no since ford bought Jag years ago they brought the electronics out of the dark ages, but you have issues that would take some hands on diag work

 

I know this is an old post, but my car is doing most of the same stuff.

1. The radio knob pretty much does whatever it wants for the volume, and the steering controls work fine. I am eventually going to take the radio apart and see if there is anything obvious with the knob pickup.

2. The headrest and steering wheel work on the memory seats, but it doesn't adjust the seat position (the most important thing). The power seats work fine.

The sunroof is fine...no complaints there.

Anybody have any advice on repair, or what could be causing these issues? Where should I start to look for problems.

 

The radio issue is unrelated to the rest - and is a Ford problem also. My 02 Explorer's volume knob also adjusts volume at its whim, usually getting louder regardless of direction turned, especially when cold... they use a rotary optical encoder for the volume control, and it appears to have some age (or dirt/debris) related issues exacerbated by cold temps. Lack of one of the two signals from the encoder will cause the computer to think it's always being turned in just one direction. Steering wheel controls work fine. I would expect this is the same problem you're seeing in the Jag, RE the radio.

 

When I had weird electrical issues...of multiple sorts at the same time, a hard reset cleared everything up. remove negative cable from battery, barely touch the positive side, and reconnect. See if that clears the gremlins. Power issues seem to really setoff these types of confusing symptoms.

 

I don't know about touching the positive side, but I did remove my negativ e cable for about 5 minutes a couple days ago and almost everything went back to normal. The memory button still does not move the seat back and forth, but if it is moved up by a person, when you shut the car off it will move back.

Prior to disconnecting my battery cable, the sunroof would only stay open for a minute or two and then close on its own also. The drivers window would not work either. No radio problems, but the door locks act whacky. The front passenger door does no lock or unlock with the rest, and when you open the drivers lock the back two will open, but none of them will close with the driver lock, they nounce right back up.

The other thing that I'm trying to figure out is if I can program remotes on my own? Its a 99 XJ8, I called the dealer today and they told me that I have to bring it in and have them do it for $140 a pop, and $192 per remote. Right now I do not have any, but they are advertised for my car on ebay for $50. I told the dealer that I had bought remotes from ebay for my other vehicles and programmed them myself just fine, but they insist that I can't do it with this car. That is contrary to what I've been reading online. Any thoughts?

 

Good to hear about the volume knob. Theoretically it could be an easy fix.

I did a hard reset a few weeks back to fix the window not wanting to work...it didn't fix the other issues. The windows worked fine after that though.

I did some more reading about the seats to find that the wiring (not sure if people were accurate with their wording I think they were talking about the box?) Anyways, it was suggested to swap the drivers and the passengers. I will do that in the next few days and report back on results.

 

You can program the remotes yourself. I've done it but don't have the instructions handy. It's not too hard, you just have to follow some weired sequence -- on a Thursday when it's raining and you are standing on one leg. Just kidding. It's not that hard. I'll try to find the instructions and post.

The hard reset of the car's computer has solved a number of my XJ's ills over the years. The car is sensitive to a poorly charged battery, so make sure you have a fully charged battery when you do the reset, otherwise you may get some other strange problems after the reset. Be prepared for possible idling problems after the reset. You will need to manage the idle with the throttle for the first start until the computer learns what it takes to maintain the correct idle. I've found that the reset where you touch the negative connector to the positive connector seems to work better.

 

Here are the instructions for programming the fobs.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=33580