Has anyone installed these?
They look pretty sweet and not too overstated, given what they are.
I wonder if they can be procured in the US, and for what price.

(for reference, some links to another thread on illumated treadplates and how to install illuminated treadplates)

 

Some additional information here if anyone is interested:

• These need to be ordered through a dealer.
• They're currently backordered globally so the wait could be a couple months.
• Jaguar has set up a site Confirmation - Treadplate Designer for dealers to use to download and submit an order form. You can go to the site and check out what the plate would look like (it has a preview feature). There are several fonts available.
• After calling around a bit (California) a reasonable dealer price out here would be $1120 for the part (2 treadplates, one for each site). Installation should be around 1.5 hours.

Also, if you're interested in ordering, you may want to note that Jaguar typically uses all caps lettering, so if you're putting your name on the tread plate you may want to spec it in JOHN SMITH all caps for consistency.

 

I'm sure these vanity plates are available on new Jaguars.. I seem to recall when ordering mine that they run about $500. Canadian from the factory. I toyed with the idea for awhile, as trade in would mean removing them it would cast me the 500 plus which wasn't too bad, but in the end I didn't bother with them.
They would probable look pretty cool.
Lawrence

 

I've been remiss in following up on this thread.

Here's my review of the personalized treadplates. In a nutshell, I would not recommend this option.

1. Installing these will destroy your original treadplates
The stock treadplates are very thin aluminum and are glued onto the door sill. To install the personalized treadplates, you need to peel off the original treadplates which will definitely destroy them.
This means when you sell the car you will need to reinstall the treadplates or hope that the buyer doesn't notice your name on the door sill.

2. They look OK, but font is too small.
The treadplates illuminate your name (or whatever text you want) in a bright-ish cyan. During the night it's subtle enough to be clearly visible without burning your eyeballs with brightness. During the day, the brightness of the cyan lighting means there isn't a lot of contrast with the brushed aluminum surround, so the text is very subtle / hard to see.
Generally the font is too small....the lettering is about the width of an adult finger/thumb so it just looks a bit too small.

3. It takes forever to receive them
The ordering process is very manual and very error-prone. You can go to Confirmation - Treadplate Designer to fill out an electronic form, which then needs to go to your dealer. Your dealer will then fill out the form again (most likely), and send it off to Jaguar, who then sends it to their subcontractor to manufacture in the UK.
It took 5 months(!) for mine to arrive after ordering.

4. They're not cheap. They run about $1100-1300.


If Jaguar is reading this thread, I would make the following suggestions:

1. Offering personalized accessories is a GREAT idea. Presumably Jaguar has embraced this because of the creation of the SVR branch. It's a good way for owners to connect more intimately and expressively with vehicles and the Jaguar brand, it makes the car feel more alive, and it's good profit margin for the company.

2. That said, you have to design personalized accessories so that they can be swapped in and out easily. Having a personalized treadplate that destroys the original, requiring the owner to buy another one when the car gets sold effectively doubles the cost of an already expensive accessory.

3. There are other easy opportunities to offer optional personalization: having the owner's name (or custom text) on the startup screen or screensaver, custom shifters with monograms, etc. These are all doable with very high margins and follow options available for other luxury and sport car brands.

4. Exercise better leverage with your suppliers. It's unconscionable that in the age of lean manufacturing and CNC machines it takes 5 months to receive a custom product. Jaguar has garnered tremendous respect from its suppliers....you can now hold them to a higher standard of customer satisfaction.

 

Thanks for the info. If I do get it personalized I'm debating between

"SHIFT"

and

"NO EATING OR DRINKING"

 

Hi guys,

I hate to say it but most of the info above is wrong regarding personalised treadplates and Jaguar.

I ordered it as part of my original factory build for my V8S F-Type after seeing the exact same pic shown above on the Jaguar UK F-Type Accessory Catalogue Webpage.

I had no idea what to expect but was pleasantly surprised by the whole process.

I refined the exact text and capitalisation I wanted on the treadplate - and as I'm an MD I decided on 'Dr Jxxx M Dxxxxxxx' (obviously 'x's are protecting my identity but you get the picture of what I ordered I'm sure).

Next my Dealer forwarded me a .pdf from the Jaguar Factory responsible for the treadplate build showing this exact text in the exact form I requested in 5 different fonts for me to choose one.

The fonts were:
Jaguar Bold (which I chose)
Verdana
Handsome Pro Classic
Arial
Myriad Pro - Regular

Computer-simulated pics of each were provided showing the light blue writing in each font on the light grey simulated aluminium finished treadplate background it contrasts with in real life.

I chose Jaguar Bold as it just totally matches the feel of the car - modern, unique, timeless, yet technical.

My Dealer said nobody in Australia had requested personalised treadplates in the previous 15 years so no-one knew what would happen next!

Once finalised - the choice was submitted to the Factory and unexpectedly a few months later I was delighted to have received a pic via email of a pair of hands holding up my completed entire tread-plate assembly bearing the exact text, capitalisation, and font I wanted in light blue all shiny and new and shrink-wrapped ready for installation onto my car!!! Not just the text-bearing section (which admittedly is a little smaller than it could be - but well within the realms of good taste as a Jaguar should) - but the whole assembly ready for fitting on the assembly line in Castle Bromwich.

It was such a lovely touch for the Factory to have sent this pic and it reinforced how special I felt to have ordered a customised Jaguar!! It made not only my day but my entire month!! The fact they went to this trouble is beyond my experience despite having many cars made to order by various premium European manufacturers.

The car was duly delivered and bore my personalised treadplates on each side. They illuminate when the door opens in a lovely light blue that is not too intrusive or too bright and highlights my name beautifully at night (not so much during the day but you can see it anyway).

If anything the text is smaller than I had bargained for and need to be pointed out to people in the majority of cases as nobody looks for them as no-one I've ever heard of had their name in the doorway of their car!!!

Best go for all-uppercase and Verdana or Arial if you want to maximise the visibility.

The price was high - AUD $2,700 (which is about USD $2,000 at current exchange rates) but given my car cost AUD $270,000 complete it's about 1% of the final cost and makes the car very special for me and me alone - and I wouldn't part with it for all the money in the world.

I mean - a personalised F-Type V8S in Italian Racing Red with Ivory Leather - does it get any better than that in the motoring world?

Not to me!!

In regards to removal on selling the car - the larger treadplate shell in brushed aluminium easily dismounts from the car (I figured out how to do it in about 15 seconds!) and the personalised rectangular insert pops out of it quite easily and can be replaced by a translucent-writing OEM 'Jaguar' insert - or any suitable F-Type insert - even a new name if you happen to change your own name, give the car to your wife, go through a witness protection program, or accrue extra titles and feel the need for your treadplate to stay up to date!

It would take about 2 mins to change them on each side. Bear in mind the treadplate is illuminated and so it would be best any insert allows for the light blue light to shine through - hence translucent writing is best.

So enjoy and I hope my experience helps others to decide on this most personal and special build-to-order option.

Dr J
Sydney Australia

 

I'm glad you had a better experience than I did, but I would not characterize my experience as "wrong", because it is what it is.

Perhaps you received faster service in Australia, but I had Jaguar North America call me almost every week for 4 months before I asked them to stop with (essentially no) progress on the plates. They arrived in 5 months from order.
I also had North America reach out repeatedly to Jaguar UK to communicate with the plate manufacturer,with little success also.

The master mechanic who installed my tread plates has been working on Jaguars exclusively for 35 years (including restorations of some stunning models he had in his garage when I was there!) and showed me the original plates before he pulled them off and both he and I are convinced that there was no way to recover them.

Perhaps you started with illuminated plates (I didn't) and that may have simplified your install.

BTW at least according to Jaguar North America, these parts are not made in a Jaguar factory but by a subcontractor.

 

Could you explain the "15 seconds to replace the sill"? I installed a set, and the aluminum portion is glued in place and would be destroyed on removal (1/4" thick one-time tape). The undersill screws are under the aluminum so there's no way to get to the larger pieces either.

I like your idea of "recustomizing" if you have a way to replace without destruction, but need to know how without destroying the aluminum part.... How about "get in and hang on", it's re-sellable :-)

Thanks

 

You should be able to remove them without any problem, although you need patience.

Usually a hot air gun or a powerful hairdryer played on one end to start with, softens the adhesive enough for them to come off without any deformation. They can then be reused if you cover the adhesive with grease proof paper at a later date.

 

My mechanic tried that, to no avail.

 

Dr. J.,


The AUD $270k price tag for a V8S puts it at almost twice the cost of a V8S in the US. Are your import taxes that overwhelming to cause that kind of discrepancy, or is Jaguar engaging in a differential pricing scheme by region?

 

Almost every make sold in a large number of countries is considerably more expensive than it is in the U.S. A lot of it is due to higher taxes elsewhere, such as the VAT in the UK, but some of the higher cost differential is also due to the U.S. being a much more competitive market, and a place where any major automaker desires to be competitive. Car fanatics are very fortunate to live in the U.S.

 

Quite apparently so!


I knew the situation in a number of countries, but would never have imagined that Australia similarly suffered from that kind of burden.

 

Try buying an F-Type in Singapore :-)

http://www.sgcarmart.com/new_cars/pricelist/16/2014-12-04.pdf

 

I frequently traveled to Singapore in the late '90s and at that time the import duty for autos was 100%. On top of that, cars over 10 years old could not be registered. However, if you had your car locally "remanufactured" you got another extension. The purpose of this draconian system was to minimize the number of cars on the road and to force the creation of more local manufacturing jobs.

 

Am I the only one whose F-Type was optioned with the digital treadplates from the factory? It might be fun to change the text if that's possible without removal.

We seriously need to figure out how to option code our cars...so many things need tweaking!