Hello,
I started looking at GT type cars and have narrowed my search to the F Type R, some of my concerns are the electronics, from what I read online. My other concern is the active safety features, like active braking, never owned a vehicle with this although I did drive my daughters Subaru with the active safety features and had to turn it off.
How intrusive is the active safety features? I assume these features can be turned off, correct? Are the early cars equipped with these features?
I am presently looking at a 2018 with 12k miles and balance of the factory warranty of 16months.

Thank you

 

I've never heard of active braking on an F-Type. My R sure doesn't have it.

It's pretty primitive in terms of active safety features. There are a couple levels of traction control that can be disabled, but honestly, they didn't get in the way on a track day.

As for the electronics, if you're talking about the infotainment system, it's not nearly as good as what you'll find in many cheaper cars (like Civics). This for me was in no way a deal breaker, though. The infotainment does the basics and I use my phone for most things. It would be nice if it allowed the phone to be cast onto the screen, but that hasn't been enough of a turnoff for me to pay $600 or more for an aftermarket solution.

 

There's certain no active braking on earlier F-Types, although I have it on the F-Pace. I've never had it invoke actual braking (or need to). The most "obtrusive" element is a tendency to sound an alert if you happen to be coming up to a traffic light with a left turn lane and a thru lane. If there's just the tad of right bend to continue thru, the car doesn't know but what you're headed for the cars waiting to turn left. I happen to have such an intersection near the house, so it happens maybe once a month, if that. It can be turned off, but it's no big dead.

The infotainment system is fine. It's taken a while for JLR to straighten out the ICTP software used on newer models, but there's also CarPlay available. Yes, there are cars with better sounding stereo, but I have no complaints. If I want HiFi, I stay home and listen to Pink Floyd through my home system (B&O Beogram, Phase Linear 4000 + 2x400's, and 4 JBL Jubals). That's NOT the mission of the F-Type.

 

The nearest thing to active braking is the torque vectoring by braking, to which the OP may be referring. For MY18 don't expect too much in the way of car interference (or "assistance" as it's often called). Note that CarPlay/Android Auto is only available on those MY18 vehicles with the 10" screen (no physical buttons down each side).

 

Thank you all for the information. The salesman that showed me the car told me the car has active braking, lane departure and blind spot monitoring along with parking assist. I never had any of these features on my cars other than blind spot monitoring which I am ok with. I know my daughters Subaru was very intrusive, I could not deal with it so I turned it all off.
I could care less about the stereo or infotainment system. From what I have read there seems to be a lot of electrical issues with the car, everything from the dash flashing to door lock and door handle issues. This may be overblown which tends to happen on the internet.

I am mainly looking for information on the dependability of the car, from what I have read the engine and transmission are solid, the rear end has issues and requires frequent maintenance, but that is on the RWD vehicles, could not find the same info on the AWD vehicles.
There has been injector issues, water pump and over heating issues due to leaky hoses and plastic bits. The center vent that raises up sometimes gets stuck, speakers and amp that buzz or low output, this is what I remember from what I have read so far.

 

Lane departure warning was added as standard equipment mid-way through the 2018 model year. I have a May 2017 build and do not have that feature.

 

Squeaky wheels and all. People with issues will bring them forward. I've heard of some of those issues, but they aren't common, other than the speakers thing.

Here's a list of issues with my car since 2016:

Gas filler neck replaced in recall. At some gas stations, the pump would keep kicking off.
Dealer overfilled with oil EVERY...SINGLE...TIME...
Stereo flashed under Bulletin to address some of the sound system issues.
Battery drained to nothing when dealer didn't exit out of ODBII connection properly.
OEM Pirellis were scary.

I work from home, so I don't drive a lot. Only about 24,000 miles.

 

Yep, as far as I know the newer cars, that is MY18 to date, have active braking if the car thinks you're about to hit something. First it displays a warning if you approach something fast and then it's supposed to hit the brakes automatically to avoid you from crashing into something. I only got the warning once but never got to the stage where it actually brakes. Never noticed it apart from that so it doesn't seem to be over sensitive or kick in without reason as I've seen it can do in some other cars. I remember that this feature was more sensitive (triggered the warning much earlier) in an X260 XF I drove. I don't think it can be turned off but I don't see any reason to why. If I recall correctly this was introduced with the MY18 facelift along with a bunch of other stuff like the optional LED headlights and new lighter magnesium based performance seats.

Then there's lane keep assist. You can choose how intrusive it should be or turn it off completely. I've turned it off and forgot about it because it's pretty pointless. Then there's the blind spot monitor which is ok but definitely not intrusive. Just some flashing lights in the mirrors. It's also combine with a pretty nice feature that warns you if there's any traffic coming from the side if you're about to reverse.

I wouldn't really call the parking assist a safety feature but a convenience thing. The car parallel parks automatically for you... it detects if a space is big enough for parallel parking and then you just control the gas and brake while the car takes over the wheel. Seems pretty pointless to me and it's the only one of these features in my car that I still never tried.

There's plenty of info on common problems on here so keep reading. Apart from the ones you mentioned there's also the supercharger coupler which goes sooner or later. The most solid component of them all is probably the gearbox. Electrical issues don't seem that common so what you've seen seems overblown. Overall the later cars are less prone to issues than the earlier ones. Coolant system parts have been revised over the years, small things here and there have been improved and the later cars have a more solid interior with updated materials which don't get sticky as in the earlier ones.

I would never buy an F-Type without a warranty. This particular car being an 18 with warranty and pretty low mileage sounds like a pretty safe bet.

 

"the rear end has issues and requires frequent maintenance, but that is on the RWD vehicles"

Can't say that I've seen any pervasive issues or "frequent" maintenance on the rear end. But, not really relevant to the AWD you're considering.

I think that the "electrical" issues you've been hearing about aren't failures/malfunctions, but most software related in the infotainment system.
There is certainly some legacy of the old Lucas issues, but that's long ago.

Also, remember that car forums are exchanges for any questions and/or issues we have, and advice on how to handle them.
Considering there are about 25,000 F-Types in the US alone, I don't think there's anything you'll read here and say you'd "expect" to have as a problem.

 

I really appreciate the information. I am going tomorrow to the dealership and see if I can put together a deal on the car. I also want to get a good look at the car in the daylight, I test drove it after work at night and really could not get a good look at the car.
Thank you to all who replied.

 

My F type has active Emergency breaking System, you can disabile it in the menu. The active braking saved me only one time from a collision. Very useful, I keep it alwayes on

 

I am the new owner of a 2018 F Type R. I should have checked for the owners manual because it is missing, I hope the dealership can help me out with that. I am looking for the garage door link button, can't find it.
Most of the controls are self explanatory. I found a card in the scan disk slot, do all these vehicles have the scan disk or did the previous owner forget it?
Also when I try and use my thumb drive in the USB port that I have loaded with music it comes up format unreadable, it works in my Ford truck, my Cayman and the wife's Jeep?
Does this vehicle display oil pressure oil temperature and so on in one of the menus?
The oil fill level is overfilled according to the menu, I will correct this tomorrow, I guess this is common issue. Anything else I should look at while I have it up in the air? I imagine the transmission and rear ends are factory fill with only 12k miles.

 

Here’s the online Owner’s Handbook for 2018. I imagine there’s a downloadable one somewhere.
https://www.ownerinfo.jaguar.com/mod...t/28609_en_GBR

I believe the Jag infotainment systems won’t play MP3 etc if the bitrate is too high. It’s been discussed here, but not for a few years. Might be earlier MY, like mine.

 

Thank you DJS for the link

 

If you like reading, here’s a link to my Dropbox folder where I’ve accumulated a lot of F-type stuff over the years.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wgv3e86yc...glFoM3xOa?dl=0

 

Fantastic collection, great work!