Jaguar X308 - flat battery, won't start

[Baryonyx]

Afternoon all,

Continuing with the maladies of my previous thread, I have now at least managed to get my X308 XJ'S boot open. I've been fiddling round with the battery this morning with my CTEK charger, the charger wouldn't recognise the battery at first and the negative lead on the connector wasn't long enough to reach the boot lock earth point mentioned in the manual.

With the aid of my ever-helpful neighbour, I hooked jump leads up to the battery in my Jag to the battery in his 80's Land Rover Defender. The Jaguar powers it's electrical systems up - wipers, radio, CD changer all whirr into life. However, if I turn the key to the start position, it clicks once from the back of the engine block and then stops with no further effort. Is this where the starter motor is? Any ideas as to what is causing this problem? I'm so, so close to getting this stranded Jaguar started again and then seeing the back of it forever.

When I left it, I connected the CTEK leads to the jump leads and it recognised that it was connected to a battery then (as opposed to before when it sat idle and entered power saving mode). It's showing at 'stage one' at the moment, which is a desulphation phase to recondition st batteries. It may be that this can bring the battery back around to being able to crank.

Is it likely the case that the battery just doesn't have the power to turn the engine over? Everything else has been resurrected - clocks showing correct mileage, fuel gauge showing 1/4 tank of petrol. I'm guessing though that it requires a proper slug of power to get it started? If this fails, I can get a heavy duty battery starter pack from work to try. Or perhaps I could try fitting a new battery, if it fails. #

I literally just need to be able to drive it ten feet and onto a low loader, out of my life forever.

EDIT: I note that the stick needs to be in the 'P' position touching the connector tab to get the engine to click, which appears to be a failsafe to stop it starting elsewhere in the box. If I move the lever around using the manual release tab, it makes the 'boop boop boop' tone and makes no click when I turn the key to the starting position. So it feels as though the car still knows what it needs to do to get started, it just makes no effort to crank or fire.

Edited by Baryonyx on Saturday 21st May 12:57

[james S]

How bright are the lights and how well do things like the electric windows. If they are all in good shape I'd be surprised if its the battery. If they are a bit dim or slow, keep the ctek going, they do need fair chunk of power to crank

[Orcadian]

These 308's really do need a battery in first class condition. A low battery on the car, even with well connected jump leads to another car with a great battery often doesn't get the result. If your original battery is poor and you can't wait to get it to a good charge point, even if it would, then I would see if another battery is available to borrow and fit in circuit. The starter motor is at the rear of the block but I can't remember which side and the solenoid is on it, so that might account for the click. If for some reason the security system didn't recognise the key, then there would be no click anyway, so that bit seems ok. Did you notice any error messages on the dash when you heard the click?

Hope you get sorted. With the crap battery and jump leads, did you try putting it in neutral to move it?

One problem with this board is that while typing I can't review the previous posts to see what's been suggested and tried before,
Ian

[Baryonyx]

I never did get it started but I managed to get rid of it. In the end, I was able to get it into neutral and push it onto the road to be towed off. I found a little metal tab on the left of the stripped down gear selector which, when pressed, allowed me to move the stick and the white plastic housing that controls the selector. Managed to flick it to where neutral should be and off it rolled.

The battery was shonky before it went flat, I got the occasional TCM warning on starting which is a symptom of a duff battery. It never, ever struggled to start though, when it was used daily!