First of all let me thank you all for the wealth of information you are providing to forum members.

I am not new or the Jaguar scene since I had a beautiful Daimler V8 from 2000. My non Jaguar shop replaced everything from gearbox to heater pump and solenoid. And much more. Unfortunately I trashed it running into a very small wall about 20cm high when the sun was so deep and bright I overlooked it.

Anyway, since I am more into airplanes then cars I got myself a beautiful XJ from 2005 (2004?) V8 4.2 and I already love it.

Now my question: I have a problem with the air suspension which I suspect is only a calibration problem (read everything in the forum about it) and PDC is on failure mode. I suspect a faulty sensor. All that detailed information in this thread is sooo great but also a bit confusing.

Could you please tell me which tester/programmer/software would be the right one for me to test and calibrate the functions of the car. And what the approximate costs are. My shop would also be extremely thankful if I would provide them with some valid means of testing since what they work on is more or less an universal tool if I understand correctly.

Thanks again for all your contributions to the forum

Eberhard from Germany

 

Welcome to the site;
An inexpensive reader is a must, the icarsoft i930 is an inexpensive Jaguar specific reader.
It is small enough to keep in the glove box, they also make better ones
I have a Launch VII+, from before, which is a good reader, for cars in general.
But other than basic emission type read & clear info, not near as useful on Jaguars as the i930.
I keep one in each car, switching the i930 back & forth.to the car needing it, at the time.

 

Hello Eberhard,

Welcome to the Jaguar Forums! It's great to have you with us!

You will find some helpful information in the following posts. In the second post, Cambo explains how to calibrate the ride height of your car using SDD, the Jaguar dealer-level diagnostic software, with either a Ford VCM or Drew Technologies Mongoose vehicle communications interface cable (VCI):

Air Suspension & ECATS System Summary: Components & Operation

How to Lower Your X350

I do not know whether the iCarsoft i930 has the capability of calibrating the air suspension but perhaps Wingrider can tell us.

Cheers,

Don

 

It does not.

 

Great help and thanks a lot. Of course I have already read the posts Don mentioned but that still leaves me with the question where to obtain the relevant hard and software from. If you could point me into the right direction I would very much appreciate.
The hint towards the icarsoft i930 as a cheap and easy everyday tool is a really good idea and for sure I will start with that. Even if it might not give me access to the suspension calibration

 

The i930 is really easy to use.

The JLR SDD software is at the opposite end of the spectrum as far as I am concerned as I am having a great deal of trouble loading it right now!

Even when I had it running it takes a while to get running and is in no way intuitive!

It is however the only reasonably priced "tool" to use for reprogramming anything.

 

The i930 is an inexpensive (cheap) Jaguar specific reader.
NO PROGRAMMING with it though.
But it can read & clear a lot of Jaguar codes that other readers can't,
A good small reader.in a nice pouch to keep in the cars glove box

 

An update on my SDD diagnostic setup. Posted most of this in another thread also. As noted, some failures of clones may not be the clones fault:

THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG!
The SDD set you indicate is the one I have. I have the calibration files installed. However it does not have them for my 2004 VDP. I am guessing it will not have them for any of the similar year VDPs. Since Iuse 130.03 Topix is not necessary.
There are many VCIs out there. The specific one I have is the JLR VCI from Diagnostic Associates, it is not a clone. It is the most current one approved by Jaguar, before the new internet capable one. I am using 130.03 although I did get the interface driver for the JLR VCI from version 159. I had Diagnostic Associates send me their recommended driver however it did not work.With this setup I can do all programming, even a none communicating ECM was brought back to life!
Since I intended to program modules I wanted the device that would most likely succeed. I tried to get non-clone Davins, Mongoose or VCM from the original manufacturers however neither produce them any more, I did not want to get a clone. A used non-clone would work if you can find one that is really OEM equipment - they are almost impossible to tell apart. My understanding is that the Mongoose must be the the original version not the Mongoose Pro if you are working on pre 2005 cars. The same goes for the DAVINA - A Davina 2 will not work. The bus structure on the vehicles changed between the two years.
Early on in my learning experience I purchased a Chinese clone Davina - The Davina was one of the original ones approved by Jaguar. It did not work for me. There are a number of reasons that could be: Driver not correct, Non-functional unit or bad CAN bus in my car. I do not have another car to try it on. One day I will try it again with the extended knowledge I now have. IT IS POSSIBLE A LOT OF CLONE PROBLEMS ARE BAD BUS RELATED! The car will run properly with a bad bus until it is too bad to continue. I have two shorted modules on my vehicle but it still functions without any problems.
Modules, theoretically, can not be programmed with a bad bus I found a way around that. However that is a different story.
A stabilized power supply is an absolute necessity for programming. A battery charger is not sufficient. Even when getting into full diagnostics the power supply will stop erroneous faults showing up. I set mine to 14.2v as the best setting. The A to D converters in the modules are not very accurate. I have two modules that read 16.1v when reality is less than 15v. They put themselves off line when they get to 16.2 to protect from burnout. Also anything less than full battery voltage will start to drop out modules. Somewhere between 12.2 and 12.4v I loose REM and FEM. There is a timer in each module that lets it run at lower voltage for a short time - so they function during start up until the alternator gets things up and running. If it stays low they will go off line and operate in default mode.
Nuf for now!

 

The Mongoose Pro JLR is the only genuine mongoose that drewtech made for these cars. Good luck finding one

real rotunda VCMs are pretty easy to find, wouldn’t pay more than 250 to 300 bucks. Try and find one that has all the cables intact, the main OBD link gets manhandled a lot. Use two hard drives to boot between IDS118 and SDD130.

 

Just as there was a Davina and Davina 2 there was also a Mongoose and Mongoose Pro.

The first ones approved by Jaguar were:

Jaguar Land Rover-approved VCI Devices
MODEL PART NUMBER PRICE (USD)*
Diagnostic Associates DA-VINA JLR-DAPN0031 $630.95*
Diagnostic Associates DA-Dongle JLR-DAPN0021 $367.38*
Drewtech Mongoose JLR-MONGOOSE-VCI $569.06*
Teradyne iView JLR-iVIEW-VCI $1,295.00*
*Shipping, handling, tax not included

I looked for a used VCM when I was deciding which way to go. At the time the only one I could find offered in NA was one the seller did not know if it was working! Anything else was not guaranteed to be a genuine VCM. As noted some of the clones are virtually impossible to tell from the real thing. The Davina clone(Davina not Davina2) I purchased is an exact replica of the genuine one except if I log on to the Diagnostic Associates site to update the sw. It does update successfully however when reading back the version installed it has not written that to the chip.

 

I was lucky to source a Mongoose Pro from Drew Tech a few years ago on sale.

I also have three HDDS with different versions of SDD loaded. Two laptops one spare. I purchased broken laptops and repaired them. 2.5 Ghz or better Intel Duo Processors.

The battery maintainer was the most expensive item!

 

Same, I scored a legit Rotunda VCM, Rotunda VMM kit and I run IDS 117.5 (engineering) and SDD 149 on a Panasonic C30 laptop w/ WIN7 pro - each is split on a virtual HDD.

And yes, 100a battery maintainer was expensive but an absolute necessity when flashing modules.

 

you don’t even need half that amperage. you can build one from a server power supply for $30

engine driven power supply also works fine if you’re flashing something that takes forever

 

I built my first X350 power maintainer from a 50-amp computer power supply, and it worked fine for diagnostics with SDD. However, because it ran at just over 12 volts output, the SDD battery monitor remained yellow (instead of green) and the low voltage prevented programming routines from running. 50-amp computer supplies with adjustable output of 10-14 volts are available, but at higher prices.

When I found a used Midtronics PS-550 on eBay for less than $100.00, I bought it and love it for its very low ripple and steady 13.6 volts, closer to typical alternator output, and it is capable of supplying up to 55 amps. This is the unit Jaguar required dealerships to use and for good reason.

Use a power supply with less than 50-amp current capacity at your own risk.

Cheers,

Don

 

I'll stick with my 100a power supply with digital display to dial in 13.6V with low ripple.

Last thing I want is to screw up someone's module with a cheapie $30 server power supply.

 

you need to force it to output more than 12V, on the delta dps-700 you can do it with one shorting wire

 

I also firstly bought a cheapie chinese so-called "stabilised" 50 A power supply on ebay because of the high price of the Midtronics PS-550.
As it seemed damaged, I opened it and that was the crap discovered inside:



Not only the fabrication quality was awful, but no way it could really stabilise 50 Amps.

I then was lucky to find an Astron VS-50M.
That's professional stuff, weighs 23 kg and will do the job!



More info on the stabilised power supplies when using SDD here:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ds-sdd-172531/

 

Hi all can someone confirm what are the only and 1000% working vci interfaces for IDS, for cars from 1999 until 2007 for example, specially x type year 2002 , is teradyne and ford rotunda the only option i want to work with IDS, and specially older cars, no need to universal or chinese scanners, just to work with ids, ? also i cant understand if i have ssd + ids software can ids software work with J2534?
currently i have scan matik 2 pro clone,
open port 2.0 original
bosch mts 6531,
vcx se doip all licenses including for ssd, jlr,

rotunda and teradyne are almost impossible to find.
any other alternative interface cable ?

 

elfer posted
rotunda and teradyne are almost impossible to find.
any other alternative interface cable ?

Genuine Mongoose cable, bit they are also very hard to find

 

Hi elfer,

I can't answer all of your questions, but I can tell you that the setup that works for me on vehicles of that vintage is IDS/SDD version 131.03 running in a Windows XP Virtual Machine on an old Lenovo Windows 7 laptop. For a VCI, I use a genuine Drew Technologies JLR Mongoose cable. When I first started with IDS/SDD, I used a Chinese Mongoose clone cable, and it actually worked, but operations were slower than with the genuine Drew Tech cable. Some of our members have had poor results from clone cables. At one point, I purchased a genuine Ford VCM as a backup, but I never even set it up because the genuine Mongoose has worked so well.

I have newer versions of SDD that run faster, but IDS/SDD version 131.03 automatically reverts from SDD to IDS when connected to older vehicles. The newer versions of SDD that I have do not revert to IDS and may not work on older vehicles.

You don't mention what kinds of operations you want to perform, but since the X-Type is based on the Ford Mondeo, you may find that a good bidrectional scan tool that works well with European Ford vehicles may have the capabilities you seek.

Cheers,

Don