XF 3.0 D Flat battery while driving, no warnings
Discussion
Hi All, a couple of days ago my car flashed up a gearbox fault, then went into limp mode (3rd?). Without going into too much detail, after stopping immediately (P gets applied, then the engine can't crank). RAC dragged me home and said the diagnostics was showing a low battery, so I put it on charge, figuring the time I'd been waiting for them with the blowers going and radio on was the cause.
Using the emergency release lever the following day, I successfully reset the transmission and thereafter seemed back to normal. I did notice that a swipe of the wipers seemed inordinately slow, but put it down to not having used them for months and a filthy screen!.
With a full battery, and my headlights on (!), I drove about half an hour this morning before the same gearbox error came up. I managed to "limp" to work, by which time the dash was doing all sorts of things, ABS, ABD, Gearbox fault all flashing up. There was barely enough power to apply the (P) brake.
Never once (while driving) did any warning about alternator charging or low battery appear. In fact it isn't even warning of it now even though there isn't enough juice to turn the ignition on.
Any ideas?!
Using the emergency release lever the following day, I successfully reset the transmission and thereafter seemed back to normal. I did notice that a swipe of the wipers seemed inordinately slow, but put it down to not having used them for months and a filthy screen!.
With a full battery, and my headlights on (!), I drove about half an hour this morning before the same gearbox error came up. I managed to "limp" to work, by which time the dash was doing all sorts of things, ABS, ABD, Gearbox fault all flashing up. There was barely enough power to apply the (P) brake.
Never once (while driving) did any warning about alternator charging or low battery appear. In fact it isn't even warning of it now even though there isn't enough juice to turn the ignition on.
Any ideas?!
Thanks but why would a bad battery discharge when the engine is running and take the alternator down with it?
It took a decent charge (10+A initially), and cranked the engine just fine after.
Alternator appears to be the likely culprit, though I wonder if anyone has seen similar when theirs failed.
It took a decent charge (10+A initially), and cranked the engine just fine after.
Alternator appears to be the likely culprit, though I wonder if anyone has seen similar when theirs failed.
Cars used to have ammeters and voltmeters that told you how well the battery was charging and how well charged it was. Perfect.
Now they can bluetooth app your wireless MP3s from a mobile telephone - but tell you that a low battery is a faulty gearbox.
Somewhere the plot has been lost.
Rhod Gilbert could do a whole show on it!
Now they can bluetooth app your wireless MP3s from a mobile telephone - but tell you that a low battery is a faulty gearbox.
Somewhere the plot has been lost.
Rhod Gilbert could do a whole show on it!
Stunned Monkey said:
Thanks but why would a bad battery discharge when the engine is running and take the alternator down with it?
It took a decent charge (10+A initially), and cranked the engine just fine after.
Alternator appears to be the likely culprit, though I wonder if anyone has seen similar when theirs failed.
If the alternator is working overtime to generate load for the battery then it could have damaged it.It took a decent charge (10+A initially), and cranked the engine just fine after.
Alternator appears to be the likely culprit, though I wonder if anyone has seen similar when theirs failed.
Could be a bad earth, some funky wiring etc.
I'd take it to a garage to check it out properly, not the quick bodge job that the AA do
Put a multimeter on it, you'll soon see.
So it *was* the alternator. Hopefully future visitors to this thread will find this useful
A very useful insight came from a good friend who used to work for JLR. When describing the problem, he immediately said "I had that on a range rover once".
Turns out there's a grey area in the software which allows for the battery to slowly drain at idle because the alternator doesn't *quite* put out enough juice when the AC and headlights are on. If your alternator fails, though still puts out enough to be within that zone, the batt will die and the first error you'll see will be gearbox fault as the TCM is the most voltage sensitive.
And for the record, the alternator is an absolute sod to change. The easiest way is to drop the coolant and get the pipework and rad fan out of the way.
A very useful insight came from a good friend who used to work for JLR. When describing the problem, he immediately said "I had that on a range rover once".
Turns out there's a grey area in the software which allows for the battery to slowly drain at idle because the alternator doesn't *quite* put out enough juice when the AC and headlights are on. If your alternator fails, though still puts out enough to be within that zone, the batt will die and the first error you'll see will be gearbox fault as the TCM is the most voltage sensitive.
And for the record, the alternator is an absolute sod to change. The easiest way is to drop the coolant and get the pipework and rad fan out of the way.
Yep, with the new alt, the voltage at the battery when at idle jumped from 12 to nearly 14 as you'd expect.
I've done a couple of hundred miles since without issue.
My car has 174000 on it so I'm happy to chalk it up to just being worn out, though failed brushes would have triggered a warning.
I've done a couple of hundred miles since without issue.
My car has 174000 on it so I'm happy to chalk it up to just being worn out, though failed brushes would have triggered a warning.
Glad I found this thread. I'd had issues last year with the alarm going off spontaneously without a sensor showing as having been activated. After being advised it could be low battery, I had the battery replaced (but didn't have the battery monitor reset), which resolved the issue.
It has been fine until yesterday. The car started with no issue, but reversing off the drive, it suddenly stopped with a clunk, showed gear box fault, and wouldn't move, follwed by DSC fault ABS fault, most warnings you could think off. I turned it off and on again, and it let me pull forward onto drive, but then shut down, and wouldn't even turn on.
With it being dead, thought I would check the battery. It was showing just 10.7 volts. I still had the old battery which had been on a battery conditioner. Installed the old battery, and after resetting the parking brake, the car was fine. Took the Yuasa battery back to Halfords who put it on the Yuasa test computer, and the battery showed fine, just needed charging.
Before driving back, I remembered I'd got one of the bluetooth OBD devices on the car, so fired up torque lite. For the entire drive, the OBD voltage never went above 11.7 volts. Another giveaway was the dashcam kept rebooting. But the car showed no warning signs at all.
I'd considered that it was either the alternator or the BMS faulting. Halfords want £480 to replace the alternator, which is about what the main dealer charges to drive it around the car park twice and tell me it will need hooking up to the computer. Reading your similar story, I have more confidence in going for a new alternator before entering the diagnostics black hole.
It has been fine until yesterday. The car started with no issue, but reversing off the drive, it suddenly stopped with a clunk, showed gear box fault, and wouldn't move, follwed by DSC fault ABS fault, most warnings you could think off. I turned it off and on again, and it let me pull forward onto drive, but then shut down, and wouldn't even turn on.
With it being dead, thought I would check the battery. It was showing just 10.7 volts. I still had the old battery which had been on a battery conditioner. Installed the old battery, and after resetting the parking brake, the car was fine. Took the Yuasa battery back to Halfords who put it on the Yuasa test computer, and the battery showed fine, just needed charging.
Before driving back, I remembered I'd got one of the bluetooth OBD devices on the car, so fired up torque lite. For the entire drive, the OBD voltage never went above 11.7 volts. Another giveaway was the dashcam kept rebooting. But the car showed no warning signs at all.
I'd considered that it was either the alternator or the BMS faulting. Halfords want £480 to replace the alternator, which is about what the main dealer charges to drive it around the car park twice and tell me it will need hooking up to the computer. Reading your similar story, I have more confidence in going for a new alternator before entering the diagnostics black hole.
I realise that cars from virtually all manufacturers have faults of some kind but Jaguar (JLR) really need the arses kicking with these ‘fruit machine’ display errors when all that was needed was a simple battery voltage readout and perhaps an error message saying check battery and alternator. My SV8 will always show ‘trac not available’ when cranking if I haven’t refreshed the battery for a week or two without use. Charging the battery beforehand - no messages. I wonder how many owners have had all kinds of replacement parts fitted unnecessarily due to battery condition or alternator failure?
This situation is not going to improve with the manufacturers rush to ‘out tech’ each other with unwanted features. Our newish Honda Jazz has a screen message at every single start up which has to be cancelled each time, otherwise the display goes so dark you can’t see the clock display. Rant over for now, off to source a Moggy Minor!
Ian
This situation is not going to improve with the manufacturers rush to ‘out tech’ each other with unwanted features. Our newish Honda Jazz has a screen message at every single start up which has to be cancelled each time, otherwise the display goes so dark you can’t see the clock display. Rant over for now, off to source a Moggy Minor!
Ian
Orcadian said:
I realise that cars from virtually all manufacturers have faults of some kind but Jaguar (JLR) really need the arses kicking with these ‘fruit machine’ display errors when all that was needed was a simple battery voltage readout and perhaps an error message saying check battery and alternator. My SV8 will always show ‘trac not available’ when cranking if I haven’t refreshed the battery for a week or two without use. Charging the battery beforehand - no messages. I wonder how many owners have had all kinds of replacement parts fitted unnecessarily due to battery condition or alternator failure?
This situation is not going to improve with the manufacturers rush to ‘out tech’ each other with unwanted features. Our newish Honda Jazz has a screen message at every single start up which has to be cancelled each time, otherwise the display goes so dark you can’t see the clock display. Rant over for now, off to source a Moggy Minor!
Ian
I don’t think Jaguar are any different all from other manufacturers. This situation is not going to improve with the manufacturers rush to ‘out tech’ each other with unwanted features. Our newish Honda Jazz has a screen message at every single start up which has to be cancelled each time, otherwise the display goes so dark you can’t see the clock display. Rant over for now, off to source a Moggy Minor!
Ian
When I left my 5 series for about 3 weeks or so, it started fine but after I stopped after about 10 miles, on restart I got a ‘no oil pressure, don’t start, contact dealer’ message.
Assuming it was just a low battery issue I ignored it and, of course, the car was fine once it had been run a while.
The thing is, this is widespread with BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, you name it. Imo it’s more to do with modern electronics, stop/start and AGM batteries than any specific manufacturer.
Stunned Monkey said:
So it *was* the alternator. Hopefully future visitors to this thread will find this useful
A very useful insight came from a good friend who used to work for JLR. When describing the problem, he immediately said "I had that on a range rover once".
Turns out there's a grey area in the software which allows for the battery to slowly drain at idle because the alternator doesn't *quite* put out enough juice when the AC and headlights are on. If your alternator fails, though still puts out enough to be within that zone, the batt will die and the first error you'll see will be gearbox fault as the TCM is the most voltage sensitive.
And for the record, the alternator is an absolute sod to change. The easiest way is to drop the coolant and get the pipework and rad fan out of the way.
Just a heads up it’s easier to go from the bottom. Get the CSOV out the way, belt off just the alternator, engine mount nuts off, unbolt alternator, jack engine up just enough to get alternator out the way and then reverse to refitA very useful insight came from a good friend who used to work for JLR. When describing the problem, he immediately said "I had that on a range rover once".
Turns out there's a grey area in the software which allows for the battery to slowly drain at idle because the alternator doesn't *quite* put out enough juice when the AC and headlights are on. If your alternator fails, though still puts out enough to be within that zone, the batt will die and the first error you'll see will be gearbox fault as the TCM is the most voltage sensitive.
And for the record, the alternator is an absolute sod to change. The easiest way is to drop the coolant and get the pipework and rad fan out of the way.
The new alternator fixed it. Went from 11.5v at ECU to 14.8v.
The fitting looked like a lot of hard work, I thought I would check what garages were charging. Dealer and most independents were charging around £750. Halfords Autocentre came in at £404 fitted.
They were a little concerned to take on the work without diagnostics, but agreed to go ahead on my risk that it may not fix the issue. It did fix it, and the guys at Halfords were great, if not a little whiney about it being quite a tough job.
The fitting looked like a lot of hard work, I thought I would check what garages were charging. Dealer and most independents were charging around £750. Halfords Autocentre came in at £404 fitted.
They were a little concerned to take on the work without diagnostics, but agreed to go ahead on my risk that it may not fix the issue. It did fix it, and the guys at Halfords were great, if not a little whiney about it being quite a tough job.
lexusboy said:
Just a heads up it’s easier to go from the bottom. Get the CSOV out the way, belt off just the alternator, engine mount nuts off, unbolt alternator, jack engine up just enough to get alternator out the way and then reverse to refit
I promise you it really wasn't. Perhaps the 3.0D is different? Tried for over 2 hours to go this route before giving up and takiing 30 mins to drop the coolant and go that way. For the nuisance of changing the coolant it's a lot less actual work.slimmct said:
The new alternator fixed it.
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