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Managed to sort mine without too much dismantling, and I put the cause down to purely too much crud in the linear switch, possible the spilt coffee of a previous owner.
After removing the centre console it's possible to undo three small torx screws which hold the cover on the side of the linear switch, then pull back the cover sufficiently to squirt a good quantity of switch cleaner into the lower part of the LSM. I screwed mine all back together and it's worked fine for hundreds of miles now.
Appreciate that this may not work for everyone, but at zero cost it's worth trying before shelling out money on new parts.
The blinking P and Sport switch light out problem is back. I threw a new S switch at the problem, $175, to no avail. Intermittent operation still. Sometimes on, sometimes off.
FINALLY figured out the problem: When I threw the shifter into Park, often the S light would go out at the same time. Tore into the shifter again today and figured that the shock of hitting the stop was moving the little white spring loaded plastic disk to hit the microswitch. The one that enables the manual shifting side. (See pix)
To confirm, I pushed the little disc forward til it activated the microswitch and the red S light went out. Then I turned the ignition off and on again TWICE and each time, the S light would come back on on the second ignition twist. Pressing the white disc forward to make the micro switch click turned out the S light.
I repeated this ten times to make sure and it did the exact same thing each time.
Do I need a new micro switch, adjust the spring loaded white disc, or a whole new shifter assembly?
I have finally isolated my problem ( I think) with the intermittent "S" Light and flashing D. After changing the LSM, actual "S" switch and both micro switches in the shifter assembly and still having the problem, I started messing with the multiple wiring harnesses around the assembly.
The actual connector (gray) that snaps into the LSM from the right front of the assembly has a broken locking pin and looks generally mangled.
While the system was working (intermittently) I manipulated that connector and it's wires and the "S" light went out. I did this several times and finally think this is the problem: a broken wire or the actual wire connection into the connector.
Does anyone have the portion of the wiring harness with that gray connector to the LSM? I want to cut the bundle and attach a good conector and reconnect all the wires, because I can't see how to get into that small connector to repair it..
My car is a 2003 XKR, X100. The connector is in the upper right corner of the attached pic. And the connector with the pen tip pointing towards in the diagram.
This one seems to be the very commonly used in this car's electronic AMP (TE Conectivity) Multilock 070 12-pin. AMP Part-# should be 173851-1. The contacts have to be ordered separately, depending on the wire-size.
You can get it from mouser.com or several other distributors, here in Germany RS-Components or Farnell.
The nice thing with this Part's is that you can remove the contacts with the special unlock tool or a very! small screwdriver and replace the housing or single defective contacts.
After chasing this gremlin for almost two years, I finally ordered up a new Multilock connector and pins from Mouser and cut off the old connector and replaced it. Just did this yesterday. Works perfectly now..
After throwing a grand of parts and labor at the problem, it was just a loose rickety connector. Don't even want to think of how much of my own time I spent.
These cars.....
Cheers and thanks for all the input and advice esp @neatcat
Evan
Congrat's and glad to see that you've worked it out now. These electrical Gremlins can drive you mad, if you let them do...
I had similar problems with an Airbag-Connector in the Seat, throwing Errors from time to time. But this was due to corrosion, I think. The connector on your pic's seems a little bit 'mangled', maybe by a rough repair of the previous owner...
waaaah! mine just did this tonight, when I shift from P to D, the letter is flashing red, and the shifter definitely doesn't firmly "click" into place...I fear if I put it in D, it will pop to N at any second...so I drove with my hand keeping it at the D position just in case...
got home ok, BUT interior lights don't come on, (footwell, map light, dome lights, sterring wheel won't adjust, alarm doesn't come on, and yes, it's a new battery...BUT, it was in the custom shop for a week sitting...so not driven regularly...Could that have caused gremlins?
Started up fine when they moved it a few hours ago, no lag...just weird soft shifter and no lights and alarm, etc...gonna get it checked on Tues...
let it rest for an hour, went outside, started the car, and the lights on the Jgate are normal, S button is lit, and shift feel from P to D is normal. ugh. is it safe to drive like this?
i have holiday planssssss
Seen from the technical aspect, the flashing letter shows an error via Can-bus from the trans-control box. Drawn together with the other symptoms, IMHO your car's electronic-modules might have been confused by a low battery voltage, bad connection to the battery or something, that happened during the shop's work like shorting a connector or so.
Think of it, like your PC has crashed, as these car's, like any more modern ones, ARE computers with wheels...
Maybe, everything has gone to normal now magically, but to be sure, you should at least check the battery connectors for firmness and eventualy the new battery's condition in a shop, before going on a trip.
There's also a procedure of doing a hard-reset with the car by unconnecting the battery and shorting the two battery-cables, that are connected to the car. This unloads capacitors in the car's electronic and the modules loose power and reset. But please be carefully:
DON'T SHORTEN THE BATTERY ITSELF!!!
A symptom, that i can't really imagine, is your description of the J-Gate's lever handling. From my point of view, it isn't even possible, that the transmission reacts like loosing a gear on a manual trans would feel. But maybe I'm on the wrong track and one of the other members can chime in...
Nevertheless appreciate your fantastic car and have a nice trip,
they replaced the headliner, and literally took apart the car to wrap it...so who knows how long the battery was disconnected. the interior dome (map) lights come on when i manually push them. no vanity lights, no footwell, no rear ceiling dome, no alarm still.
I drove it today for about 15-20 miles, at start, the S button lit up. gears to D firmly clicked and all seemed normal, then the S went off maybe after 10 miles? and to be safe, I held the shifter at D while driving as it was loose...
No amber warning lights ever appear...
so you are saying that a hard reset could possibly fix this and the electrical shifter thingey>? Hoping to get an answer from my mechanic on Tues
Yes, i would first try the reset, check battery-connectors and battery-voltage, as it is for free and couldn't harm. But remember that you've to relearn the windows, after batterie was disconnected.
Beside of this, we don't know, wich parts of the car's interior were disassembled during the shop's work. If the center-console was taken out, it could also be possible, that the connector to the J-gate, that is described in this thread before, got loose or damaged. But in the headliner-area itself is AFAIK no Canbus-device, so i can't see a relationship to the error's you got.
If your mechanic is able to read the error-codes from the car with the Jaguar diagnostics (SDD), this could be much of a help.
Short story beside of this: After I changed the rear shocks on my XKR, i got a suspension-error. OK, take the shocks out again, much fiddly work, and check connectors - everything OK. WTF? Solution: Connector on the suspension-module in the trunk was slightly corroded, pull out - put in -Problem gone...
Hello lads, I had the same problem. In my case the problem was the gearbox, the break (I don't know how it's called) between the third and the forth gear. So basically every time I was pushing the gas pedal between those two gears the car generated an error and then got the blinking light and then the car was driving like heavy (sorry for my not technical language, I'm more a software than a hardware guy).
The cost of a gearbox rebuild is about $3800 in Miami, but the guy from the gearbox shop told me that the car is working well so his suggestion is waiting until the gearbox stop working, because at the end of the day, the cost will be the same.
This is what I do until now:
1. Select sport mode on.
2. I put the key in contact (the position right before starting the engine), if the sport mode doesn't goes on, I put the key back in off mode and repeat the process. Once the sport mode light goes on, turn the engine on.
3. I use manual mode (which I definitely prefer) and never accelerate during the 3rd to 4th gear transition.
With this process I never got the blinking light again for about a year. BUT, the problem is still there, the gearbox has to be fixed. I was putting some money aside for this fixing since last year, so I can fix it as soon as the gearbox stop working. This is important because that something that I will have to do earlier or later.
NOTE: If you are using the car in manual and you want to select R (rear) you will get or a blinking light or the sport mode light will turns off. That's normal, just turn the car off and on again and voila. Solved! If for some reason during this process the car doesn't want to start again, don't worry, it's because you got a message in the computer. Just connect your OBDII reader and delete all previous error messages, the car will run again properly.
Just wanted to add to this thread in case anyone runs into this problem. I was having the issue where when I tried using the J-Gate manual shift on my 2003 XKR the "D" would start flashing and Sport mode light would turn off. I did everything this thread recommended with cleaning the Linear Switch, after cleaning and adjustment I gave up and put the car back together. The issue continued until I thought to myself lets try using the J-gate without sport mode engaged, and it worked! and then while in second gear on the j-gate, I engaged sport mode (illuminate the button) I didn't get any flashing "D" or such. Maybe some computer had to reset or something? IDK if this was what fixed my issue for right now or the cleaning/adjustment or a combination of the two. but now everything seems like it works as intended
06-18-2016, 12:45 PM
Easily sorted - for me anyway.
