Hi Guys and Guyesses,
I'm experiencing a fault with my 1995 XJ6 3.2 (X300) which lives with me in England (RHD). I'm hoping that if I write everything down it will jog a memory somewhere.
It all began round about the end of March this year. I had bought the Jag on eBay for £950 which may sound like a bad move but I wasn't all that silly. I had contacted a few Jaguar forums both here and in the US to ask about what kind of things to watch and listen for when buying a car of this age.
The car came with lots of documentation including 11.5 months worth of M.O.T. and full service history, most of it main dealer stamps, from day one to about 105K. That was about 4,000 miles since.
I went to see the car in Manchester which is about 30 miles from where I live and took a test drive of 40 miles or so. The guy must have thought I was nuts because, when he was driving, I was scooting about with my head down as close to the wheels and diff as I could get to listen for any strange noises (there were none)
I was happy that the car ran really smoothly and that everything worked including the 2 alarm fobs and keys. The only thing that I was disappointed about was that this model didn't have Cruise control. The panel was there but the Cruise controls were blanked off.
So I bought the car and the seller and a friend drove to my house in 2 cars, I paid the balance and they drove away. Job done.
The car sat there on the drive for about 10 days, unused. Mostly because it was boxed in by our other car which is a Nissan that does 50+ MPG, lol
But then #1 son and his family came for a visit and we decided to take the Jag (you do, don't you?) We all got in and she fired up first bash with a really healthy sounding starter turn over. We got where we were going to eat and it was a fantastic drive. So far, everything was perfect.
So now we are leaving the pub and I pressed the button on the fob to unlock the doors and turn off the alarm. Nothing happened. I tried again with the same result. So, having read the manual, I knew that I could use the key in the door to unlock it and then turn the key in the ignition until the alarm stopped beeping. So I did that. We all got in the car and I went to activate the starter and nothing happened. Nothing at all. The red and orange warning lights had illuminated when I first turned the key and then a lot of them had gone out but when I turned the key to engage the starter, no sound at all. Not even the sound of a tired battery trying to turn the engine over.
The good news was that as part of my insurance cover, I was fully protected for breakdowns. Some guy would be along soon who would either fix my car or tow us home so there's no panic at this stage. Meanwhile, I have gone round the back and opened the boot lid to get my walking frame out (I'm disabled) and everybody else is out of the car and walking back to the pub. As I move away from the car, I bleeped the Alarm button and it worked. Somehow, my head registered that fact and told me that something strange had just happened. Just for the hell of it, I got back in the car, turned the key and she fired up like nothing had ever been wrong. I honked for the kids and we drove home in style without a trace of anything ever having been amiss.
But the damage was done.
My wife and I both knew that if we drove anywhere in the Jag, there was never a guarantee that she (the car) would start up for the return journey.
The thing is, there is a reason for me wanting a Jag and, apart from this niggle, THIS Jaguar was our ideal car.
Here are a few pictures just to prove my point.







So, with the car parked in our drive and after asking loads of questions on various car forums, I did a few experiments to try to figure out what was wrong. I should maybe say at this point that I am not now, nor have I ever been, any kind of car mechanic, but I can follow directions .... usually, lol
I took the "J" gate apart to correctly align the Park solenoid just to make sure that the gear selector is recognised as being in Park and that a red "P" glows when the stick is moved to Park when attempting to start the car.
I bought myself an Auto Multi meter and followed the instructions offered on one forum to test the battery. It wasn't a basket case but it wasn't perfect either. I also noticed that the battery itself was physically a lot smaller than the hole it fitted in. Also, the Neg lead fit perfectly on to the Neg terminal on the battery but the Pos lead had to be scrunched up to make it fit.
Anyway, after all this I was getting no nearer. I had discovered that if I took the battery out of the car and charged it up using a battery charger overnight and then put the battery in the car in the morning, she would always fire up perfectly. But if I then switched her off and tried to start her again, one of two things would happen. Either nothing at all would happen and in this case the alarm fob didn't work OR, the engine turned over really strongly but there was never any sort of sign that she may start. I must admit here that the "nothing happening" scenario didn't occur very often. Maybe one out of 6 or 7 tries.
This situation was no good so I took the car to a garage run by a mechanic who deals mostly in good marques of cars rather than beat up old Escorts or Fiats. He has Jaguars, BMWs, Lancia Delta, Sunbeam Alpine and Saabs in his workshop. So I drove down to see him in the Nissan and explained the problem. I also told him that there was no rush to get the car fixed and I also named a price saying, "If it's under that to fix it, go ahead. If it's any more let me know." I also told him that I thought the battery was from another, smaller car and that was confirmed when he showed me a battery manual with a picture of the correct battery for this model of Jag. It was a lot bigger than the one actually in there. I asked him to get me a new battery which arrived from the dealer within 20 minutes or so and the battery was put in the boot of my Nissan.
When I got home, I fit the battery in place noticing that the leads now fit perfectly. I turned the key and the car started. I took the key out and then tried to start it again ... perfect. I did it again and she fired up just like she should. A few days later I got in and drove her down to the garage so that he could run all the tests that these guys do to see if there was a fault that was maybe making the battery not charge or any one of a dozen things.
The car is still in there.
Any suggestions as to what I can say to this mechanic re any Jaguar specific issues that all ^^^^^ that has brought to the surface???

Cheers,
Steve

 

My first thought is that maybe you should have waited a little longer to see if the battery change had cured the fault.
I'm going to move this over to the XJ gurus to let them mull it over.
How long has the car been with the tech now?

 

He has now had it in his shop for 9 days. That may sound a lot but we both agreed that he would work on it when there was no other work to tie him up.

Norri .... I'm confused. I posted it where the experts on all things Jag related hang out and you moved it to where maybe one or two experienced guys, brilliant as they are, look in maybe once every couple of days.

 

Hi Steve, I don't know where this was first posted, but here in the X300 section it is in the right place.

Hopefully the tech guys will see you.

Are you saying that even with the new correct battery on the car, it still has a no crank issue?

Got to be worth £950 any day of the week. Next time I'm over in the NW I'll maybe get in touch to see if you can find me one.

 

Hi Richard,
I could probably put my hands on 4 or 5 Jags at £950 or less in this local area. The snag is, how good are they? I took about 4 months and saw maybe 8 Jaguars before I plumped for this one. Even then, I almost didn't buy it. The reason being that compared to some of the cars I had checked over, this one was just to good at the price so there just had to be a problem.
Anyway, back to my car's issue.
Once I had the correct battery in place, the car started first time, every time. If I started her up and then switcher her off, she would fire up again at the first turn of the key.
So I guess you are wanting to ask me why I took the car into the garage if she seemed to be working properly now. I guess it's because I know that this guy has lots of diagnostic stuff (don't ask me what this "stuff" is) that I got told about by one of my wife's bingo buddies who had HER Jag in for a pre MOT thing. I wanted my Jag to have any or all suitable tests done on it to figure out if there was an underlying problem. Maybe a duff alternator or CPS. It may not solve the problem but I'll be able to wipe a lot of possibilities off the board.

Cheers,
Steve

 

Yes and I also fully understand that you need a car that will not leave you stranded at the side of the road (my mum is disabled and can't walk anywhere if she conks out).

So for peace of mind, I'd have your guy check it out, read any codes etc. Course he might not find anything. These X300's are noted for being bullet proof.

These cars are funny about batteries. Unless 100% all sorts of weird and wonderful things can happen. (I'm in the habit of carrying a boost starter thing in the boot, cost £20, but works and has paid for itself with a couple of roadside rescues)

I wonder why the cruise was removed?

Know what you mean about these cars in the NW. The NW autotrader is the one I follow.

Others will chime in.

 

I don't think the "Cruise" was removed. I just think that it was never installed on this very basic model. Note the single seat adjuster button.

 

That IS a good looking specimen. Did you tighten the bulhead power terminals under the hood on the firwall on both sides? And, do I undertand that when the no start occurs, the remote will not unlock the car, nor will it crank? In other words, ALWAYS, the two symptoms seem to occur tigether? That would lead one to believe there was some issue in the security locking module. Unfortunately, the UK version is different from ours, so I am not specifically familiar with it.

 

A real long shot here, but maybe worth a look see. You said that the problem "rectified" itself after ou took your walking frame from the boot. The wiring harness to the boot is known to give trouble due to the constant opening and closing, so, if the wiring to the boot lock was intermittently dodgy, then maybe the alarm/immobiliser isnt operating properly, if its fooled into thinking that the boot is or isnt locked, as the case may be? Maybe check out the harness by the hinge(I think) as a simple, cheap possible cure. Likewise it behaved somewhat after you fiddled about with the battery, ergo, opening and closing the boot. Best of luck with it!

 

Thanks for the replies, Guys. Let me answer those before I go on to the latest development.

Sparkenzap wrote .... And, do I understand that when the no start occurs, the remote will not unlock the car, nor will it crank? In other words, ALWAYS, the two symptoms seem to occur together?
OK, I know that this will sound like nit-picking but it's actually the other way round. When pressing the "Unlock" button on the key fob has ne effect whatsoever, then turning the key in the ignition does not produce any action at all from the starter motor. One the other hand, sometimes when the key fob works correctly, I can turn the key and get a healthy sounding crank but she just won't fire.
Sogood wrote about the wiring loom that goes from the boot (trunk) to the rear seat area, saying that it can get kinked or otherwise bent out of shape. This wiring holds the immobiliser gubbins and so perfectly matches the symptoms. That is very good information that I already knew about and which I passed on to the mechanic when I first took the car in. It's actually very difficult to pass on such info to a mechanic without sounding like you are teaching your granny to suck eggs but I think I got there, lol

OK, the latest news is that I went down to the garage this morning to check on progress. The original deal was that there was no rush to get the job done and that if the car could be fixed for under £200, just go ahead and do it but if it was going to cost any more, to give me a call first. We were both happy with that arrangement. Anyway, the last time I was down there, I upped the price to £250. The latest news is that he has only been able to reproduce the fault once since the car went into his garage (the new battery was already in place at this time) and a check on all the codes that had appeared indicated a knackered CPS. So he ordered one and it has arrived at the garage but he hasn't fit it to my car yet. And this is what I like. He is going to keep trying to reproduce the symptoms so that he can get another code reading for the fault. The snag is that if he fits the CPS to my car and that doesn't cure the fault, he can't send it back to the suppliers but, if he can reproduce the fault and the codes indicate a different problem, he can send the CPS back to the supplier.

Sparkenzap also said that my car was a fine specimen so here are some more pictures. (I love my car and will post pix at the slightest provocation, lol)

 

5tevie:
Boy it is in good shape- only problem being the steering wheel got mounted on the wromg side for my liking!
I suspect the actual part he is changing is called the CKPS on this car- the "Crank Position Sensor", which has many reported failures, as opposed to the "Cam Position Sensor" which does not. So, the CKPS can certainly cause the no start, but has no mechanism to cause the no crank. And thanks for the clarification. I agree it IS an important distinction.
You may very well be experiencing the bane of good technical troubleshooters everywhere- that is two distinct problems that seem like they MIGHT be related but are not, therefore styming standard good troubleshooting procedures.
Getting one sorted will usually allow the second problem to be found.

 

Agree with sparkenzap, this sounds like two unrelated problems with similar symptoms.

The symptom of not unlocking with the fob, followed by a no crank condition, is most likely either a flaky keyfob (has it done this with both fobs?) or an intermittent Security Module (bad/insufficient battery can also cause the Security Module to act flaky). Keep in mind that the alarm system has a starter immobilizer, and if the alarm thinks it is still armed the starter will not make a peep.

The symptom of cranking but no start is a classic symptom of the CKPS. The easy way to tell if it this is to observe the tachometer while cranking when the symptom is occurring, if it is the sensor on it's way out the tach will not budge at all. During normal cranking the tach will fluctuate along with engine rotation as the starter turns it.

 

Good luck with it, 5Tevie. For what it is worth, I have problems with the FOB unlocking the car many times in the afternoons when leaving work. The only pattern I've seen is that I've never had the problem if I leave the key on my desk all day, only if I carry it in my pocket. Even so, when it occurs, I unlock/disarm from the driver's door (opp. side from yours) and start/crank is fine. It usually cures itself by my first stop on the way home...Aldi (about 10 mins drive)... or Kroger (at 30 mins)

Nice looking X300, btw...but I think I already bragged on it when you posted pictures in an earlier post....don't want to appear to be stalking it!

 

Gold_04_X-Type .... All I can add for now is that the car is still in the garage but that the guy is aware of both issues. I've told him that there is no rush to get the car back on the road so he's just working on it when he has no rush jobs to do. As for the same thing happening with both key fobs, I can't honestly say. So far, my car has been in his workshop for 19 days and I already know that I'll get charged about £70 - £80 for a brand new battery but I also know that the TOTAL charge will be less than £250. In fact, it's even better cos I know that he has already bought a CKPS to fit in my car 'cos he reckons that is the cause of the fault and he wouldn't have bought it without asking me first if the total, including fitting, was going to top £250.
I'm happy with that.

aholbro1 ... Does the sun hit your desk? Maybe the heat does it some good.

 

lol!!! No...I'm in the basement and it's always FREEZING down there! However, they ARE stringing some large diameter black pipes through the overhead of late...perhaps they are to pipe in some sunshine...but they look like sewer pipes to me...and the toilets haven't been flushing reliably since they started. Could be the heat is bad, though. Good point.

 

Had a new, full size battery bought and fitted + a new crank position sensor bought and fitted. Total cost ..... £270.
**Is happy**

 

Lets hope that your problems have gone.

Merging this with your other thread, because this is the outcome.

 

Cool beans, happy safe driving

 

I'm still a newb around here and around the Jaguar marque. However, I do know that fitment of a proper battery will enhance the reliability. This may be what solved the problem, plain and simple.

That is well and truly a beautiful car.

 

I have good news (I think)
Just after getting the Jag home, I had an attack of Iritis. This is something linked to my spinal problem which basically means that my eye-ball swells and I can hardly see. The cure is 3 types of drops and a lot of rest with eyes closed.
So the car has been sat on the driveway untouched since the day she got back.but today, feeling chipper but still blind, I went and sat in the car, mostly to check what was in the glove box.
The good news is thay I tried the key in the ignition and all the dash lights came on as usual and then she fired up like she was a brand new car. I was so happy with that that I forgot to do the other test which is to start the car, let her run for a few minutes before switching her off and trying to start her again. If THAT works, it would give us a lot more confidence to be able to take her on long runs which, when all said and done, is the Jaguar's forte.
I'll try that tomorrow.
Cheers all,
Steve.