DWilson

I had a long saga with mine - discovered that the 17in wheels were noticeably better than the 18 (or 19 or 20!) versions, but the ride quality was very sensitive to tyre pressures. However.... when I put winter tyres on it (Michelin PA4 Alpin) the ride was transformed. Felt much less "jiggly" without obviously affecting the handling.... Sadly, the minor electrical gremlins and rubbish satnav (very slow to respond, with a mind of its own about where it tried to send me) drove me to screaming at it, so the car went... Broke the prejudices of a lifetime and traded it in for a BMW 330D, which is just seamless. Nowhere near as pretty though - and people don't let me out of junctions! Goodbye Jaguar....

Never did find a solution. Neither did the dealership. Sadly, I eventually found the whole electronics issue so irritating - all the steering wheel controls unresponsive, satnav sluggish and with a mind of its own - that I gave up and sold it. (It's a design fault - it seems the information databus for the controls is set to "low priority" and they can't change it without compromising engine response.... I understand the new one is better. But don't quote me on that!

Indeed! I really miss the Mercedes version - especially driving up to the unforgiving concrete edge of a French motorway toll booth! Also miss the Mercedes speed-limiter-on-a-stalk. It was quick, positive and precise - and if you were going faster than the new limit you'd just set, it cut the power back until you'd slowed down enough. The XF one is fiddly, sometimes a bit random about whether a change just registers slowly or not at all, (my roller switch has now been changed twice and is still no better...) And it doesn't do anything except flash warnings at you until you're below the set speed. Jaguar seem to have ended up with a built-in perceptible and annoying delay in all the minor controls. No idea how or why.....

Just to add to my growing list of minor irritations that spoil a good car.... XF 3.0 Prem luxury sportbrake, now at 3000 miles. I use the speed limiter nearly all the time - set just enough above the current speed limit to stop me getting flashed at by hidden cameras - and to avoid my tendancy to go faster and faster on a long journey because the engine's so nice. What is supposed to happen is that if you "flick" the rocker up, it puts the limited speed up by 1mph. If you roll it up and hold it briefly, the speed goes up by 5mph. If you keep holding it up, the speed limiter keeps going up in 5mph increments. Same on rolling the switch down to reduce the speed . What actually happens is that if you "flick" it up, sometimes it responds and sometimes it doesn't. If you roll it up and hold it, sometimes nothing happens at all, sometimes it responds after a short pause and sometimes it pauses and then ticks up the 5mph increments quickly and overshoots where I want it to be. The switch itself feels very soggy and not at all positive. Initial supplying main dealer response (after I demonstrated it with the car static) was that they'd never seen or heard of that before, so they changed the switch. That didn't help, so they changed it again. Now they are out of ideas.... It's either a duff batch of switches, or an inherent issue with slow response from the system (wiggly amps getting lost trying to find their way round the databus), or me being a half-wit. Constructive suggestions welcome!

Just an update on this - my dealer tells me that there is nothing in the "dealer settings" that allows them to have the front park sensors come on when the speed drops below a certain level - you always have to turn it on manually (or select reverse...) Weird!

Yes, mine does what it says in the book, but I'd like it to be "on" whenever the speed drops below the ~9mph cut-off - as with every other car I've driven that has park sensors! By the time I've remembered that it needs to be turned on, I've driven into the parking slot and stopped. One day, I'll hit a wall. (As for the bonnet release: where does Jaguar sell more cars - LHD or RHD markets? I guess the current setup is more convenient for LHD markets, although I've never needed to open the bonnet while driving along........)

The front park sensor on my Sportbrake only comes on when I select reverse (!) or if you turn it on with the switch in the overhead panel. It then goes out when you get above about 5mph. Anybody know if there is a (dealer) selection in software that just leaves it on below a certain speed? I thought I'd get used to having to turn it on, but I haven't.... (As an aside, Jaguar does seem to have some very odd priorities for which switches they think are important - the rarely-used "lock" and "unlock" override buttons are on the main dash switch panel, but the aforementioned park sensor is in the roof, the foglight switch is buried out of sight right under the tailgate release (yes, I pushed the wrong one - it was foggy, so fortunately not at speed!), and the seat heater is a real kludge - push the button, wait for the touchscreen to respond, select seat and heat level. Then all over again in reverse to turn it off. Why not just one button for each seat? Triumph of style over function.....)

Given that Jaguar have decided in their wisdom that mere "users" don't need to know what the water temperature is (let alone oil pressure or temperature!) it's quite difficult to tell when the beast is up to normal running temperature. Mine sits at about 750-800, but goes up when the aircon is running.....(Try turning off the aircon with hands and feet off everything and see what happens)

An update to my earlier post about "jiggly" ride in my new Sportbrake - prem lux on 17in wheels. Now 2000 miles in, and just driven 800 miles down through France. On Autoroutes and undulating roads the ride is fine - firm, but very comfortable, and the way it handles bigger bumps indicates that the springing is probably about right. Broken road surfaces are a different story. It seems that the damping in the rear air springs is too stiff, so there's no apparent rebound and the suspension feels locked solid (try it on the rumble strips on the edge of the road!) Also means that if you try hard on a corner with short-period bumps, the back end gets skittery and skips out of line. It's very sensitive to tyre pressure - if you drop them to 32psi the straight-line ride improves, but you start to get the tramlining that that BillyBoy reports - 35 seems about right. Is it my imagination, or is it worse first thing in the morning and in the cold? Spires(in Leicester) do a kit to soften the saloon which gets good reviews, so I contacted them about the Sportbrake - and apparently I'm not the first. They are going to look into the possibilities. Watch this space!

Have just taken delivery of a new 3.0 (240) Sportbrake Premium Luxury - I specified 17in wheels in an attempt to minimise the "jiggly" ride over poor-quality roads (aka anywhere in England!) I tried a Portfolio first (standard 19in wheels) and that was horribly uncomfortable - Heaven knows what the blingy 20in wheels feel like! Then a Premium Luxury with standard 18in wheels - still not up to historical Jaguar standards of ride comfort (like "Old Peters" S type). Predictably, as delivered (on 17 inch) it's better, but still not what anyone could call comfortable. (Given that I'm built more for cake than speed...) Not as comfortable as the well-run-in "Luxury" I test-drove; but I don't know what make of tyre that was on. It's arrived with Pirelli Cinturato P7 235/55 tyres - now set at the 36psi all round specified in the handbook. Those have always had a reputation of being harsh, but I can't do anything about that at this stage. Haven't yet found out enough about the rear air-spring set-up to know whether I can expect it to "relax" a bit as the newness wears off - or indeed whether it can be adjusted to be a bit less unforgiving. (The Spires' solution won't work for the Sportbrake) As the various forums say, it seems that Jaguar has succumbed to the current German fashion of having the suspension set very stiff, especially at the back - stiff springs, overdamped. Fine on billiard-smooth German roads, and giving undoubted improvement in ultimate cornering ability, but transmits too much vibration from poor road surfaces. A pity, as it spoils what would otherwise be a very nice car.