Nige005

I've tried the pencil graphite on many things over the years ( Car Fobs, TV Remotes etc ) and it's rarely successful and never lasts for long even if it seems to work ar first. Hopefully the conductive paint will do the job for you.

On a more serious note I just remembered that several weeks ago all the Fob functions completely failed, none of the buttons did anything. Change batteries - still nothing. Cleaned the contacts - still nothing. Disconnect car battery for a few minutes - still nothing Did Fob pairing - still nothing. ( Although I'm not sure if the Pairing attempt was successful or not. ) At this point I'd had enough and decided to call it a day. As I'd had to reset the Car Window Drop settings as the car battery had been disconnected I walked around to the passenger side and opened and closed the door just to check that these were ok. They were and as I started walking ( disconsolately ) towards the house I casually just pressed the Lock button on the Fob. I was rewarded with a lovely clunk noise and flashing lights. The flashing lights were yellow ones on the car, not the multicoloured ones oft seen in my head......... I just carried on towards the house. ( If you believe this bit I have a very nice bridge for sale. ) Back to the car to check everything ( several if not many times over ) and everything is working fine. Only conclusions that I can draw is that the Fob itself was working fine but the car didn’t want to play. The passenger door is very rarely used so something in the locking system connected to or in that door had thrown a wobbly and the simple act of opening and closing that door had sorted it out. I don’t know for sure but what I DO know is that if I ever have a similar problem again I will open and close all the doors, boot and bonnet before doing anything else and before panic sets in !

That's an idea. If the Key Fob doesn't like it I reckon that I would so it seems like a win win to me, at least something to drown the sorrows with !

No. you are right about the IPA Jim. Wonder if Guiness would be a better option ?......... I have both ! I'll get me coat - and the pills......

Good luck Luca. Still pleased with the repair on mine, no doubt it will have to be repeated but that's not a problem.

Ah, OK Jim, didn't notice the year of the car !

A similar problem can be caused if the rotary gear selection switch on the outside of the gearbox is not quite in the correct position. On mine this was caused by hardened grease on the switch. A good clean up and regrease cured it. The fault happened most frequently when changing from "R" to "D," gear would be stuck in either first or second, could never decide which. A clue to check if this is the problem is to look at the lights on the Gear Selector. If the light is not illuminating ( P, D. N. R. etc ) this could be the cause. If this is the case you can move the Gear Selector back and forth, quite forcibly, until the light illuminates indicating the selected gear.

Hi David. This is what I got albeit in a one Litre bottle, about £10 as I remember from eBay a few years ago, lools like the price may have increased now, suprise suprise. It's ready mixed so ready to go. In the pic it looks a bit reddish but mine is orange so I'm assuming this is the same. Just had a QUICK look and found this 5 Litre bottle for about £35 and a 1 Litre bottle for about £17, a more diligent search may find better deals . Hope this helps, cheers, Nige.

Sorry to hear of your troubles. a terrible thing to happen, hope you can find some solution. I have no idea what is happening when you have a failure like you had, perhaps it would be stuck in the gear it was in at the moment of failure, I just don't know. If it was a catastrophic failure in the engine and/or gearbox I s'pose at that point it doesn't really matter, it's going to be a major repair either way. There is a fairly easy way to release the run of the mill stuck in Park problem, it will be in the Drivers Manual or you'll find many " how to " on line If it's just a simple problem ( ie flat battery, faulty brake light switch etc. ) Sadly it seems that you may have more of a problem than this, good luck with a fix. Nige.

It turns out that the existing Switch already on the car did not require changing, it seems that just a good clean and re grease of the ball joint and cable were all that was required. However as these Switches are now about as common as rocking horse poo and even more expensive I will be carefully wrapping up the refurbished one and stashing it away somewhere safe - just in case !

XK8 Key Fobs – A Repair, Sort Of……. Some thoughts, some ramblings, some ideas and one “sort of” solution about the LJA 2610BA XK8 4 Button Key Fob. I’m sure you all know the scenario. You walk up to the car and press the ‘Unlock’ Button and hey presto, nothing happens. You dance around the car, often hopping on one leg, whilst under your breath reciting ‘Abra Cadabra’ ( or some other words which I can’t possibly repeat here ) pressing and holding the button, waving it around the roof and ‘C’ pillars hoping that waving a virtual magic wand cunningly disguised as a Key Fob will actually make it work. The final incantation of ‘Open Sesame ‘ doesn’t work either at which point you give up and return indoors for a stiff drink ( strong coffee, what do you think I meant ? ) whilst you change the batteries for the second time in a week convincing yourself that the recently replaced batteries must have been faulty. Of course they aren’t and you are no further forward other than needing to visit the loo for a comfort break after supping even more coffee. I know that you could have opened the door with the key and listened to the countdown of the Alarm about to unleash all hell on me and the rest of the neighbourhood if I fail to get the key in the ignition in time to prevent this happening or even if I do manage to do this in time the Alarm fails to disarm and then both the Alarm and myself enter panic mode, I have a ( irrational ? ) fear of this, perhaps I’m not alone in this or is it just me that’s paranoid ? Answers to me on a free voucher for the local psychiatrist. The problem is of course wear on the contact pads of the Rubber Buttons, the solution is to replace the Rubber Pad. I’m talking about the four button one, LJA 2610BA and other similar variants, and here lies the rub. Not that many years ago this type of Fob Case complete with new Rubber Pad were readily available on line for about a fiver, now they all seem to made of that wonderful and oft used classic car material called ‘Unobtanium.’ Over the last few years I have travelled the world, virtually of course, and have found absolutely zero, none, zilch, of these available anywhere so what next ? POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Repair Services. There are plenty of people out there offering repair/refurbishment of your existing Fobs and I assume that this includes repair of the electronics AND replacement of the Rubber Pads and Case. If so where do they obtain these parts ? These services are priced anywhere from £30 to £200, what the difference in prices may indicate I have no idea, but if all you need is the Rubber Pad even the cheapest is a bit steep. Even so if one of these guys are prepared to sell me just the Rubber Pad I may be prepared to pay over the odds to obtain a couple of spares. I haven’t asked any of them so have no idea if any of these repair services would be prepared to do a deal. The other thing I, probably unnecessarily, worry about using a repair service is the reprogramming of the repaired unit. Everyone seems to think that the reprogramming is a simple task that takes just a few minutes of flashing the lights in sequence and this may well be so, but at this point my paranoia rears it’s head again……. Graphite Buttons Graphite buttons are cheap and readily available. The idea is that you get the right size buttons and then glue them over the worn buttons on your Rubber Pads with some contact adhesive and then the job is done. My worry here is that this may be a one shot only job. If the buttons either don’t stick very well or don’t work for some reason then that’s the end, the contact adhesive will have probably ruined whatever was left of the functionality of your existing buttons, however poor they were they are now a darned sight worse. Consequently I haven’t tried this. Modifying Different Rubber Pads I thought I may have cracked it with this idea. I bought a 5 Button Rubber Button Pad for Jaguar X S F TYPE XJ XK XF XKR remote smart key. It looked like with a bit of judicial trimming and some fettling it would fit inside my Fob and the key markings and spacing looked pretty much the same, as indeed they are. Unfortunately the finger pad part of the buttons do not protrude through the Fob, they are far too shallow. You could extended the finger pads by gluing some rubber or something similar on top of them but you would lose the markings and I think even then the contact part of the buttons would be far too long so constantly touching the contacts and permanently activating the electronics, this would probably confuse the car as much as me and as for battery life….. I think this idea could work if we could discover which type of Rubber Pad could be modified, however I have no clue as where to start on this. My Solution The only solution I can offer right now is using some electrically conductive paint on the contacts of the buttons on the Rubber Pad. The stuff I used is in the pic, other similar products are available and all are easily and cheaply obtainable from well known on line retailers. It’s easy to use. Remove the Rubber Pad from the Fob and clean the contact part of the buttons with Isopropyl Wipes or liquid IPA or similar. Apply a small amount of the “ paint “ to each of the contact buttons and let it dry, make sure it’s totally dry before putting it all back together. I know that you’ll be eager to try and see if it works but be patient ! Whilst you are in the Fob carefully clean the gold contact pads of the PCB, including the battery area, with the IPA stuff or Contact Cleaner, make sure that everything is clean and dry before reassembling it all with new batteries. This repair worked wonderfully on mine, it was like having a brand new Fob, no more dancing around the car like a loony and no more arcane incantations. BUT. ( Why is there always a BUT ? ) This repair worked perfectly for five months and then total failure, not one button worked. Don’t panic, a few minutes work repeating the above procedure followed by a few hours waiting for paint to dry and all is good again. So, far from a real solution or ideal but at least some sort of a cure and if you have to repeat it every few months it’s no big deal. If you’ve read this far through these ramblings you probably have an interest in this problem, if so I’d be happy to hear your thoughts and ideas, Thanks, Nige.

Well the Switch arrived back yesterday and it looks nice and clean. It has obviously been opened as the rivets holding it all together have been changed. So far so good but of course the acid test will be the functionality once fitted - I'm still nervous !

Hi Jim, thanks for the help and advice. I did find Dave's website AFTER I'd found an outfit on eBay offering a repair service. As usual I leapt before I looked...... I sent the switch to them by Special Delivery on Monday morning and it's already on it's way back to me and due to arrive today. Obvioiusly I don't yet know how this is going to pan out but the eBay feedback is 100% positive so I'm trying to be equally positive about it but not yet 100% sure......! I can't get the Switch fitted until the beginning of June when the car is in for MoT and service so I'll just have to fret for a little longer. Once it is fitted and I've given it a good test I'll Post the results and details of the outfit on here in case anyone else wants to give it a try. Fingers and webbed toes crossed. Thanks again. Cheers, Nige.

Good morning all. Having intermittent problems with the ( I think ) Rotary Switch on the Gearbox, if you select " D " sometimes the " D " light does not illuminate and the gears will not change, seems to be stuck in 1st or 2nd gear. If you move the gear selector around a bit to other positions and then back to " D "the " D " light will come on and then all is well. The problem is intermittent but I think getting worse - it's making me twitch a bit now ! It's possible that the selector cable is sticking or mis adjusted, that was the cause of a similar problem a couple of years ago but I would like to be really sure this time and get the Switch repaired/ refurbished before getting the adjustment done. A brand new switch would be nice but not sure if they are available and dread to think of the price even if they are. I know that some companies offer a repair service for some of the electronics bits like ABS Control Modules etc so does anyone know of a company that offers repairs to these Switches ? Any help or advice gratefully received ! Thanks, Nige.

Hi everyone, I suspect that I may be having problems with this, the indicated temperature seems to be about five degrees out and slow to change so looking for a bit of help regarding this Sensor, three things that I’m struggling with. Eventually found the Sensor behind the split grill on the DRIVERS side, not on the passenger side as t’internet had told me…………. It’s mounted on the same fixing point as the Horn. Only a five minute job to remove and test – six hours later I was losing the will to live. In the end I had to cut the mounting bolt as it was seized solid. However this was far from the end. So – Q1. How do you remove the Sensor from the bracket, it seems to slide on to the tongue of the bracket and clips on. I can’t figure out how to release the clip. Q2. Same problem with the Connector Plug, can’t see what clips hold this connector on to the body of the Sensor or how to release them. Q3. This Sensor provides the Ext Temp reading on the Climate Control Panel but does it provide information to a control module for other things such Engine Cooling Fans, Air Con etc ? If all it does is provide the Temp Reading then I’m happy that I don’t have to rush into replacement whilst lying on a gravel drive dodging thunderstorms, my old bones are getting too ancient for this lark ! Any help much appreciated, Nige.