My 1996 XK8 Coupe has a 12-14 way connector in the boot doing nothing. It's located under the boot latch and has some tape over it. According to the wiring diagram the Adaptive Damping Module is supposed to be there. Is this a non-fitted option or has some previous owner taken it out?

Screenshot of diag.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-X...3_17-50-10.png

Thanks.
Paul.
PS sorry to post so many posts; the XK is new to me and I'm spending time fixing things and getting to know it.

 

Since it is covered I tape, I would wager that the previous owner has removed it.

Do you also have unused wires under the bonnet around the top of the shocks? It is a small 2 wire connection.

 

I was under impression that only the XKR had adaptive shocks until introduction of the 4.2. My 97 owners manual makes no mention of it.

 

The connector is a long narrow one. 2 pins wide by maybe 10 or 12 long (it's been a while since I looked at it).

Is that what you see taped up in the boot?

 

A determined owner will find several unused connectors in their vehicle! For example, the telephone harness connector under the centre console is on all vehicles but very few were fitted with phones.

To lower production costs, instead of different harnesses for each specification, Jaguar used a harness with all the option connectors regardless of whether a particular vehicle had them fitted or not.

Graham

 

The tops of the front shocks have two cables coming out. To me this means electrically adjustable shocks are fitted. There's no errors from the onboard computer.

 

When this module is removed no error codes are shown. In fact they are often removed when errors in the damping system occur and can't easily be fixed. If you need one, I have a good spare you can have for $40 plus postage.

 

One downside of removing the module but not changing out the shocks is that the shocks will be permanently in the firm mode, so ride quality can suffer somewhat.

 

I do think the ride is quite firm and the sport button doesn't make the handling feel any different. Wonder why it was removed...