Jaguar xf front indicator not working

graham_v

Hi
Just joined today and thought I would share my experience with my local jag dealer. I own a jag xf bought new in 2012 and up to now pretty much faultless, anyway last week the front nrs indicator packed up ,not living far from the dealer I rang them asking if they could replace the bulb no problem came the reply.
Got to the dealer they took it into the workshop, 10min later returned, this is the best bit the service tech told me that it is the LED gone and is non serviceable and repair cost for new headlight unit would be £1172 !!! Does not make any sense.
Surely parts like this are designed to last the life of the car,from research led's are expected to last 6000 hrs in the case of car indicators I rekon about 16 yrs.
Since the car is only 6 months out of warranty do I have a case ? I intend pursuing this with jag customer services.
:mad:

Regards
Graham

agrinnall

I very much doubt you found research saying that LEDs are "expected" to last 6000 hours, much more likely is that the mean lifetime is 6000 hours, and that of course means some will last longer and some will fail sooner. Yours is one of the latter.

For the cost that you've been quoted it will definitely be worth a phone call to Jaguar, but don't be too surprised if you don't get much out of them. Have you thought about taking it to an auto electrician to get a second opinion?

Hoof_Hearted

Do a search for the headlamp unit online. There are loads for a fraction of the price quoted.

neilmcl

Assuming you've had the car serviced regularly at the Jaguar dealer network contact, or get your dealer to contact, Jaguar Customer services to see if they are wiling to make a contribution. Failing that you could fall back on the SOGA route but the onus will be on you to prove that the fault is inherent to manufacture.

bowlhead99

Unfortunately you can't swap out individual LEDs like you could if they were 'old fashioned' bulbs; the whole cluster is part of one big sealed unit. You're right, the idea is that LEDs would last the life of the car but that won't always be the case in the real world.

I agree with the above that if you have no luck with the garage that has been servicing it for the last few years, and especially if you've hand it from new, you may be able to escalate to Jag customer service as it's not like the car has had 5-10 years of high miles and abuse.

Worth asking around and canvassing opinion on http://www.jaginfo.org which is the busiest and most helpful XF forum I've found so far.

gilbert_and_sullivan

I have no doubt some enterprising chaps will find a way to fix or replace these rather pointless things, it's unfortunate for the early buyers of these cars now coming out of warranty that the fixes haven't been sorted yet.
There was nothing wrong with normal bulbs, even DRL's if you insist on the things can be just as good with bulbs, and arguably not quite as daft looking to boot.
Hopefully the maker will stand by their product, if the OP updates in due course we'll know one way or another.

As to aftermarket complete lamps, some but not all of these are poor products lacking the necessary motors and fittings for levellers and didn't even fit the car properly, not as i've tried buying one for an XF but i've bought some before for a Mitsubishi where the maker presumed their OE's were made of unobtanium when pricing, the aftermarket were utter rubbish (as were the lenses of the OE) but fulfilled a requirement for thankfully a short time.

dannyrst

http://xjkltd.co.uk/p/jaguar-headlight-hid-c2p21138-2221.html

Who would buy an expensive car eh?

WellKnownSid

agrinnall wrote: »

I very much doubt you found research saying that LEDs are "expected" to last 6000 hours, much more likely is that the mean lifetime is 6000 hours, and that of course means some will last longer and some will fail sooner. Yours is one of the latter.

For the cost that you've been quoted it will definitely be worth a phone call to Jaguar, but don't be too surprised if you don't get much out of them. Have you thought about taking it to an auto electrician to get a second opinion?

Actually, there is no significant failure mode of an LED as such - well there are but in the event of a normal operation with no thermal runaway or physical damage the biggest failure is a gradual loss of output. 100,000 hours is normal for an LED depending how it's run.

The bit that fails is the constant I driver - which unfortunately may take the diode with it. I'll imagine anyone with component level repair knowledge would be able to fault find and fix it quite cheaply, Maybe one of those dashboard / ABS repair type companies?

That said, SOGA would be the way to go because the nature of the kit...

bowlhead99

dannyrst wrote: »

http://xjkltd.co.uk/p/jaguar-headlight-hid-c2p21138-2221.html

Who would buy an expensive car eh?

It's true if you bought a car like an XF or XK with a list price of £35-90k, and want to replace every component with spares at their list prices, you will not be able to do it for the sticker price of the car.

That can get particularly important as the car gets older because a part that was once 2% of the price of the car is now 20% of the remaining value of the car.

Owners clubs and forums, and looking at independent specialists rather than main dealers, are the way you can keep your head above water as the car gets older. Of course if you're the kind of person who can handle the 50% depreciation in the first three years without blinking too hard, you can probably afford the thousand quid to get your lights working again. It's just a hard cash cost instead of the depreciation which is a silent killer.

For OP the car is near enough to warranty age that it's worth trying to pursue Jag to solve it on the grounds that the light unit should last 3 and a bit years without incident. Of course, if he'd paid the £800-odd to extend the warranty each year, it might have been covered without argument...

Strider590

Firstly, if you can't afford the running costs, why buy one?

Secondly, the only thing that would blow those LEDs is some sort of voltage spike. So if you don't address the root cause, the new one could blow just as quickly as the last.

Jonbarrett

Hi I'm having a bit of and issue with my Jaguar XF 2012 rear indicator it seems to work some of the time it's fine while driving it one day then the next a very faint flashing I'm wondering if someone else has come across this before is it a problem with the indicator or a relay fault any advice is much appreciated Thanks