Since I was the one that made this post and statement, I feel obligated to answer your criticism. Regardless of the type of ownership experience that you have had with the many cars that you purchased in the Jaguar brand; their reputation for years was not reliable. Some here in this forum have complained. This was not just my opinion this was the so called experts who reported on and examined Jaguar cars. So if you have a problem with their findings take it up with them. That being said I took it upon myself to purchase this car regardless of the past reputation. This was an article from 2015 expressing how Jaguar was fighting against their past: https://www.latimes.com/business/aut...901-story.html

 

 

Well after two days with a tech, they think they have isolated the problem. One is a loose/broken battery terminal post. The other was ground fault short depleting the battery. The tech says he believes it is a bad neg battery cable. Neither repair is covered under the CPO warranty. How can that be? Only had the car 6 months, driven about 8k miles. No dings, bangs or bumps. SMH. Now a question. Should I forego the battery post terminal and just buy a new battery? What do you think? Part won't be in until Thursday.

 

I guess I don't understand the comment about the battery post. If the post is loose then the battery is bad and needs to be replaced. Also what does the ground fault short mean. If they found something what is the correction. A battery should be a pretty easy replacement so I don't know what had to be ordered. If this is the neg battery cable with the charging control module then it should be covered by your CPO. I would go to the service manager or dealer GM and discuss. If the still make you pay ask for the broken part back just to keep them on their toes. Tell them you'll have the part checked and verified if it is bad. Good luck.

 

OK, so going back to the beginning of this thread, this is not a "build quality" issue. It is, as suspected, a battery issue. A bad battery cable is a very minor item (but, in its effect,annoying and disruptive - I had to replace one not long ago on a car - they do sometimes go bad).
I have just checked the items covered by the CPO warranty (in the Canadian programme) and indeed while there are hundreds of items covered, almost anything and everything you could think of - but the battery is not covered because this is a service item, and there is no mention of battery cables being covered....but there is "link harness" and "link lead" and "link harness- alternator" mentioned...and "trunk harness".

 

Those are contradictory statements from your tech.
If there is a loose/broken terminal post- all else is moot.
And if it is an aftermarket battery- its most likely under some warranty.
If its the original battery, you have gotten full life out of it.

 

They saw him coming from miles away.
This is what happens these days when a patient believes the problem might be serious, doctors wont argue.

Notice they said they isolated the problem. Checking the battery was not the first thing they did, they had to start at the heart of the engine and work towards the common problem.

 

Well now that we have all the pundits opinions about what they did or did not do, I will tell you. The service tech first checked all the connections to the battery, and charged it up, tested it to see if it would even hold a charge. Remember this was the weekend so this did not start till Monday. As for them seeing me coming like this is my first service rodeo is really just you bloviating. The battery was dead the next morning, this indicated that there might a short, in electrical terms it is sometimes called a ground fault, when the electricity travels in a non-intended path. That was when they found the bad cable. When reconnecting the battery's + terminal, the terminal seemed loose, so they attempted to tighten it. This was an original battery and was still testing at 88% two days after disconnecting the bad cable. So now everything seems to be diagnosed.

Now the hard part, does this fall under the CPO warranty, according to the dealership, it does not. The battery is a replaceable item and can wear out. the cable is not covered at all. They're only responsible according to this dealership is when they perform the initial certification, if everything passes, that is the end of it for some items under CPO. Not believing anything, I too am resourceful, checked out the CPO warranty online, to see what is and is not covered. Once I realized that these items were not, I wrote a letter to corporate with all pertinent part numbers, disparaging the holes in the CPO program. Doubt if anything will come of it. As for the old parts being returned I always ask for the parts and have an indie tech, who will test the car and the parts. I do realize that parts wear out and go bad and some can even be manufactured with faults without knowing. I had already recanted my earlier comment about 'build quality', so get over it, that was stated out of frustration. Hopefully, this will fix the issue for now but there will be a new battery coming.

 

Hopefully, you will be able to persuade that dealer to not charge you at their full hourly labor rate and excessive diagnostic time in an effort to keep your business. I suspect that they have a lot of leeway to still make a good profit, even with a discount of 25% or more.

I find it hard to believe that the CPO warranty is good only at the certifying dealer for some items.

 

Who underwrites the CPO "warranty"? That is where I would go with any complaints. The underwriting firm should be named in the documentation along with contact information.

 

Yes, that was one of the compromises.

 

Churchill put it to a fine point- 'Man's mind is most creative when finding ways to deny the other for money'
And they are in business to amass money.

 

BlkC4t_XK14,

Unresolved issue... How did the ground cable fail? A length of insulated wire is usually a simple inert object. That it spontaneously shed insulation is unlikely. So hopefully your repair technician will keep an eye out for any mitigating circumstances as they remove & replace this cable. While a million things are theoretically possible, the top two likely causes are trauma to the insulation jacket during install, or some adjacent sharp surface slowly cutting insulation via usual carborn vibrations. The conductor being overheated can also destroy insulation, but would be more likely on the positive cable.

An examination of the removed cable should reveal where it's open.

Which should show about where along it's route the event occurred.

Good Luck!

 

The 2010-2015 XK series cars use a different and unique negative cable . It has an integrated voltage control module that feeds back state of charge to the ECM. It's function as I understand it is to adjust the charging rate based on feedback from the engine and throttle position. The intention is to reduce charging system drag in order to provide you with improved fuel mileage. If you watch a volt gauge during driving the voltage will vary from 12.6V to 14.4V and usually run around 13.5V . I don't know how this can cause a short but if the cable is bad I assume charging would be affected. I would think that Jaguar has the ability to diagnose this cable.Page 2149 of the maint. manual.

 

I've seen cables connections fail, both soldered and crimped. You wouldn't be able to tell unless using a meter. Got stuck on the beach because one went bad during a 30 minute walk. Two starters later I pealed the insulation off and found that the loose starter wire that I kept bumping into the frame rail went directly to the battery positive. Jammed a knife into the lead terminal and it fired up. Oddly enough two other wires in that lead connector were hot but the starter hot was dead. $1.25 replacement connector and away we went.

 

The underwriting firm is Jaguar - the CPO warranty is not a third-party warranty. And the warranty is not restricted through any particular dealer; just as with the original warranty, it is valid at any Jaguar dealer.
The responses given to the original inquiry were given in good faith; they were, as it turns out, accurate in the diagnosis of the problem (which was first ascribed by the OP to poor build quality). It is unfortunate that the CPO warranty does not cover the battery cable (presumably this is precisely because of the possibility of degradation -virtually everything else is covered) - given that the car was recently purchased and inspected, it is understandable that this defect would cause frustration. But it is not indicative of engineering incompetence or of poor build quality. In modern cars the requirement for full battery voltage is a major factor (this is NOT restricted to Jaguars by any means -and this is why every luxury manufacturer markets the CTEK battery maintainer under their own label, from Bentley to Maserati to Bugatti - they all have the same possible issues if the battery voltage falls). When adequate voltage is not provided, random faults crop up: the convertible roof not latching, improper operation of windows, door locks, touch screen, appearance of warning lights ...the list is long. In every case the fault lies with the battery or its connections - as in the case in question); owners unaware of the basis of the problem register "quality" complaints - and this explains many of the "quality issues" recorded by JD Powers, Edmunds and, dare we say it, Consumer Reports. They never have a footnote saying that the problem was too many short trips and infrequent use, leading to low battery voltage! Use of a battery minder virtually eliminates the possibility of these issues.

 

The OP has explained his original statement of quality was in a moment of passion and should be excused.

Unrelated, as NBCat was alluding- there is a inexplicable and unfounded sensitivity to Jaguar's quality..... (I have a guess)
You are exactly right all cars these days have the same component coming from the same supplier, they have become homogeneous in their build and problems- underscored by all of them using the same rebranded ctek charger.
I have never seen owners of Astons, Maserati, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, bemoan their countless niggles. The song and dance required just to start them, many are just as satisfied speaking of their cars spending years in the shop. They seem to want the highly temperamental exotic drama. I was one of them...

My wild theory is that since the beginning of Jaguar, as an every-man's exotic they have positioned themselves in no-man's land.
As you cite, its every bit as exotic as those other cars that supply supplemental charging solutions and set the expectation correctly.

 

No the CPO warranty is the same at all the dealers, some dealers to keep their customers happy, will go the extra mile. The dealer where I purchased the car, would not have charged me.

 

I am reading and they think it may have been a crushed clamp against the wire.

 

So the charge controller module in the ground cable wasn't seeing the actual battery voltage because it was going to ground through the cable clamp before the controller. Pretty neat and makes absolutely no sense since it should have been telling the alternator to put out a full charge because the seen voltage was too low. Unless it was so far out of tolerance it just laid there like an ex wife and did nothing while the car drained itself...