Ok, so recently the car (2000 XK8) has been producing some weird electrical gremlins in the ignition switch. When I turn the key to start the car, it will sometimes (and with increasing frequency) make an electrical pop and sometimes I have to turn the key to off and back to start to get the car to start. When the pop happens, the windows and stereo need to be reset again. Any ideas where to start my diagnosis? Do you think it is more ignition system related, or something with the battery connection? The battery is pretty recent and I cleaned the cables this spring since there was a tiny bit of corrosion on one.

 

Is the "electrical pop" a sound? If so, is the sound coming from the steering column / ignition or somewhere else?





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Yes it is a sound, and coming from the column.

 

Sounds to me like a short in the ignition switch...wear in the mechanism is perhaps causing two circuits to touch that shouldn't be.

Go outside and immediately turn on your JagWrangler beacon, and shortly WhiteXKR will weigh in and tell you exactly what the problem is. I defer to him in all matters electrical.

Good luck, and please keep us posted.


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