Some of you might know me from the XF forum, but I was one of the Los Angeles winners of the extended test drive of the XE.

What I want to do is ask those of you who are in the market for an XE what specifically you want to know? I want to be as thorough as I can for all of you in my review. I read almost every car magazine so I've literally read thousands of reviews and I think I have a pretty good idea of what I need to focus on. But this is a forum drive and opportunity and if I didn't ask all of you, I wouldn't feel I'm doing it justice. So please post what questions you want answered and I'll do my best to give either an objective or subjective answer depending on the question. They are delivering it Jan. 4. So anything here by then or through the 11th I'll try to address.

Getting the IRR version, so it should be fun to gauge people's reaction to a car that is not out. I think it will show me how many people are really looking at Jaguars.

 

Lucky you!

Do you have any experience in driving late model BMW 3/4 series cars or the MB C-300 series? I'd be very interested in handling and ride comparisons to those cars.

I suspect you do not yet know which engine you'll have, but I hope it's the V6, which is the same engine I have in my F-Type and would most certainly order. However, I'm very familiar with it and a big fan.

In addition, I'd appreciate it if you take a lot of pictures of the IRR in bright light. That's the color I'd most likely order.

 

I was actually thinking about going on a few test drives of the others just to get an idea of what the competition is like. I did drive a 435 at an autocross course and the turbo lag was very noticeable and it felt a bit lazy in the handling. The M235 on the same course was a LOT more fun and engaging.

And as far as I know, I'm getting the XE-S.

 

I'm curious what the EPAS is like, in comparison to the outgoing XF's hydraulic setup. How does the interior room measure up to the outgoing XF, and I'm also curious if it exhibits the "lag" that my XF with the 3.0L has when taking off from a standstill--it's more of a programming issue, I think.
Also I'd like to hear your impressions of the adaptive suspension, and the exhaust note; I always thought it was too muffled in my car.

Have fun!!

 

The ONLY thing holding me back from switching to this car is

1) worries about interior build quality - the european reviews have been very harsh on the quality of the cars interior tools (steering wheel adjustment, quality of blinker tool, quality of buttons, quality of door panel plastics).

2) worries about the infotainment system - specifically whether the nav is good or not.

I don't use Nav often, but whenever I go on a trip with the family or SO - I demand a quality navigation system that is accurate and responsive. I know JLR has been trashed on this in the past.

My current car is a 328i (2014) and so I am very interested to see how those two things I mentioned above compare. That car also has a lot of plastic inside, but everything feels very dense and high quality, and the iDrive system is seriously the best of the bunch.

TIA!

 

How about the seat and its adjustments? Blind spots? Noise at highway speeds?

 

I look forward to seeing the OP's thoughts. I have views on most of the questions above, but I havent driven the 3.0, save in the f-type. I think you are going to love it, but you'll miss the beautiful sound of the R.

 

Absolutely Superb, really looking forward to your thoughts on the experience as a whole and definitely your review.
Connor, Peter and Jamie, all currently in X types may be looking at the XE as their next car, albeit in a few years time

Thanks

 

I'm glad I'm getting responses as it will help me be thorough. I'm going to keep asking for the manual so I can really get into the infotainment system to determine how well it works.

Found out it will only be 4 days and not the entire week, but at least I'll have the weekend to play with it.

 

One more thing I'm curious about is the new infotainment system. Do you know if the XE you'll have has the InControl Touch or the PRO? For me I don't really get all excited about the media system but I would like some functional improvements over the system in my XF.

 

I dont want to answer questions meant for Kyanite, but having had 2 XFs (one with the blue screen one with the black) and the XKR (back to blue, which I preferred to the black), I can say that the XE infotainment system is a massive, massive improvement.

The phone is much easier, the stereo (380W) is awesome, as good or better than the volvo systems which were always streets ahead of Jag.

I found the black and white XF system to be very fiddly, worse than the blue. The XE uses more hard buttons which is a bit of a shame, but it improves the performance out of sight. Dont know about Nav yet, I havent used it.

 

Good to hear!

In your experience:

1) How accurate is the car at pinpointing your location accurately? I.e knowing you're on a highway and not on the adjacent street.

2) Quality of the navigation maps? Does the arrow representing you move accurately (i.e when you turn left the arrow is turning left at the same time to reflect?) and cleanly (i.e no lag?)

Is the car in tune with its directions? I.e if you are meant to turn left on Apple street, when you get to Apple street is the Nav right there with you or is it still catching up?

3) Accuracy of route suggestions? Has it gotten you lost? Has it ever sent you to the wrong destination? Does it tell you if your destination is on the right or the left?

These are all things I know plagued JLR in the past (drove a friends older XK and the nav was..... terrible (!), was so behind our actual pace (i.e telling us to turn 2 minutes after we had already passed the turn :/).

Want to make sure this car has quality infotainment before I consider pre-ordering.

 

I'll have a go on the weekend and let you know. The nav in the 2011 XKR is fine - not spectacular, but fine. the 2012 XF was slightly better in graphics but the hard drive was slower to get into gear. I've only gone past a street once, and that was where the street was a bee's dick past another one. It does tell you when in advance of getting to the turn, sometimes it'll tell you to turn now when you are 5 or 10 metres from the turn itself. And it does say "your destination is on the right" or left, as the case may be.
I'll try the XE. Bear in mind though that our maps might be different to yours.

 

Bruce feel free to answer too. A couple of things I dislike about my XF's screen is that if you use anything other than Bluetooth and you aren't on the main screen a huge box pops up when you change stations. It's annoying when you're using the navigation.

Also going back to the music I dislike how there is a huge display capable or multiple lines of text but only one is used.

 

Cheers. Here is the music screen once you push the music tile. Actually one surprise - no cd player! I dont use CDs anyway, but...

Also the song comes up on the little screen between the dash dials.

Nav screenshots in the next post...

 

Thanks for the pics, Bruce! But if I'm on the homescreen what is displayed for the music that is playing?

 

Tried out the nav. It is pretty good though I dont use nav a lot so I'm not demanding. Input is pretty quick going in the order of state - town - street. Give you heaps of warning before turns. Pretty accurate though it came off to a rocky start when it told me to get into the wrong street to exit our estate.

The arrows pop up on the dash and on the HUD as well. Didnt seem to be any lag. It is a lot better than the XF was, plenty more information available. Tells you what side the destination is. Probably on a par with the volvo nav system, but the input through a touch screen is easier.

But I actually have found something with the car that should be changed. I parked it in the sun yesterday and after an hour or two when we came back the rotary gear selector was so hot I couldnt touch it, and it stayed very hot for the next 15 minutes. When I say I couldnt touch it, I'm not being prissy - you could have fried an egg on it and I had to turn it with a towel. More surprising since the dial had retracted, so it must have been heat transferring through the exposed bit. Anyway, not a huge issue, but something to be wary of, and not something I've had with the other cars.

 

 

It doesnt look as though you can increase the amount of info on the home screen, though there is a hard button on the right of the screen (or you can touch the music icon) that then gets you into the music info. And I dont think that it automatically reverts to the home screen, whereas I think the '12 XF did. you have to push the home hard button or the return soft button, each of which are on the left so farthest from the driver in Oz.

 

Thanks for the additional photos; I don't know I might prefer the layout that's in my XF.