curious thing happened today - the DSC System Fail message came up on the console and after being parked for 2 hours it went away.

I was on the freeway with the cruise control set, and after about 15 minutes, (had already been driving for 15 minutes before setting the cruise control) the warning appeared in the dash.
I was only 10 miles from my destination so carried on. there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the handling or control of the car

After the car had sat for 2 hours, when I got back into it to come home, the DSC error message didn't come back?

Wondering if this is something that happens when the Cruise control is on (though can't figure out why?)
or if not, why it would have gone away.
I have a 2004 XK8 convertible.

 

Oftentimes, the culprit of ABS/DSC warnings that are intermittent can be speed sensors in need of cleaning. Very simple job and will oftentimes do away with those errors.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ors-faq-37434/

 

01Silverstone,
this is awesome - many thanks for the link.
looks like I have my first weekend project

 

Sure thing, I'll be doing mine as well when I have my wheels refinished this summer-- got the error message this past fall and didn't have time to address it before putting her away for the snow.

 

In addition to wheel speed sensors (either dirty of a poor harness connection), this behaviour can also be an early sign of a battery on its way out.

I spent a long time troubleshooting this on my 2005 4.2-S, eliminating everything to do with speed sensors. Switching off and doing a restart would clear the error every time but it kept coming back.

After fitting a new battery it never happened again.

Graham

 

It's amazing how many different ways a failing battery can show up in these cars. In addition to the quick half-inch window lower-and-raise ceasing to occur in my wife's XK8 ragtop when the doors were opened, her trunk latch would occasionally pop open as well. I heard it happen a couple of times just while walking by the car. I initially thought the key fob in my pocket may have been triggering the trunk latch to release. But nope, a new battery resolved both issues in September 2012....

 

good to know the battery could be the issue, I'll keep an eye out to see if some other things manifest themselves

 

After months with the ABS/Traktioncontroll failure message it was gone today. Just the day before the car will be checked with professional reader. :-))
Daniel