Ok my wise sage brethren, Jag weirdness today.

I was sitting waiting for a friend to show up, motor off. All of a sudden this high pitched squealing started up. It was acually a BeepBeepBeepBeepBeepBeepBeepBeep... all strung together so fast it merged into one really irritating squeal. Ok so WTF now?!? I tried turning on the motor, nope, squeallllll Pushed every button I could find. Nope. Even got to thinking it's some evil Jag smoke alarm because well, I was burning down a couple with the top up and windows closed. Rolled the windows down, even opened up both doors. Nope. Then I was sitting in it again because it was pissing raining. Squealing started to get quiet, almost gone. Wow. Then it started getting ear splitting loud again. Took me a bit to figure out that happened when I leaned forward in the drivers seat. Did that a few times, each time it got real quiet. But that didn't last, went to squealing loud and proud again. Now my chime speaker is long fried out, so it's not that.

So I called up the local Jag dealer. Like a dog in front of friends, when I was on hold for the service department it went dead quiet. Damn, had wanted them to hear it. Anyhow, I described what it had been doing. Their main mechanic that has been there for years has never ever heard of it before. So who knows WTF.

Didn't happen again after that.

So, again to my wise sage brethren, have you ever encountered this squealing before? No, it wasn't the electric fans. I've been around vehicles for quite a few decades, not once have I ever heard that noise before in anything.

What was it? What's the fix?

Thanks in advance, with my hearing blown.

 

It's the old Jaguar Kitty Kat joke haunting your car.....

Q: "How do you make a dog sound like a cat?"
A: You freeze it and then take it to a bandsaw where it goes: "Meeeeeoooowwwww"

Or ....

Q: How do you make a cat sound like a dog?
A: soak it in gasoline and then throw a match on it... "woof"....

Actually, in all seriousness, I have no idea what it could be but I thought some humor might help....

 

1

 

Q: What are the 3 constants in life?
A: Death, taxes, and Jag problems.

 

That was Billy Clyde squealing as his beloved Astros took down LA. 😉

 

That was Billy Clyde squealing as his beloved Astros took down LA. 😉

 

Maybe it was the little weasel that ran over the people on bikes in NY when he learned the blood transfusions he was getting is pig's blood. Just wait until he gets thrown in some hole with nothing on the menu but ham sandwiches for the rest of his ungodly life.

 

Key on? Could have been a parking sensor having a bad day? Pull up close to something and see if the sound is the same?

 

It doesn't have parking sensors. I ran through all possibilities at the time. Even thought maybe it's a bizarre no oil warning. Not any fans, not any signal from the stereo. Not the security alarm. Tried every thing to make it stop. From getting out and locking the car with the key and then unlocking it and reseating the key in the ignition and starting the motor. Wasn't a fan belt. Car was stationary so no mechanical sounds. It was just plain weird and totally unexplainable. And if seasoned Jag mechanics have never heard of it, then I don't know what.

 

I think there's a small electric motor in the "aspirator" by the driver's knee - it sucks air in over a thermistor to tell the Climate Control the temperature of the air in the cabin.

Could it have been that on it's way out ??

 

The shift lever makes an annoying continuous beep strung together when it is bumped out of park with the key in or out and the motor is not running. Check out this repair video of Sam1174 removing the shift surround, when he moves the shifter out of park at 1:11 mark you will hear the beep. Is this your mystery beep?

 

The closest thing I can think of is the sound the car makes when you turn the engine off and the transmission is not in (P)ark. You can try and turn the engine off with the transmission still in (N)eutral. On my car, there is a fast beep until I put the lever in (P)ark.

If the sound is in fact identical, it would seem to point to whatever switch detects the lever in the (P) position...

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

Two very interesting ideas, and maybe correct. I did some surfing last night and came upon links to S Type owners bitching about high pitched beeps. Besides the mainstream ideas of it being parking sensors, which mine doesn't have, the two other most popular were a/c and parking brake lever.

On reflection, the sensor for the interior climate air could be possible because the sound was coming from the dash, virtually in front of me. But I kept trying to block off the little speaker in the steering column to shut it up, to no avail. It doesn't work anyways. That climate sensor is very close. On the S Type sites it seemed to be more the actual a/c circuitry in the back. But this is very close physically and logically, so perhaps it is the climate sensor for some random unknown reason.

Now as to the parking brake lever, mine isn't functional to start with. When I first had it, there was no resistance at all. I automatically thought either the cable was badly stretched and out of adjustment or not hooked up at all. Of course it started to tell me the parking brake was on when it wasn't. Worked that damn lever a lot to make those messages disappear. Wasn't until I was surfing on here that I learned the push the button in while cranking it all the way and then let it back down. Even though there's nothing there, that trick worked. Never a brake message since. But since that is an unresolved issue in the car, it's possible that the Jag gremlins decided to throw me a curve ball another way on it.

So both ideas have distinct merit to follow up on. I thank you both. One nice thing is it seems this is an irritation issue as apposed to a warning the wheels will fly off or the motor blow up and shoot all the pistons through the hood.

So, since this is still in the very weird column, I'll do my best to forget about it for now, and see if it happens again. One other thought on the climate not sensor. I'm not a small man but neither am I whale sized. So when I was leaning forward to press every button I could find each time, I can't see how my size and bulk could affect that little input sensor on the dash in front of me.

One other note, all the sites I visited mentioned rapid, but not so rapid as to run together, beeps. As well, most where saying the beeps would come in sets of 5 or 6. That wasn't the case with mine. I happened across a YouTube audio of the beeps they were talking about. Hah, that wasn't a tenth as obnoxious and ear splitting than what my car gave me. And the beeps were very much slower and a few octaves lower.

It snowed late yesterday afternoon. Maybe it's some funky scream warning put out by the car, as in no no no, I don't like snow.

Once again, thank you both.

 

Re-reading your initial post, what about a leftover radar detector? Go to a shopping mall and park near these automatic door openers. They emit in the X band, same as the early police radars. Do you hear this beep "randomly" as you drive around, mostly around cities?

Just a thought, few of us are original owners...

 

I did consider the possibility of it being some sort of radar detector. It has some early edition blue tooth work-arounds in it because the original lame premium stereo unit was still in the dash. But I just let them be because I didn't want to dig around in the window pillars etc. As far as I can tell they aren't hooked up to anything in the car besides obviously a power hook up somewhere. I found what I assumed is the extra electrical box thingamajig doodad in the glove box which looks like it plugs into the phone they must've been using, or trying to use. I know this set up isn't wired into anything because there's a tiny little speaker on the left side where they must've run the wires along the top of the windshield from the probable receiver that's hanging out in the upper right corner. If I ever have to do open heart surgery in that area of the car I'll rip that stuff out then. Great addition for the landfill.

 

[QUOTE=RobXK8;1786193]
Then I was sitting in it again because it was pissing raining. Squealing started to get quiet, almost gone. Wow. Then it started getting ear splitting loud again. Took me a bit to figure out that happened when I leaned forward in the drivers seat. Did that a few times, each time it got real quiet. But that didn't last, went to squealing loud and proud again. Now my chime speaker is long fried out, so it's not that.

Could it be that one of the seat adjustment switches had been bumped, and then got stuck on, or could water have gotten into one of the seat adjustment switches, as you mention it was raining. The reason I ask is that you stated it got quieter when you leaned forward in the seat.

On my 2003, when you reach the 'end of travel' on any direction of seat adjustment, the motor shuts down, and every time you try to adjust it further in the same direction, it will only make a 'click' noise and not move, most likely due to a sensor in the under seat module, or maybe the sensor is in the seat itself to limit travel by cutting off the motor.

You have a 1997, so I do not know how your seats would react after the seat had reached it's 'travel limit'. On my Mercedes sunroof, I had a screeching noise begin after I put the key in and could not figure out what the hell was going on, it turned out to be the sunroof switch was stuck (plastic) slightly in the close position, three way switch, so the motor in the trunk was just screeching like a banshee because it did not have a sensor to tell the motor to shutoff when it hit a certain point, to keep the motor from burning up; when the sound started it came out of nowhere and scared the crap out of me, until I looked in trunk and saw the sunroof motor spinning. I moved it back into position and the screeching stopped.

Since I do not know if the '97 has travel limit sensing equipment or not, a quick test would be to go out and sit in your car and hold each switch until it reaches it's end of travel and see if you duplicate the sound on any of the switches; it could also only be infecting one switch so you would need to test them all. It could also be that one of the sensors was wet and not picking up that the seat was at it's limit.

 

Hi 03, I'm on the road right now using my phone, so I'm doing this from memory.

Yeah I was wondering about the seat because every time I leaned back it would start screeching again. But when I leaned forward, even with my blown ex bass players ears I could hear it still doing it's thing but at a very quiet (to me) level. Had thought it was something truly wierd with the seat back, that's too bizarre to contemplate because seat backs don't have alarms. So I have to discount that idea.

Your idea of a limiter sensor in the seat for actual physical travel I'm not sure about. Most mechanical systems like that are well, mechanical. It'll reach it's limit and stop. I suspect what you heard was a click cuz it reached it's physical end of travel. It would be very weird that Jag would put in a gear and sprocket mechanism in there but all things Jag are possible. Hense the click would be the sprocket skipping a cog. It would then stop due to an Jag type sensor that infests the vehicles all over. Don't get me started on all the damn modules.

I had to fix my own seat module, and when I did so I rammed the seat back as far as I could immediately to test if the fix worked. It did and it's stayed there since because I have long legs and Jags have pathetic leg room for someone like me.

So all in all, I'm ruling out the seat area entirely.

I can't recall from memory what else you said about the trunk etc. My apologies.

If you scroll up you'll see it's probably something dumb either with the climate sensor or damn, I can't remember the other now.

Very freaking bizarre that a car manufacturer would put in hidden alarms for reasons entirely unknown and probably way down on the scale of real trouble.

But thanks 03 for giving it a shot.

Now I'll go back to cursing at 4 wheelers that don't know how to find the go pedal in the mountains with snow on the road. I don't get paid by the hour.....