Hey

I just created my account here after stalking and reading for a while. I've been looking at (and test driving) a few used F-Types during the past 1-2 months. No previous experience with these cars or any other Jaguar (BMW only for ~25 years, then Audi for two years)...
Anyway, I've narrowed my wishlist down to a MY16-18 AWD V8, preferably an R. Love the coupé roof line and shapes but leaning towards a convertible.
A few questions...

What is standard equipment/options in an R? I've seen some equipment missing that I thought was standard. Ie full electric seat adjustment.
Can you recommend some "must have" equipment?
Is there anywhere I can look up which options it had when new?

The infotainment system is not very good, that's very obvious coming from a modern Audi... The best choice today seems to be installing a Android Auto / Apple CarPlay module, and then use that as much as possible. I've looked into the UAD solution. Any other better ones available?

The car that currently best matches my wishlist is a white with black pack MY16 AWD R convertible with 43k miles. That's 10-20k miles more than the majority of F-Types currently for sale here (Sweden). The car was registered in March 2015 which I thought would make it a MY15 car, but the dealer insist it's a MY16. And it does look like a MY16 based on infotainment etc. Should I avoid this early 2015 "high milage" car? It's missing full electric seats but it has Meridian Surround 770W system, rear camera, carbon fiber side mirrors, 20" black Tornado wheels with new tires, black roof, AWD, etc. Prices are quite high here and this one is no exception. There are not many V8 convertibles currently for sale (only ~320 F-Types sold in the country, in total).

I've watched a few F-Type "buyers guides" on youtube, but what should I really look out for before buying my first F-Type?

I have many more questions but let's start with these

 

Just one comment, all 2016-2018 V8 F-Types are Rs, that was the only flavour of V8 F-Type in those years.
You can get a 2013 F-Type S with the V8 but that is convertible only, it has the slightly lower-tuned version of the V8 (495 PS vs 550 PS in the R), and it lasted only that one year before it was replaced by the R.
In 2021 the P450 came out in both coupe and 'vert with an even lower tuned version of the same V8, 450 PS (hence P450), but as it's relatively new it's probably outside your price range.

 

Jaguar starts its MYs in around March of the preceding year, e.g. my MY18 has a build date of 25th March 2017. Your dealer isn't lying!

It's difficult to define "standard equipment" since Jaguar's configurator allows you to spec a lot of stuff (at a price!). For me, "must haves" were heated and cooled seats, heated front screen and steering wheel (essential in British winter) and a V8 engine. Fortunately, I found a car that ticked all the boxes, so I'm a happy bunny.

Regarding the infotainment - mine has the last of the 8" screens (10" was introduced partway through MY18 and does support ACP and AA) but the driving eperience is so good that I find I only use the satnav when driving (music comes out of the pipes at the back!) and it's never failed to find, and get me to, my destination. Your needs/wants are likely different from mine, of course.

I guess since I'm in the UK we probably have a better selection to choose from, but good luck with your search - you should have fun on the test drives, at least!

And welcome to the forum.

Oh, and don't pay too much heed to the tales of horror about poor reliability - that era is long in the past.

 

Ok I'm used to the german brands that begin their MY in Aug/Sep.
But this MY16 cars infotainment system is a bit of a mystery. It's not the old one but also not the newer one that can be seen in MY17-. Did they have a special system just for MY16? It looks similar to this image.

I've probably been spoiled by Audis excellect digital instrument cluster (Virtual Cockpit + HUD) and MMI infotainment with Android Auto. Google Maps and Spotify would be very difficult to live without now.

Cooled/ventilated seats seems to be very rare here. It would be nice to have in a black leather convertible, but not a must have for me.
But I'm worried about the partly manual seat adjustment, which is also lacking lumbar support adjustment etc. A car like this really should have full electric.

Thank you

Don't worry, I've read and watched more people praising the relability (especially the V8) than complaining about it. But those 43k miles does worry me a bit. I'll have to dig deeper into the service records to verify that it's been done correctly.

 

This is the 2016 AWD R Convertible I looked at most recently. I really like the color combination

 

Sorry, previous post linked to the thumbnails

 

Well, buying used puts you at the mercy of the first owner who may not have the same priorities as you. If you're the only user of the car the seats will never need adjustment after you've set it up initially, so why waste money and weight on stuff that you'll never use?

Regarding the 43k miles - at least you can be assured it's been driven and not spent a lot of time with a dealer being fixed! I've had previous Jags that have had high mileages and didn't have any reliability issues with them - 2001 XK8 with over 60,000 miles and a 2004 XKR with over 90,000 miles. Both use an earlier variant of the V8 engine, which is pretty bullet-proof, IME. Not that anyone has actually fired bullets at me in it!

 

The leather on the seat bolsters gets worn really fast if you do lots of short trips with lots of entering and exiting the car so I've really loved the memory seats in my F-type. Makes it so much easier to switch between seating positions when getting in/out of the car.

 

The wear on bolsters is common in ANY car if the driver does not enter and exit carefully. If the car has significantly padded (and/or adjustable) bolsters the driver’s entry technique is what governs wear on the leather.

And regarding seat controls, the F-Type does have 1000-way electric controls 😊. On my car there is not only the heated, normal forward/backward, tilt up/down, up/ down of the base, but also the movable lumbar support and adjustable/inflatable bolsters (superb). It all depends on the trim level and options chosen…think of the way Porsche controls the options. Jaguar has learned from the Germans.

 

For MY18 (and maybe others) I think the adjustable bolsters became unavailable - just 14-way adjustment. I had adjustable (not inflatable - that's the lumbar support) bolsters on my 2010 XKR but never adjusted them much.

 

A fuzzy photo of the multi-way seat controls. The round one is for the inflatable bolsters and you can see the lumbar movement control in addition the seat base and backrest controls.
Super-comfortable seating.

 

Yeah, the round one has been removed in the 14-way seats.

 

Välkommen! Nice looking car. I think the MY16 ones still had the cheap interior plastics that get sticky over time. Just something to be aware of.

First registered on March 31st 2015 so an early MY16, which JLR's system says too. The best way to check the exact spec of the car used to be to open an account in topix and check it based on the car's VIN, but I don't think that works for private persons any more since a few years. The best way to get the exact spec and options list is to ask a dealer to extract the info for you based on the VIN.

The mileage is nothing to worry about but the car's history looks a bit sketchy to me. 7 owners since new. Perhaps some of those are dealers in between the actual owners. The service history isn't entirely clean either... the last recorded service is as far back as the 20th of October 2020 and the service before that was 4 months late. These cars should be serviced at least every 12 months no matter what, with a grace period of one month or so if I recall correctly. I guess it doesn't come with any extended JLR warranty but if you ever get into any goodwill repair discussion with Jaguar you're not in a good position with a sketchy service history.

Have you considered importing one from Germany? I'd take a look at autoscout24 and mobile. That's a completely different market with loads of clean cars.

 

apropos (word for the day) the car infotainment, that is probably the system that looks like the incontrol one but is actually the previous version. From memory the 2014 and 2015 model year cars had the initial system which looked like this:


Then the first of the 2016 model year versions had a unit where the guts were the same as the first units, but the interface was different, here:


before there was a 2016MY upgrade (build from mid to late 2015) which had the incontrol unit in it, which looks like this:

 

Yep, that's it! It's the old system where they just added some of the graphics from the incontrol system before the full switch to incontrol

 

Yeah I had the first unit in an XF and found there was too much on the screen, I kept pushing the wrong buttons when I was driving which was an absolute PITA. Though the screen was probably smaller in that car. I have the last one in my F Type and really like it, and the most recent one in our XE (before the pivy pro) which actually I find fussier to use though it does look prettier.

 

That explains a lot, thanks

Yeah, the MY16 have the middle photo look. So it's basically just lipstick on a pig

Is the MY17 system a big improvement? I was planning to go have a look at a 2017 AWD R Coupé, but it was sold just a few days ago.

Which system would be best for adding a aftermarket module (like UAD) for wireless AA/ACP? Or maybe it doesn't matter?

 

Tack!
Is MY17 and newer better in that regard? (sticky plastic)

The dealer have tried to contact Jaguar to get the spec list, but keep saying they get no response.

I have the (free) Carfax report for the car. It looks like three owners since new. First a company lease from Apr 2015 to Feb 2016, then a private owner from Feb 2016 to Jun 2018, and another private owner from Jun 2018 to Jul 2022. The remaining four owners are car dealers.
The current owner, the car dealer, have done a service very recently. But they are not a authorized Jaguar shop... And there was also a service during 2021, by another non-authorized shop...
Where did you see the service history? From what I've seen the car has not been used during the winter. Since 2018 it's even been temporarily deregistered during winter (illegal to drive and cheaper insurance) which is pretty common here, for sports cars. Not sure if Jaguar takes that in mind.
So yeah, the history is not great since the previous owner stopped using authorized shops. But is it bad enough to stay away?

I've never imported a car before. Maybe I can find a local dealer who can take care of that for me, if I find a good car. The downside is higher insurance cost, for imported cars.

 

I'm not sure when the plastics were improved. Could be that it happened with the MY18 facelift but I think it has been discussed in some other thread here or over at the UK based F-Type forum. When it comes to the build sheet Jaguar dealers can usually access the info directly so maybe a Jag dealer can help out with that if you ask nicely. You could also contact JLR's customer services directly about that. I've seen their contact info somewhere on here or on the UK forum.

Ok, the history doesn't sound that bad then. Not bad enough to to drop the car anyway. It feels like the previous owners cheaped out a bit by not using proper Jag dealers but then again I know they're pretty scarce in Sweden. If you just get a decent warranty with it you should be fine anyhow. It's probably just a good thing if the car hasn't been subjected to Swedish winter roads. I certainly wouldn't want to subject my pride and joy to such road conditions and even cringe a bit every time I drive on Swedish summer roads.

The service history registered with JLR is available on https://osh.jaguar.com . I guess you also did more research on bilregistret etc.

Importing cars from other EU countries should be pretty straightforward. I imported my two previous Jags myself from Germany to Luxembourg which wasn't too complicated and it's probably even easier to Sweden. I'd definitely explore that option. Otherwise there are definitely dealers in Sweden that provide that kind of service.

Check out UAD's site about the different model years. It shouldn't really make big difference. The in touch system is clearly better than the oldest system but it's no big deal I'd say. I had the old system in my previous Jag and never had any issues with it. Feature wise they're pretty similar but apart from the nicer user interface the newer cars also have connectivity features (remote access, remote route planning, spotify app etc) which is nice but shouldn't be a dealbreaker. Not sure when all the connectivity stuff was introduced but am pretty sure an early F-Type loaner I had years ago didn't have them.

 

The third photo in Bruce's post is what you get in MY17 and early MY18 (mine!) and I find it fine. Not too laggy and does all I want it to do, which isn't much, just the satnav and (very occasionally) play stuff from my USB stick. Oh, and does read incoming texts to me if I want it to. I'm not a fan of the later ones which look too much like a mobile phone interface to me, loads of little icons - ugh!