Having owned both, my personal preference is for the horizontal vents. As for functionality, I’ve not found any way from the engine room through to the vent so my belief is that they are mostly decorative.

 

I would have to see it to believe it. Maybe if someone who had to remove one can clear up the functionality.

 

The fender is indeed cut behind the vent. See my other thread for what it looks like inside... Just some open cell foam and a strange plastic bag. The ABS module is there as well.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...nder-s-222048/

I had the vent open for a few days while waiting for some clips to come in, and did not feel any excessive heat coming out the hole while the car was running... Even after a drive.

The plastic piece that holds the mesh could be cut if you really wanted to open the area up.

 

Yep saw the hole but can't see or don't know if there is a opening to the engine compartment. My bet is there isn't but I suspect it can be opened up if someone wants to cut a hole into the monocoque chassis .

 

I wouldn't recommend this, aside from obvious reasons, because if you suddenly introduce a lot of heat into an area it wasn't otherwise designed for, there could be other unintended consequences... Like prematurely crispy wires and connectors, failed adhesives, etc.

I do feel a TON of heat exiting the bottom of the vehicle while it idles in the driveway for extended periods of time... So there must be some passive mechanism besides the rad fans that naturally directs heat out of and away from the engine bay.

 

Ian Callum mentions in the interview that a lot of heat accumulates in that area and that's why he put a vent there.

"5. This vent will become a Jaguar design signature. It's functional: There's a low-pressure area behind the wheel that helps draw air through."

https://www.motortrend.com/cars/jagu...7-jaguar-xk-3/

 

Since they're functional by design, surely Ian Callum thought about making it larger, and easily could have done so, but didn't?

 

Took a few minutes yesterday to look at the vents on my 2012. These are not functioning. There is a black screen but behind it is a black panel which does not have any opening in it. I suspect if you remove the vent there will be a hole in the side of the wing but that would be for mounting only. Also as the car sat idling there is no heat coming out of the vent area. Maybe the vertical vents are different but the horizontal ones are fake.

 

No "maybe" about the vertical vents. As Q&C pointed out above, they're functional. Hot air from the engine compartment is sucked out through those vents by the low pressure area behind them while the car is moving forward.

"This vent will become a Jaguar design signature. It's functional: There's a low-pressure area behind the wheel that helps draw air through." Ian Callum, discussing the new 2007 X150

 

Just seems strange to me that if the vents were a "design signature" then why wouldn't the carry them over to the newer models. Why would the 2010-11 vertical vents be open and the 2012-15 vents be closed. Can't see the logic here.

 

First instinct is that there was a design update to manage engine bay airflow... change in belly pan baffling to direct air out that way, or close off the airflow path through the fender well. If someone could look at the chassis shell and compare a 2007 to a 2015, it could give away some better information. Punch outs added/removed in the sheet metal on the inner fender well would be a good indicator

Second instinct is cost... which is also probably why the aluminum interior trim on earlier cars is real 'spun aluminum', vs the knock-off spun aluminum/textured metal in later cars. I would guess that when the car was truly the flagship model, it got a lot more funding for the unique parts and features that were 'special' or 'cutting edge'... like ACC, machined fender vents from cast aluminum cores, the pedestrian sensor, and probably others I'm not yet aware of.

 

My guess: Jaguar was trying to convert a pipe&slippers car to something more modern. Kinda like the old man in the discotheque.

In 2012 they made a lot of superficial cosmetic changes in a car that was fundamentally a throwback car to an even older time- i.e. etype.

Someone from engineering probably pointed out that putting a horizontal vent in that location had some significant drawback. Such as placing the burning coolant smell right by the driver's nose.

So they said lets make it like nipples on a bull, let them be there for show.

 

Here's the reason:
https://y.yarn.co/454ea720-0a50-4a38...?1568683445612


I'm in the vertical crowd--but body colored, not chromed. Understated elegance masking raw power. No need for flashy bravado.