OK folks...here is my tale;

My 2002 XK8 has run flawlessly ever since I bought her. I left her with a detailer for two weeks and picked her up today. She started right up and drove fine. I went to post office, came out started her and was flagged down by a friend to chat. We were talking over her fan-tail when I noticed she was running rough to the point where she was about to shut herself down. I shut her down and continued to chat. Went back and she would not start. She sounded as if she was flooded and I re-tried. Of course all logic went out the window and I pumped the accelerator to see if that would help. She seemed to try to catch but to no avail.

Thoughts? Perhaps it is something stupid? Or something expensive...

Thanks in advance!

 

Unless the detailer put a few hundred miles on the car the first thing I would suspect is a weak battery. How old is the battery? Have you charged it? With all the electronics in these cars the starter may spin the engine but not leave enough volts to operate the computers.

Beyond that gotta look for MIL codes and/or further information.

 

Last I had the battery load tested it was fine. I assume it is still fine because the car started earlier and ran fine. Was on the road for about 45 minutes before this started...

 

it didn't run out of fuel while you left it running did it, I know it's obvious but when you're flustered it's easy to forget, also check the water level, there's a sensor in the header tank, when we rebuilt my XK8 we didn't put enough water in it , because of this the car wouldn't start, sounded like it was trying to but the ECU wouldn't let it, as soon as I topped it up it fired up fine.

sounds to me like the car has gone into some sort of overheating shut down mode

 

Any chance the detailer used something other than a rag and cleaner on the engine bay (if it got detailed also). If he pressure washed it, possibly water finally made into the coils after driving it for a little while. Just spouting off here for other avenues.