Has anyone heard of this problem?

Every so often (a total of five times thus far), while driving along a certain stretch of freeway in Los Angeles (the 60 west near the Indiana exit) my 98 XJR stops responding to the gas pedal. The engine still runs, the car just refuses to accelerate for about 10 seconds. Thus I coast (and flip on the hazards) until it starts responding again. It has never happened anywhere else. I reach this location about five minutes into my commute, although it doesn't seem to matter what time or day it is (eg, sometimes I go to work on the weekend, leave later in the morning, and it still happens).

In the Jag-lovers forum, someone had a similar problem and a poster suggested strong radar arrays may be the problem. Is this possible? I've read that strong radar signals may interfere with electrical components, but to this degree? And it's not like I see other cars losing acceleration either. Further, the closest major airports (LAX and Longbeach) are about 10 miles away from that location, although airlines do fly relatvively close overhead. In the latest incident, I noted a plane flying across the freeway about 5-10 seconds before the gas pedal stopped responding.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Reply to
truegrit
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It's entirely possible. I have heard of early ABS systems being activated at the entrances of tunnels where the tunnel was shared with a railroad. The RF for train communications would induce the brakes to grab. Nice surprise, what?

I also lived in a town where the local military radar cause flourescent lamps to glow dimly even when off as the radar beam rotated though them. The radar had a 5 Megawatt pulse output. The problem was solved when the radar pivot was tilted so the radar beam was directed slightly more above the town.

Al

Reply to
Al

Reply to
Don Young

Can also be caused by emmissions from security devices By that I mean a building/area that has certain types of security devices fitted.

Reply to
old man

You know, this morning a car was stalled out in the middle of the freeway on that particular stretch. Obviously it could have been any number of reasons, but given my own experiences, it was curious nonetheless.

The thing with the security devices on a building could be a possibility although it doesn't happen to me on a regular basis. I'll check tomorrow to see if there's any buildings nearby that might be a source. My question regarding the outside source whether it be radar signals or security device signals is why it doesn't happen to other cars and only to my car?

Reply to
truegrit

Being rather car illiterate beyond oil changes, I suppose you would need one of those devices that reads codes. Where can you get ones that will read a 98 xjr?

Reply to
truegrit

Reply to
Don Young

In order to read the codes on a 1998 XJR you will most likely have to go to Jaguar. Although MOST auto parts stores have OBD (On Board Diagnostic) II readers, Jaguar uses a proprietary set of codes that the have not released and are not the same as the general auto world. This is changing, however since many of the emissions stations across the country are now using OBD II diagnostics to read emissions levels.

It will soon be a matter of whether the company providing the auto parts store equipment wants to spring to pay Jaguar for their codes.

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webserve

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