no start issues which turned out to be the key transponder. They kept the car for a week trying to find the problem. Guess what, another bad key transponder. The dealer said it was due to a short in the LoJack and disconnected it. Despite the mileage on the vehicle and the past warranty history they would not cover the repair so $800 later I was finally on the road.

I drove the car from February until June daily logging more than 4,000 miles with no problems or codes. In July I had to go overseas for business so I decided to park the car in the garage on my parent’s farm where it would be safe and out of the elements. After sitting two months my father went to start and drive the car yesterday only to find the battery completely dead. After fully charging the battery and verifying that it held the charge he was surprised to find the car still won’t start.

The ignition will switch on, the steering wheel drops…etc but the car will not crank at all. There is a message on the display now when going to start which says “Check DSC System” I don’t remember if that was there the first time I had this problem or not. Now my car is stuck 3 hours away from the dealer with what looks like little hope of getting started.

If any techs have advice on how I could begin to troubleshoot this problem I’d be very grateful. I think I’ve figured out why the car had sat for so long and the mileage was so low. I’m beginning to lose my faith in Jaguar. I’m also scared that I got a lemon and might spend the rest of this car’s days chasing electrical gremlins. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Jason