Just purchased a 2018 F-Type 400 Sport.

When I hit the start button and the car fires up, it initially revs very high. It is very brief, but it seems like more than should be prudent on a cold engine.
Is this normal? Is the Jag just showing off her ponies/exhaust at startup? :-)

Thank you!

 

The tachometer goes all the way up and comes back down - but that's just for show, the engine isn't actually doing that. Many modern cars do something like that with the gauges.

 

It starts with the exhaust valves open, then closes them shortly thereafter. This may be what you are noticing.

 

...actually it does start with a big snarl, possibly 3500rpm or so in true terms (ignore the tacho as mentioned above) then settle down to about 2500rpm or so for about 20 seconds or so before going back down to a normal idle. The first is just theater, I'm sure that Jag designed the car for it (Mustang does the same) and I wouldnt expect any issue from it. The second is to get the engine temp up. Then as eeeeeek mentioned, the valves are open for 20 seconds or so from startup. You sometimes hear a little metallic sound as they close.

you can put your car into reverse or drive during the fast idle, though I dont like to as it lurches a bit, I prefer to wait for the revs to go down.

 

The start up is always 2,000 rpm, it is normal and deliberately engineered in, I am sure I have read that in several places.
Unless it is extremely cold (which in my case is almost never) it then drops to around 1,200 rpm for about 30 seconds (maybe 60 seconds when very cold) and it then drops to the normal idle of 650 rpm.

 

lol so I was only double what it really is

edit - OK I went out after this post, my car hard been sitting here for about 6 hours, so we can probably treat it as a cold start in a 27 celsius day. Start up revs sound a lot higher than 2,000 (of course cant be sure because tacho doing its flick), and the first 20 seconds or so were closer to 1800, before dropping to under 1000. I then went back to the car a few minutes ago (so 10 minutes after stopping) and the start up revs didnt sound quite as loud but the first 5 seconds or so ran at about 1200 before dropping to about 700.

 

FWIW, a lot of cars have some higher than normal rpms at startup. The exhaust on the F-Type makes it more noticeable but it's done on most cars to start warming the catalytic converters.

 

Thanks for the information everyone. I'm aware of the startup needle going up to max and back down - this is definitely an actual rev. Doesn't sound like anything
to be concerned about and is a design feature.