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It’s my first year with a lovely ‘96 3.2 XJ6 and I found out that it does not have Traction Control installed, although it has the cables under the hood for the actuator unit and it also has the button in the console and the light too.
I’m fairly competent technically but I have no experience with Jaguar. Can someone please point out, how the TC is built in X300.
I have access to a salvage XJ6R with TC, so I can retrofit the actuator under the hood without a problem. The cables are already there waiting
But what happens next? Is there something different at the ABS pump too? Is there some sort of control unit I need too? Or is ot related to ECU?
Has someone tried something like that? Probably need to do something from the OBD port too after all is installed.
Is it even possible?
Also, can it be that someone has just removed it? The button and cables are there. The light comes on at the “self check” sequence but it won’t come on when I push the button... Maybe someone removed it and deleted it? The exact model is XJ6 Executive 3.2L and I believe those did not have TC... Car is originally from Swizerland.
Why I would go through this trouble? My loved one is supposed to drive this car in the winter. Today it was heavy rain and I got to test out the LSD diff by accident... This setup isn’t gonna work on the snow for sure!! And retrofitting the TC seems simpler than having a separate youngtimer for winter...
Thanks in advance for all the info!
I can send pics if needed.
Ranting a bit but since I'm new here, can't find a way to edit the first post, so I will just add info here as I find it.
Meanwhile downloaded a wiring diagram and it shows that the TC control unit is built into the ABS unit. So my guess is that if I install the hardware, then it probably needs to be coded and it should start working... Any thoughts?
Hello, sorry I cannot help with your techincal questions, but your car must have had TC installed as you suspect. My 1995 sovereign had a blank and no light where yours has the switch.
I suspect your car had TC, but it was removed. Actually, that's not a bad thing I think. I found the TC extremely aggressive, at the slightest bit of slip it shuts off the power. I found in winter if I wanted to go anywhere the first thing I had to do was shut off the TC. My startup routine was start the car, turn off TC, fasten seatbelt....
There was a small hill on my way to work and with a Series III XJ I could sail up the hill no problem. After I got a 95 VDP I stalled out on the hill as the TC shut off the power. Very embarrassing as traffic is building behind you and you can't go anywhere and I ended up backing down the hill the wrong way against traffic. My Series III and X300 had the same tires ( Michein Arctic Alpin), so the difference was the car, not the tires.
I found the TC very frustrating as I could go lots of places with it turned off, and very few with it turned on. I suspect that whoever had the car before you experienced the same thing, so that's why the TC is gone.
Tire Rack did a study of snow tires and their grip level a while ago and they found that maximum traction/grip level actually occurs at 40% slip ( on snow). The Jaguar system allows 0% slip, so you are leaving a lot of forward traction on the table. My experience says that if you want to winter drive the car, forget about TC.
All that being said, I thought the X300's were poor winter cars compared to the earlier Series III. Even with LSD and good winter tires, they are still slippery cars. I think the weight distribution is different and they are nose heavy. The other thing I found is the heaters are poor when it is very cold, the heater core is only about 1/3 the size of most domestic cars. If you experience very cold weather, you'll be cold too in a way you won't be in other cars.
The abs module is different. Here are pics of trac control vs. not trac control, if that helps:
Thanks a bunch!
From the pics it seems as if the Trac and no Trac versions have the same pump and just the Traction actuator is added, but I probably just can't see the difference right now. Anywhoo... Let's say that I install a new set of ABS pump including a TC actuator and the Control module for both... What else?
1. Certainly there is something different on the Throttle body side? Right now i have the throttle cable coming + Gearbox cable and Cruise Control Vacuum Actuator. I wonder how I would connect the TC there? The XJ6R has electronically controlled gearbox and a different throttle body... Anyone has a pic of X300 TB with TC cable coming in? (is the cable even going to TB?)
2. How is the coding done on the Jaguars? What cable, what programs? (Sorry, I'm a newbie!)
And overall! Does anybody at least know of a 3.2liter X300 with TC installed? Some sources say it was only added to bigger engines.
OT: One of those sources is a really cool retro client handover video of UK X300 from the time period:
All that being said, I thought the X300's were poor winter cars compared to the earlier Series III. Even with LSD and good winter tires, they are still slippery cars. I think the weight distribution is different and they are nose heavy. The other thing I found is the heaters are poor when it is very cold, the heater core is only about 1/3 the size of most domestic cars. If you experience very cold weather, you'll be cold too in a way you won't be in other cars.
I find it perfectly fine in pretty cold -10 winter days. Heater is slow to respond and warm up but once it’s hot it gets the job done.
to OP: your 3.2 seems to be pretty well specced. cruise control and TC are usually stuff you see on the sovereign trim
Yes, single brake line to the rear on non TC cars, two brake lines to the rear on TC cars.
Loving this forum already! Thanks!
Went out and checked. Mine has 5 pipes running, I thought I could see that one is incoming and 4 are for each wheel. So it can probably be that mine has just the actuator removed. Which still leaves the question of where goes the cable on the TB and how can I recode it back from the OBD.
I find it perfectly fine in pretty cold -10 winter days. Heater is slow to respond and warm up but once it’s hot it gets the job done.
to OP: your 3.2 seems to be pretty well specced. cruise control and TC are usually stuff you see on the sovereign trim
And I find this specific car to be in a really nice shape, so I would really really rather spend time and money on making this one work OK for winter, instead of changing it for something other. The main car for winter is a newer Quattro anyways, but the Jag needs to be at least safe to drive...
If memory serves me correctly (a 50/50 prop at-best, these days!) the std ABS module has 6 solenoids and the TRAC Ctrl ABS module has 9. This difference is most obvious when you've separated the pump from the module in order to cut the module open and perform solder-surgery in order to mend a C1095 code.
Throttle cable hooks up the same, exactly, it just comes from the TC actuator instead of from the pedal. Sorry, not a complete assembly, as I've had to rob the TC car of it's Cruise control actuator for use on one of the runners: TC Throttle cable less Cruise control TC Cable Origin Non TC Non TC
I find it perfectly fine in pretty cold -10 winter days. Heater is slow to respond and warm up but once it’s hot it gets the job done.
Difference in where we live I guess, I don't consider -10 to be very cold! The heater is completely inadequate for -35, whereas the older Series III was just fine and had plenty of heat.
Jagboi's earlier point about the usefulness of traction control in slippery conditions certainly matches my experience; it is for all practical purposes a hindrance rather than a help, so if your objective is to improve grip, I wouldnt bother.
It is an interesting question nevertheless, as hitherto I had assumed that the "traction control" was simply the "throttle cable relaxer" unit which sits in line with the throttle cable and makes adjustment of the throttle cable four times more difficult! Your question and the discussion has raised the question whether there is something going on with individual wheel braking too, as the different ABS pumps would suggest.
I find the notion of an ABS pump with only one line going rearwards a bit of a contradiction, since it obviously cannot provide optimum ABS performance, as it can only release pressure to both rear wheels when skidding is detected, rather than to the wheel which is actually skidding. That said, I have come across this before in a Porsche 944, where although there are individual wheel speed sensors, there is only a single brake line servicing both rear wheels. I guess it covers 80/90% of situations perfectly, and in the rest is better than no ABS, but surely it cannot be as effective as 4 wheel brake control?
From how the car feels when the traction control is triggered, I am guessing that it is simply the throttle relaxer, and that the different ABS pumps are to do with superior ABS performance in the enhanced parts of the model range. A delve through the Jaguar classic parts catalogue might serve to provide some better insight.
This is the Jaguar Heritage site, they are responsible for parts for cars approx older than 10 years. As a rule of thumb, if you see a price the part is available, if you don't then it is NLA. Some exceptions exist where they have parts remanufactured and they are current parts, but out of the stock at the moment.
Which still leaves the question of where goes the cable on the TB and how can I recode it back from the OBD.
For a non TC car the throttle cable goes direct from the throttle pedal to the throttle plate on the engine. With TC there are two cables, one from the pedal to the actuator on the right inner fender, and another from the actuator to the throttle body on the engine
To elaborate on my suggestion of looking at Jaguar classic parts, it is the manufacturer's site, and so tends to be the definitive source of reliable information. It has excellent parts diagrams, which show all parts and part numbers, even for parts which they can no longer supply. When seeking to establish whether a part is common between different models, all you have to do is look them up and compare parts numbers.
08-04-2020 | 06:09 AM
Traction Control Retrofit for a 3.2L X300
