I bid adios to the XJ crowd. I bought my car in June of 2010 and have reached the breaking point. I love the looks and the feel of the Supercharged engine, but I'm no longer at a point where I can stomach the dealer visits.

I harbor no ill feelings to Jag or certainly no ill feelings towards my dealer. On the contrary, I think my dealer did an excellent job with what they were given. I think the car is drop dead gorgeous. I love the interior design, the carbon trim I had, the B&W sound system and the solid horsepower. However, I truly reached the boiling point on rattles, creeks and noises in the car. Part of that is me: I'm very **** about noises in my cars. The latest was a constant rattle in the steering column/dash area that had me worried about a total dismantling of the dash. At the end of the day, my dealer and the dealer's family of dealerships made me whole and stepped up to make me one happy customer. Cudo's to Park Place...you deserve it!

With that said, I'm off into the wild blue yonder in a 2011 Mercedes C63 AMG. I went German! It's a hell of an engine and has had some of the teething problems worked out. Good luck to all you XJ owners, I'll be following the board to see how things work out!

Cheers
Jesse

 

I am not an XJ owner, and I was a potential buyer. I'm glad your experience with the humans was good, but sadly bad with the product. Hopefully Jaguar in England reads this forum and learns that consumers are - with reason - picky in this class of car. I still hope Jaguar gets its act together, the cars are gorgeous. They just need to improve the overall quality and engineering.

Good luck with the Merc - I hope you don't need any!

 

I appreciate the way you submit your message , neither bashing the brand nor saying nasty things about the manufacturer .
I wish you best of luck with your future cars , I trust Mercs will serve you well
Happy safe driving

 

I, too, bought mine in June, 2010 (with an early VIN in the 7,000's). Fortunately, all issues were resolved by my dealer in the first couple of months and I have been trouble-free ever since (I now have over 10,000 miles). Since it is the nature of these forums to be inhabited mostly by people with complaints looking for solutions, I wonder just how many of these cars are really having serious problems. I sure am happy with mine for all of the reasons stated by Hunterjah and would not hesitate to recommend this car to others looking for a departure from the rest of the luxury-car crowd. I really don't think Jaguar has significant quality and engineering problems here--just some dealers that can't seem to figure out how to keep their customers happy by employing competant techs. Jaguar needs to focus on this.

 

I've had mine since Sept and also have had no significant problems. Love the car!

 

Hunterjah:

Thank you for your contribution to the world economy. As a retired "car guy": We need guys like you that are willing to trade yearly for high dollar luxo-cars because they don't suit your need for perfectionism.

I just hate to think how much you spend on depreciation and sales taxes in a given year.

 

Bamaman...hope you're not a Crimson Tide man! I'm from Arkansas! Go Hogs!

For what it's worth...my dealer made me whole...so yes, I'm happy with where I stand. I'm also happy to not worry about the next rattle to take to my dealer. If I am a "perfectionist" for worrying about rattles then so be it...guess I want what I want in a car as expensive as the Jag...That being said, I stand by my words...no ill will to Jag or my dealer, just an early build.

Also, I'm not going to apologize for my situation. I've worked hard to be able to buy the cars I want. I love cars, always have, always will...it's nice to be able to trade, but believe me, I wouldn't have traded out this early had I not felt it was the most prudent move based on my situation. Hope everyone else can live with the idiosyncrasies of these cars. I cannot! Doesn't mean it's not one F'ing beautiful car!

 

I will be "adios" soon too wtih the CLS AMG. There is absolutely no excuse for a car at this price point to have roof popping problems - not just once, but fix it, and again..fix it, and again.

 

I'm adios as well, but for a very different reason.

After coming back here to update a post where I was asked if I still had no issues, then reading a few more posts around here, i found myself turning the radio all the way off, driving around purposely hitting bumps trying to hear "popping and crackling" noises yesterday.

Some people are just never happy unless they are complaining about something. I feel like this board is full of those people. I wish you all good luck in finding the "perfect" car. I'm just going to continue enjoying mine.

adios!

 

Asssuming your message was directed towards my original post, all I can say is glad your car is working for you. Mine did not...in addition, the noises coming from my steering column were not normal, were not quiet and should not be tolerated. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect to not have the dash torn out of my car to find an issue. It will be very interesting to see how the XJ's hold up down the road.

 

I know how you feel. I hope this section of the forum doesn't crater because of all the negativism--there needs to be a way to exchange useful information about our cars, not just venting.

 

I think venting is good and help other who may be having the same problems. I think this forum has a good balance of happy and unhappy customers for various reasons. I love my car and its a totally different car in S mode. But I also just found out I can't watch videos from my iphone 4 or watch the USB source in the back or push the USB source in the front to the RSE but maybe they will fix that in an update.

 

hunter, you are a class guy to handle all the bullets shot your way without losing your cool. i have had 9 porsches, 3 bmws, 4 mbs including an amg coupe, and 3 jags in my 70 yrs and they all were good cars. my current xk is probably the finest of any i have owned. the 3rd generation super V8 is a monster and has the best exhaust sound of any production car except for the 12 cylinder italian rides. it sounds like you got an early production lemon but the dealer was wonderful to you getting you out whole. hope you enjoy your new ride.

rock on
bud

 

I'm fed up as well they gave me a replacement car only to go back for the roof fix 2 times and no luck , hunter ah how much did you lose on the trade?

 

I agree with you... I have had enough with my mine too! I got a cracked rear windshield (by itself) - a jammed roof - and never going away noises and pops! I think that some creatures live up in my roof.
The car has been at the dealer for a combined 12+ days since I got it

For $82k, I expect a lot more and there is nothing wrong with that.

Right now I am trying to get Jaguar to buy the car back - I have an appt with the regional rep next month.

(also remember that sales tax is only paid on the diff between the new purchase and the trade !)

 

Put me in the category of a happy owner. I've had mine since October last year and have clocked 26,000 worry free Kilometres. Never had the roof popping noise... Only noise issue was a crackling sound by the driver's seatbelt pillar and this hasn't re-occurred since it was fixed by the dealer. My dealer visits have been mainly to further accesorize the car. Perhaps I am one of the lucky few but I'd like to think that this is not the case.

 

Couldn't agree more

Hunter, so sorry to hear that you decided to trade her in, but wish you well in your new car.

The way you put your points across was much appreciated, and I thank you for your candour.

As for some other comments about the negativity in this section, or across the forum?
I don't think this is necessarily the case, I do believe that there is a healthy balance. There are those that come on and constantly seem to have issues and bemoan them, those that have issues and deal with them and also post the fixes that we love. There are also a fair few that just post and say their cars are relatively problem free and are happy, unfortunately there are fewer of these types of posters.

Its not in the nature of a forum such as this to come on and just post to say how happy you are with your car, most people only search forums out as they have issues that they ned to deal with.

Hunter - as I said, I wish you well and please remember you are always welcome here on JF

 

Just wanted to comment on what other said about us being "perfectionists". I too find myself driving around sometimes without the radio on to try to hear noises and find things to have the dealer fix. There a few rattles in the car (I haven't tried to get them fixed yet), and an annoying "ticking" sound from the sunroof area (not the popping, this is ticking; probably the "sight shield" from what another member told me).

Anyway, I'll be taking the car in for these problems, but.. For a little perspective... I drove my car about 40 miles yesterday to meet a collegue and carpool for a 100M drive. We took his car, a 3 series BMW (2009, IIRC) and I had to take a call from the car, so he shut off the radio. As I was sitting on the conference call bridge waiting for everyone to join, I started to listen to the sounds of his car. And then they started to make themselves known; ticking sound from the AC, noises in the headliner, too much wind noise from one of the rear windows, a slight clunking going over a rise in the road, and lots of rattles from all over the car...

When I got back into my car (without the radio on), I still heard my noises, but they seemed blissfully quiet compared to the car I had just gotten out of.

Not that this excuses the issues (and I don't have the roof popping, at least not yet) with the XJ, it should be dead quiet inside during normal driving. However, it does help to see that the competition isn't perfect either (or not even as good, the Jag was much quieter, even with the noises).

My CLS didn't have many rattles, but it did have annoying wind noise (especially compared to the XJ). I really think the problem with many of these cars is that if you get the cabin really quiet, things that would just blend into the background in a normal car start to make themselves apparent. Just the slightest hint of music in my car and I can't hear any of the sounds at all. It's only when I drive; all the windows up no audio that I can hear them.

 

Puma,

I think you're exactly right. In my new C63, I have noticed that I pay attention to the engine more than any of the other road noises such as wind or any noises the car may make. I think with my XJ the car was so dang quiet, it was hard for me to not notice the different rattles the car seemed to emit. I will also say, in my case, I think many of the new rattles I experienced were as a result of taking trim pieces off at the dealer to diagnose original issues. The headliner on my car was dropped mutliple times to fix the roof. I can see that if some techs are not as talented as others, you could get varying results based on the TSB's from Jag. Additionally, I had the carbon fiber trim and it would rattle behind the clips which were replaced several times.

I've said it before, I love the XJ for what the car is. I don't bash the car (contrary to what you might think HouTexJag , but I just couldn't handle more trips to the dealer to diagnose and fix issues as they came about. I didn't post this to the board, but my front tires were replaced at 4k miles because the front suspension appeared to have been damaged in delivery or setup improperly. The dealer covered the fix, but that was a surprise I wasn't expecting. The fronts were worn to the cords on the inner side of the tire.

For what it's worth, I love my new car. The C63 AMG is very different than the XJ. The car is so much smaller it puts you in a different frame of mind when you drive it. I think the AMG engine is much more raw than the XJ engine. The XJ engine was so smooth. I have enjoyed being able to toy with small mods to the car, which I'm surprised have been slow to the market on the XJ. I haven't tinkered much, just added a set of after market wheels and some clear side markers. All in all, glad I got the Mercedes, but I do miss many of the good qualities my XJ had. I don't however miss the many dealer visits!

 

Hey, you do what you have to do--sometimes enough is enough. If I had as many issues and dealer visits as you I probably would have dumped the car too. Actually, I didn't find your posts annoying at all like some others (one in particular that I finally just had to ignore) and I agree you handled your responses well. I'm sure your C63 is a fun car, but, like you said, it is not comparable to the XJ. The XJ is really not a car that you "mod" out like some of the smaller sportier cars (and believe me, currently having 3 motorcycles I know what mod fever is all about), but for a top of the line big sedan it looks pretty good right out of the box. I haven't even had the urge to change out the wheels. Maybe that's the reason there's not a lot of aftermarket parts for it.

I would really like to know just how many new XJ owners are really that unhappy--this forum, like any forum, is not a good sampling of reality. I'm just glad mine doesn't have problems (13,000 miles and counting) because I really love this car. I was at the drive-in bank today and a young man got out of the back seat of the car in the next lane and walked around my car to get a better look, grinning the whole time! I still have hope for this section of the forum once the "roof popping" threads wind down--really starting to get some participants that seem to be enjoying their cars as much as I am. There really isn't much more information about the roof problem that can come from this forum--I just wish those that still have issues would divert their frustrations to their dealers or Jaguar directly for satisfaction. Probably not going to happen though.