Driving along the westbound 101 right at the intersection of the 405 freeway (the busiest freeway intersection in the world), yesterday afternoon, in rush hour traffic with the temperature still close to the 114 degree high for the day in the San Fernando Valley, I noticed that my traction/ASC light started flashing a warning. I wasn't overly worried as after all it's a Jaguar, and all Jaguars have this warning at sometime or another, and I had had this many times in the past just not anytime recently. As we were in stop and go mode, I decided to turn ignition off and restart in the hope of resetting the warning. Big mistake! Car was completely dead and would not start. Here I am in the second lane from the center, with several hundred thousand cars behind me, and I can't move. I called AAA from my perch, and after being put on hold for about 10 minutes (with people behind me honking their horns and swearing), as the dispatcher gets to the phone, finally, I tried cranking the motor and sure enough it starts, I hung up the phone, and high tailed it to the next exit a couple of hundred yards in front of me. I limped along in 5th gear (car was stuck in 5th) for about a mile to my uncle's house (where I was headed originally), turned into his driveway to make a u-turn and park on the street, and of course, the car stalled in the driveway. Dead again. Called AAA again, and 30 minutes later as the driver was just pulling around the corner, I tried starting the car, and lo and behold, it started and I drove it up the ramp of the truck. I suspected a bad battery or alternator as the source of all the problems as I had never had reason to replace either in 60,000 miles of driving since I bought the car. It turns out, it was a fried alternator, rebuilt one installed today as well as a few hoses replaced, a couple of front tires, etc. Car was delivered back to me this evening, and although I haven't driven it, my mechanic said all codes gone, all systems go. I'm still trying to figure out how I was able to start the car twice after it was completely dead as when we put a meter to it, it registered about 8 volts!

 

Sounds as if the extreme heat finally took its toll on your alternator. If the air temperature was 114, I'll bet the asphalt temperature was 160 or more. Being stuck on the freeway in stop-and-go mode combined with the radiating asphalt heat cooked your goose. Glad you were eventually able to get off the freeway safely....

Do you have your plastic alternator cooling duct in place underneath your oil filter? I'll bet it didn't help one bit....

 

Hey Ted--one of the "perks" of living in this wonderful city. Like our landing at LAX late Friday night returning from a vacation and first encountering snarled/stand-still traffic at the airport and then coming to a screeching halt (along with hundreds of other drivers) on the 405 due to closure at Santa Monica forcing a messy detour through the pothole ridden streets.

Doug

 

The alternator cooling duct wouldn't help if sitting in freeway traffic. After being in the power electrical business for 35 years I can tell you that rotating equipment (motors & generators) aren't designed the way they were in the early days. With the advent of computer aided design, electrical equipment has very little overload capacity designed into them. I get the feeling that the alternator on the XK's were borderline and the engineering staff decided to add the cooling duct as a cheap fix rather than adding $$$ to a redesign of the alternator.

 

I don't believe the plastic alternator cooling duct helps even while driving 85 mph....

 

Update! I drove the car all over the place, today and outside of having to reset the windows, an easy task, car behaved as if nothing had ever happened, all codes gone, tranny back to shifting properly, no warning lights...It might help to have a voltmeter or a non charging system warning light that could give a heads up before total failure leaves one stranded.

 

Sounds like another "Real Gauge" job for superman!