My wife and I just got our first XK8 this week. It's a 1998 model, just 70k miles, and it's purple. Very pretty car, but I never thought I'd see a purple Jaguar. And for anyone who knows, what exactly does Jag call that color?

Anyway, on the way home, we went to set the cruise control and as soon as you turn the cruise on, you get the yellow warning light and "ENGINE FAIL SAFE MODE" appears. Cut the cruise off, cut the car off, restart and the message goes away. Anyone know what this might be?

Everything else works, and we love the car. My wife has named it "Toothless" after the principal character in the movie "How To Train Your Dragon," as the front end of the car looks just like the creature's face...lol.

Jess

 

Would you believe the switch behind the brake-pedal that tells the car the brake is being applied often causes this very thing? Strange, but true!

 

Open the driver's side door (US) and look at the label on the door jamb. There are 2 three letter codes for paint and interior trim. Google Jaguar paint codes and you will find many lists with the color name.

Or post them here and the forum will answer.

 

+1 on the codes

Purple is a rare colour on an XK8.

In 1998/99 Jaguar listed a purple under the name of Amaranth Pearl. If your Paint Code is KDK, it is Amaranth Pearl.

Graham

 

That's probably it. Cars.com has a list of the color names but doesn't cross-check to the codes, and "Amaranth" is on their list. I'll look in the door the next time I go out.

Jess

 

We just noticed the center brake light is completely non-functioning ... maybe the switch? Hoping it would kill two birds with one stone.

Jess

 

Its the switch, there's several threads in this forum dealing with its replacement. Get the part, remove seat (so you can squeeze under the dash to get it) and replace it. Its bolted to the firewall, pain in the butt...there's a secret tip to just removing the top half of the switch and not pulling it off the firewall, that worked MUCH better for me. Get the new switch from your dealer, and you'll see what we mean.

 

Well, it's not the switch. (g)

We replaced it, and while we haven't had a recurrence of the cruise control/engine fault issue, the eye-level brake light is still kaput.

What are the odds the entire brake light went out all at once? And where (besides the dealer) can we procure replacements?

Jess

 

There have been many reports of trunk lights not working on sedans, and they all ended up being due to a broken wire in the group that follows the hinge. I would look there.

 

Both of my XK8 convertibles had a broken wire at the trunk hinge when the cars were purchased. On the first one I correctly pulled the harness out, pulled the wire out of the loom and soldered, crimped butt joint spliced it, covered with shrink wrap and reinstalled in an undamaged loom.

The last one was under warranty and I took it to the dealer for repair.

The tech cut the sleeve open at the hinge, spliced the wire and taped the sleeve back together. Made me angry.

 

The LED unit itself can also fail. There are several threads on replacing the LEDs with an aftermarket LED bar or you can repair it like I did mine with new superbright LEDs and some time with the soldering iron.

 

Thanks for the idea; however, in the coupe model, the eye-level light is mounted in the rear deck inside the car and is not affiliated with a trunk hinge.

I am guessing, as the previous poster said, that we've simply had a LED bar fail. And of course, Jag is quite proud of replacement parts.

Jess

 

Sorry about that, I didn't realize you had a coupe. Not many in the US.

 

In a coupe, the assembly is two pieces, a cover and the light itself. It just pulls up but the plastic can be brittle in its old age.

There are two lock tabs on the bottom (black squares) that when pressed up should release the cover part. Once that's off, there is a small two wire connector that unplugs and the light is held in by two tabs on the glass and spring clips on the light assembly.

I found that pressing down on the package tray on either side of the light housing can take some of the pressure off and make it easier to get out.

When the brakes are on there should be +12V and ground on those two wires. That way you could rule out a wiring problem before tearing into the light bar.

 

A lady in my large garage has a "purple" coupe and as I recall she said it was called "Eggplant".

 

Brakelight switch is one place to look (bamboo skewers are helpful when replacing it, made my job a 1/2 hour affair). It is a very simple device, if you are handy you an simply replace the micro switches inside the housing and save some money. The cruise control cuts off when you hit the brakes and gets this signal from a switch housed within an assembly that also contains the brake light switch - two separate systems, actually.

However, cruise control and ABS are electronically related to each other and an ABS fault will trigger a yellow warning light. Thus, a failing ABS controller might be behind this problem - it was in my case. An easy and inexpensive fix, I had mine rebuilt by Module Masters (Module Masters > Home) and a lot of niggling electrical problems cleared up in addition to the one you describe.