So, took the F-Type on a 4 day road trip of about 2000 miles over mountains, in sleet and sun and rain, on small roads, into parking lots and tight places and gravel inn's parking lots....some observations:

1. What a superb car at speed (and not at speed). It can pass at full speed like nothing else save a Porsche Turbo (and this car looks a lot better in and out).
2. Having it at stock height was really good for surviving real world things. All I'll say but I have lost any desire to lower the car after the trip based on reality.
3. The coupe "trunk" is pretty big - we got a four wheeler international travel huge suitcase in plus stuff. Less wrinking and great in getting to a hotel room.
4. It is special - did not pass or see another one in 4 days across all those miles. Also did not see a 911 or M3....I suspect winter adventuring to be the issue.
5. Continental DWS06 plus in 265/35/20 and 305/30/20 were sublime in sleet, cold, rain, and sun. Highly recommended. After 2k miles 7mm tread fell to 6.9.
6. The auto wipers and auto lights work wonderfully.
7. The dynamic suspension in full "go" mode is super.
8. Stage 3 VAP for the whole time was just perfect.
9. Not a drop of oil was burned - I do my own changes with my mightyvac and had just put in new Ravenol prior to the trip.
10. Mileage with no consideration for mileage (the car was used as intended, not hyoermiled) was 29mpg. I consider that amazing for 475hp being used a bit.
11. Aftermarket carplay was key to have - made the 2016 completely up to date in my mind. I am not impressed by lcd gauges (we have a volvo for that).
12. Metal coolant pipes - no issues there of course either.


The following week the exact same car was used to get me home in a blizzard. AWD in snow mode....I had no issues in pretty horrendous conditions...ride height again stock (matters in snow a lot).

Please add your stories and impressions.

 

Very nice. I did a 5000 3-week road trip in the summer of 2020, during the first lull in the pandemic. Mine’s a convertible, and as I was flying solo, I was able to take golf clubs, food, etc. Car did great, and I spent a lot of time avoiding interstates. Went from MA to MI to the Wyoming Rockies to golf in WI. Back roads through Nebraska sandhills with the top down was fantastic. (Except when I ended up on a dirt road.)

Ran out of fuel in MN due to a faulty fuel gauge (which I still haven’t fixed) but an otherwise fantastic trip. V6S doesnt get quite as good a mileage as the V8 - different rear-end ratios, so V8 spins slower at the same speed than the V6 does. [Edit: I assumed from your HP you had the V8. Nice. Mileage reported by the trip computer is optimistic, but I rarely get what you’re getting. I’m usually over 80MPH, which doesn’t help.]

In addition to my annual MA-MI runs, I did a spring golf trip to Myrtle Beach in 2021. Went over the Chesapeake bridge-tunnel on the way back and up the Delmarva peninsula. Good times.

 

Thanks and cool - agree on the gearing...mine has the V6. I don't comment on velocity on threads. The car was not driven slowly.

Forgot a few things:

13. There was a high wind warning most of the way back (50mph side wind gusts or more). The car was really, really good in what I would call very tough condition in mountains (US East Coast, so small hills to some out there). Stock height and stock aero/side skirts/front stuff/rear moving lid thing. It was remarkably good actually. That doesn't get much attention out there but it really matters.

14. At now 63k miles on the odometer, not a rattle. Frankly, that is better than Porsche, MB, BMW, Volvo, and equal to Lexus in my world. Remarkable demonstration of how the reality of "Jaguars are not built well" as a bias is absolutely untrue (in my opinion, failures do happen to ALL makes...bore scoring ...).

15. The seats while toughish as new now are perfect. Not too soft but also at 6 hours very comfortable - these are the performance seats in the high end leather with a zillion options for motion...the adjustable side bolster support is frankly amazing and a favorite feature for me. Highly desirable if you are in the market for one of these cars.

16. With the LED upgrade I learned about from this forum the visibility is amazing (auto on/off works great). Highly recommended - makes bad weather night work doable. Modernizes the lighting fully. The lights still move with turning. I think Jaguar should actually offer this as a factory upgrade accessory it is so good.

Link on this forum for the headlights: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/f...2017-a-228421/

17. Two issues (minor) came up that are real: the sun visors are a joke (obviously if you look at them). Good sunglasses are key but in just the right situation it is tough to see. Solution for me: leave a baseball hat in the car. Not perfect, but it works. Also, the dead pedal space could be a little bigger. Not a deal braker and possibly fixable with a custom unit....

 

Shortly after getting my 2021 vert, we did a 2500 mile road trip through Canada including a few ferries.
Car ran great, though we were pretty careful with the ground clearance getting on/off the ferries and when we encountered several major road works.
We managed to stuff enough into the vert trunk for about 3 weeks of travel including booze and gallon water jugs.
The key to that was using all soft bags and duffles.
Fortunately, however, the following year when we made a return trip (different route) to Canada, we opted to take the Jeep.
Unexpectedly, our ferry from Campobello island required us to drive onto the gravel beach into the edge of the seawater and up a steepish ramp on to the vessel, with similar conditions at the exit ramp.
The Jag would have buried its nose in shingle and salt water!!
Horses for courses!!

 

It's interesting to hear a fair amount of anti-lowering sentiment among this group. I have had a couple of cars lowered [my current F type and a previous '98 911 C2S]. The lowering springs used on both cars were considerably stiffer, as well. Although the P-car definitely looked better lowered, the difference in handling was moderate and the ride pretty rough. Lowering the F type I believe made a substantial difference in the sensation of body roll and feels like a different car. It also looks amazing. The ride is also rougher but who cares? It's not a Lexus.

Although I do understand that one must be more vigilante when driving a lowered car, the benefits to me [and isn't handling at least 75% of what IT is?] make it a complete no brainer. I would would be willing to bet one dollar that if everybody on this discussion board had the opportunity to experience their cars lowered [with stiffer springs], the vast majority would want to keep it that way. It's THAT much better [for me, anyway].

 

Synthesis, while not necessarily disagreeing with you about performance, I think the decision has much to do with where and how one drives.
I have enough puckering just handling the terrible roads in MA and driving up my steep driveway, apart from challenging road conditions when driving to parts unknown.

 

Once my '22 was past the recommended "break-in" mileage, I took my P450 R-Dynamic from SW WA to LA. It was a great trip and the car performed well. Drove a mix of I-5 and backroads between 5 and 101. Using Tetris skills to fill a batch of small luggage pieces and other misc. stuff was kind of a pain... but hey... it's a sport car! Took it up Angeles Crest Highway one week-day morning. The AWD make the turns a thing of joy.

 

LOL. Good skill to have!

 

I get that, but this is why you have another car. It doesn't seem overly practical to have an F Type as your only mode of transportation. If this is the case, though, then you are correct.

 

Hmmm, my F-Type is lowered and it is my only car and a daily driver and the roads around here can be pretty crap and my garage entrance has a pesky spoon gutter at the start of it, yet I have zero problems!
Admittedly I have a few things in my favour - zero snow, not much rain, dry roads 95% of the time and I very rarely go off the tarmac.
That said I still take care when traversing large/deep dips and holes (such as that spoon drain) which I always take at an angle and those damnable speed humps (all over the place in Adelaide) which I always go real slow over.

 

I agree with you, as well, and this would not be a problem for me either, but just the same, most people are not willing to put up with things some of us are.

Having said that, it still makes a great deal of sense to have another vehicle at your disposal. My wife drives a Cayenne, so that takes care of it for me. Previously when I had a sports car, I also had a "regular car," in addition.

 

First- great trip report! Funny lowering came up. Parts are starting to show up, including H&R lowering springs. I just made my first trip to the post office and going very slowly, scrapped the lower plastic piece on the way out. I thought that when I install the springs I'm going not use the jag for the post office! Are big speed bumps in lots going to be an issue?

 

You should not have any scraping problems going over big speed bumps as long as you go slooow over them.
Also if you go too quickly over a speed bump the rear muffler will bottom out with a helluva thump thump, ask me how I know!

 

On lowering an F-type:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/commen...in_suspension/

"The often-overlooked disadvantage to lowering is that roll center drops more radically than the center of gravity on most cars. Although lowering the center of gravity and increasing the track width are the two most effective ways to reduce weight transfer, over lowering increases the roll couple and dynamic weight transfer.

This can cancel any steady state weight transfer advantage that lowering the center of gravity can have. The huge roll couple created by over-lowering will require an overly stiff suspension to control body movement. And when your suspension is too stiff it won’t absorb road irregularities effectively, which will make it harder to keep the tires in contact with the ground and you can’t drive fast if your tires aren’t on the ground. This is called tire shock by us engineers."

Note, I had wanted to lower the car before the road trip. It just won't work for my way of doing things - I don't want to be unable to use public parking lots...if it was a track car or weekend only car, sure. But I'd not go too low - the design windows is what it is.

 

That's why the plastic piece is there! But you'll learn how to deal with it. Go slow and take inclines/declines at angles.

 

How low is low?
I think original is 4 inches.
Still think it is more inconvenient for me.
Hardly get to drive faster than 50mph on side roads with bendies, and hard to think it makes any difference on highways.

 

I took my F Type on a road trip up to Santa Barbara last summer. The trip computer was showing close to 29.5 MPG for much of the freeway driving at 70 MPH. I was quite pleased with that. Of course when I hit the traffic around L.A. with a lot of stop and go driving and then speeds between 20-40 MPH, the mileage dropped to around 24 MPG. I think overall the average was 26-27 MPG which is good for a car like the F Type R. I also did as much as 4 hours straight and had no discomfort at all from the seats. I find it to be an excellent example of a true Gran Turismo sports car.

 

Back to road trips - stories and thoughts welcome!!!

Please post cool road trip pictures!!!!!!!



(me in car in motion)

 

The trip computer was about 2mpg optimistic, at least for the first few model years, don’t know if they ever improved that.

 

I'd say it still is (as is with most makes) based on actual math vs letting the computer do it.