I ran across this article in 2009. This was the deciding factor on me buying my '06 STR. "The study measures problems experienced by original owners of three-year-old (2006 model year) vehicles." I'm glad I bought her. I've had her for two years and 23,000 miles. Not a lick of problems. Well, the rear tires are a little expensive

http://businesscenter.jdpower.com/ne...spx?ID=2009043

 

Interesting, one of the more recent issues of Consumer Reports that I got had several of the Jags at the very bottom in terms of reliability.

 

It's always lovely to read such good feedbacks from customers

 

Well, this consumer of an S-type can confirm after one year's use, being a 2006 model and having now 122,600mile on the clock, it has never refused to start, or get me to where I wanted to go, and back again. All the problems have been a lack of maintenance, connived at by Jaguar in their own handbook -- I refer to the nonsense of the "sealed for life autobox". So I'm not surprized that Jaguars are regarded as reliable; this does not mean they aren't at times irritating and expensive to fix, especially when the irritation could so easily be cured by the car's own makers. Do the Jaguar people ever read stuff like this in places like this? I doubt it, they'll have the usual out-of-date corporate mentality on this one. "We know best" will be their watchword on these kind of matters.
Leedsman.
p.s. I don't think they know best. Do you?

 

The 2009 Powers award pertains to when Jaguar was still under the Ford umbrella. It will be interesting to see how the Tata-era cars are viewed by Powers....

 

The latest Car and Driver magazine has an article about high end luxury cars and one of the cars is the new XJ. In that article they specifically mention them being jd Powers number 1 in 2009 and now they're 23rd (or 29th maybe, I would need to check). What a nose dive for only a couple years.

 

Tata haven't owned them long enough to be the cause of a dive, have they?

 

I double checked and the magazine is Motor Trend they're now Jaguar is rated 23rd by JD Power. The car even experienced an electrical glitch during their test which is never good.

I'm would imagine a lot of it comes from rolling out two mostly new models right as the ownership changeover took place. I'm sure Ford would have just dumped whatever volume of cash necessary to prevent/address any issues with the new vehicles and Tata probably wouldn't do that.

 

Ah. I forgot how flush with cash Ford is. (As if.)

 

Well then maybe mine will settle down soon?

I'm at the 7 month point now and both headlamps went out, MAF, and now some kind of coolant leak. I can't say the fuel gauge issues are a failure or that they stopped my being able to drive the car reliably but it does detract from the ownership experience.

If you spend any time on this forum you read mostly about problems so let's not forget that tends to jade the ownership experience too. You can develop quite a case of JAS. The best remedy is to drive the damn thing and enjoy it!

 

And that's why Jaguar had to "go away"...

See Ford doesn't enjoy the same luxuries our other two American automobile manufacturers enjoy of being state controlled. They can't run up enormous amounts (BILLIONS) of debt with nothing to show for it only to have the government wipe away all their debts screwing millions of bond holders in the process. But I digress...

 

Exactly! Ford acted responsibly whereas the other two are a disgrace right along with the administration. Wealth redistribution a.k.a theft.

 

That is exactly why I won't touch a GM product again. That whole company was horribly mis-managed from top to bottom for far too long and should have been broken up. I still wish Jaguar was a part of Ford, as Ford seemed to fix the biggest problem with Jaguars in the form of all the electrical components. We're very pleased with our 01 S-type, and would buy another Jaguar any day.

 

Yes but they never made a really successful go of it like Audi, Mercedes and BMW. They couldn't consistently make money and grow market share. I drove all the newest models last summer at a Jaguar event and I was very impressed. I hope those products do well. I know I see a lot of these cars on the road now in the NY metro area. Tata motors? I have no idea how well this will work out for Jaguar as the Ford corporate technical tit dries up.

 

My biggest fear is the application of the Chinese/Indian philosophy of quality and that is of basically screw quality. Build things as cheaply as humanly possible, make huge margins so that even with obscene return/warranty loss rates you're still in the black. I would assume that the upper management at Tata realizes that general attitude will not fly in the luxury car market even with well styled and unique products (even though I think the new cars look too much like Acuras).

 

Ratan Tata seems to really appreciate high-end things, and seems to realize the qualities that separate them from common goods.