Only different this time. It's about flickering gauge lights. And by flickering I mean maybe about every 20 seconds or so the gauge lights will go completely out but for an instant in time. Then come back on for maybe another 15 or 20 seconds. Oh yeah. '05 XK8 Coupe'. 55,000 miles. I noticed this while driving down the road, of course. Often times I drive with the parking lights in the day time, so the gauge lights are lit up most of the time and the light in the right gauge is lit up as well. Then I got to thinking, what's it doing on the outside? Wellllll,,,,,the parking lights and taillights, etc. are flickering also but at a very high rate of speed. In other words they don't go completely out rather pulsate at said very high rate of speed. OK, so dash lights go on and off at a steady rate and the parking light are buzzing light. And because I've rarely driven the car at night I didn't notice any flashing headlights. After a couple of weeks of driving the car in mostly daylight I decided to perform more tests while driving. 4PM and getting dark. With parking lights on at 50MPH. Dash lights do their thing. On hand off. Turn on headlights and simultaniously watch the headlights and the gauge lights, and the road. Verdict? Headlights don't flash and gauge lights don't flash. In fact everything seems to work perfectly on this 12 mile backroad test.
Another thing. I just went out to the garage and turned on the ignition key plus the parking lights, for about 20 minutes. No gauge lights flashing every so many seconds at an almost steady rate. And no very rapidly pulsating parking lights were pulsating, very rapidly.
A other verdict? The phenomena seems to happen only with the engine running and most likely driving down the road. With the parking lights on.

So what gives, partner? Partners?


Jip

 

Sounds like a connection(S) is loose. Or possibly a ground.

I would start by checking the connectors for the dash module. The plastic clip connectors are prone to cracking and may simply be loose.

 

Jip, Wow reminds me of the old Lucas days in my XJ6. The only time I had any dash lights flicker or turn off was the one time I left the passenter window open 1/2 way and a huge thunderstorm came through. I'm lucky everything dried in a few hours but on the off chance that might help I wanted to share it. Hope you get it figured out fast.

 

Dash module. I'll mention that when it goes into the shop on the 28th. I read about 10 threads on flashing lights. None were quite like this. I'm trying to make my first Jaguar a daily driver. For 3 years my daily beater has been a 1988 Oldsmobile I paid $200.00 for with 80,000 miles on it. Now it has 210,000 miles.

Jip