I recently bought my '05 STR from California (mostly sunny) and imported it into Vancouver BC (where it rains 5 days a week).

I'm getting nervous. Have read several posts about the STR in wet weather, and owners seem to have experienced many problems, often leading to limp-home. There have been many "cures" reported, including using only Premium gas, drying out throttle body, changing non-existent sensors, fitting a plastic bag over linkages, etc. Many of these "cures" have been properly criticised as being plain wrong, misleading and even "gibberish".

So, my question - what special maintenance or servicing steps should I take to minimize problems with my STR in wet weather? Other than leaving it in the garage.

 

My 2005 STR has never had any problems in any amount of rain. Remember you are only seeing problems posted. Nobody reports A-OK all systems go!!

There is a chance water can get to the throttle body thru the windshield wiper posts and you can search to find that. Jaguar even released a TSB noting the repair. The TSB is posted on this site if you want to look at it.

You can do a bit of testing in your drive way if really worried. Run a water hose over the hood/windshield area. Let it drain off for a couple of minutes. Open the hood and see if any water leaked down on the back of the engine. This is where the throttle body is and it does not like moisture!

But it's not a for sure problem to happen.
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Two VERY simple things..

Make absolutly sure that the connector on the throttle body is water tight.. Even go as far as taping it up.. Don't glue it... You may need to take it off some day..

Take a garden hose and run water down your windshield and look for water running onto the engine or throttle body from the cowl. Replace parts and reseal as necessary.

That should be the gist of it.. Some have gotten it back.. Other never have the problem.. but those two things tend to fix it up.

 

LOL Tbird.. Beat me...

 

Hot spit damn, this Forum is a veritable treasure-trove. Thank you!

 

We get quite a bit (*) of rain here and touch wood no problems with my car.

(*) British understatement!!

 

John, I knew we could depend on you for a well tested opinion on STRs and rain.

 

You are only going to see problems during the rain with the throttle positioning sensor already listed and water in the trunk if you get either you may have some problems. Good thing is both are usually cured with drying it out and either waterproofing the TPS like stated already or fixing whatever problem is causing water in the trunk.
Now an STR on ice thats a whole nother ballgame. Took me 4 hours to go 10 miles when coming home from Michigan around New Years because the highway turned into a skating rink. 400hp, all seasons, touchy throttle and brakes dont mix too well. Snow wasnt bad though.

 

I can say that the telltale for low screen wash reservoir works, too. Gets plenty of chances to come on! (Of course, we have to have powerwash with the HIDs so the water gets used up faster.)

 

Well, it happened. Was returning to Vancouver over a cross-mountain highway 2 days ago. The Jag glided beautifully up a 5000-ft mountain road with hardly a whisper. Just after the summit, a truly massive rainstorm hit, and even with wipers on at double-speed I had trouble seeing ahead. Never experienced anything like it before, but it only lasted a minute or so, then became a mild drizzle.

One minute later, exactly as described by Bull27, Jon89 and others on this forum, red light went on, "Engine Systems fault", "Park brake error" and "DCS not available" were all displayed and car went into Limp Home mode. All at 7.30 pm on a Sunday night, with minimal cell-phone reception. No change after 30 minutes of limping followed by a trial re-start.
Anyone care to guess the cost of towing the STR 200 miles on a Sunday night?

By the time we arrived at my Jag shop it was 1 am, and all error messages had disappeared, but the CEL was still on. Car seemed fine, but I left it there. Next morning, the CEL was also off. Error code 2135 indicated TPS problem. Mechanic found moisture in the TPS switch, cleaned, dried and reassembled it.

Car seems fine 150 km later but, based on everything I've read here, it will happen again unless the throttle body connection is taped/sealed and the switch also waterproofed. So, some of the good things I had planned for the STR will be postponed until the waterproofing is done and my faith is restored. Is there anything else I should be doing at this time?

I have to agree that Jaguar's test is too sensitive to justify an immediate limp home mode without warning. And how, exactly, is the park brake affected by a TPS problem. As a matter of fact, the park brake was working perfectly during limp home, despite the message.

The good news was that I persuaded the tow truck driver to drop me home after the car was delivered. Then he set out on the 5 hour return trip.

 

Ewwww... So sorry. Man, that sucks. Look on the bright side, if there is one. You know what it is, and didn't have someone sell you a very expensive throttle body for no reason. Don't worry, it won't take much for someone good with automotive wiring to seal up the connector. But remember you are just fixing a symptom. The real fix is to test where exactly through the cowl water is getting through. That is what will make the first repair permanent. It is strange how a few cars suffer from this and others never have an issue..

 

The cowls are apparently made of the same lousy plastic contained in the coolant expansion tanks. Our cowl (along with our throttle body) was replaced under warranty in May 2009 after my wife's one and only experience with limp home mode. Now that replacement cowl shows signs of warping where it seals against the windshield. I'm going to try to straighten it out by heating it because I do not want to pay Jaguar's exhorbitant price for yet another new one. If I cannot straighten it, I will seal it....

 

JOsworth, thanks for the sympathy. The towing cost was indeed less than the price of a throttle body, but not much!

Jon89, I checked the seal between the windscreen and the cowl and it was non-existent. Was able to easily slide a small screwdriver blade under the edge of the seal and lift it up along the entire length of the windscreen. So, will fix that with silicone in addition to waterproofing the TB connection and the TPS.

 

Robinb,

Before you go making a mess, which in the long run will only delay a reoccurrence, fabricate a shield to shed the water away from the throttle body and TPS. Use some tough plastic, like an antifreeze jug, and make a flap to tuck under the plastic cowl and fold back under the crossbar it attaches to. Any water that migrates through the screw holes lands on the shedder and bypasses the TPS. Sounds tacky, but it works.........permanently.

My two cents.......

 

A fella named Tomtom4049 on the Roadfly forum suggested the following.

I've done this and not had a problem since.

Your Jaguar's problem is actually a pretty easy one. As you pointed out water is they key with yours. This issue has been discussed on FixYa. If you look at the bottom edge of the windshield on the passenger's side there a black plastic cowl under the windshield wipers. You will likely find a sizable gap between the glass and the cowl. The cowl isn't "laying down" against the windshield. Raise the hood. Follow the path with your finger down the glass and under the cowl and continue down. Beneath this you will find the back edge of the engine computer protrudes into the engine compartment, mounted from the inside the car at an upward angle about 45 degrees. There is a large connector on it. Water is running down under the cowl and making it's way onto this connector contaminating the connections and/or actually entering the computer. I removed my wiper arms and then the cowl to have a look at it. One thing you can do is extrude a long strip of clear silicone close to the top edge under the cowl to give it a good seal against the windshield. When water doesn't go behind the cowl it is diverted away from the computer by the cowl. I elected to put a long piece of flexible plastic under the cowl on mine to act as a secondary diverter. This acts as a roof over this area and it is held in place by the cowl. After reassembly I sprayed a health dose of lithium grease on the connector for the computer and on top of the computer above the connector as water a repellant. I haven't had the problem for months now. I've found the messages displayed on the digital readout are not always accurate or even germane to every single problem. I'm my case I simply found it highly unlikely that my Dynamic Stability Control, Cruise Control, and Transmission all failed at the same moment. Perhaps if my car was hit by lightening but that isn't the case. This was a strange place to mount the computer as most are completely inside cars and certainly NOT mounted at an angle like this. If the problem ever does resurface I plan on cutting another piece of that flexible plastic I have and literally glueing it to the firewall like a lean-to roof that keeps the computer covered as well as the connector and wiring going to it. When you take the wipers off make sure you run them until they are straight up and quickly turn the key off so they stay put. Take a digital photo of their position so you can put the arms back on in the same position they came off. The nut holding the arms on is under the little flip-up covers at the base of the arms. The mission here is simple, stop water from getting to the computer and the connector. For the record, water does not cause a "short circuit". If you take a puddle of water and place ohm meter probes in it you won't see any resistance. Water messes with capacitors capacitance making signals and voltages do weird things, frequencies go high or low and out of their proper operating range. All other components are sealed, IC's, Transistors, resistors, coils, and chokes. Caps are a different animal and don't play nice when wet. Short circuits actually damage circuitry permanently. If your's shorted out the car would never move from that spot until the computer was replaced.

 

Well.... that describes a fix for a different problem (one that has been documented in detail here a couple of times at least, with the fix). Here we're talking about the TPS connector/sensor, which the above won't fix.

It's worth doing the right fix for the right problem, which may mean doing both if you're unlucky!

 

Thank you to everyone who has offered such valuable advice. I do now believe that after I do all the things discussed, this problem may be solved once and for all.