[akj53]

Originally Posted by spadix

By name, I meant have you christened the car with its own nickname like many of us do? I was just curious, that's all .

spadix

We have never done it so far for any of our cars. Why dont you suggest some names for our Jag.

[jugwaar]

Originally Posted by akj53

David told us that Mr. Tata has told the company to rise above the Audi / BMW / Mercedes level and to aim for the standards of Bentley. And the results are showing. The new XJ is being lauded as a superior alternative to the reigning champ, the S Class. The fully loaded XF and XJ Portfolio editions are definitely in the league of true luxury cars. I have sat in Aston's Rapide and XJ both and I found XJ far more luxurious and practical.

.

Just came across your thread. Congrats on getting a great car. However, just wanted to clarify:

While Tata has asked JLR to aim for the Bentley end of the market, saying that the result shows in XJ is not correct as the XJ was fully signed off when Tata purchased JLR in 2008. It had advanced too far in it's PD life cycle for Tata to have had any inputs on the design or engineering. The most it would have done would have been to spruce up the finish a wee bit but there was no impact on design.

However, the XF S is brilliant. I drove one of the company fleet from the Gaydon centre to the Halewood plant, nearly 300 miles in a day and I must say that despite having driven an XKR the same week, I somehow preferred the XF-S despite it lacking the thrill of the XKR (nothing can beat the feeling you get when you press the pedal to the floor in a 500+HP car though the hole the petrol burns in your pocket does sprinkle your spirits slightly wet if not dampen them!!) The XF munched away the motorway miles and for a change made driving on the M6 fun if you know what I mean!! I found it to be a more practical car and one you can live with everyday and even returned on an average 45mpg for the journey!!

[akj53]

@ Jugwaar

You are right about the XJ being almost ready when Tata bought it, so I also wrote that Ford bought and sold Jaguar at a wrong time. But Tata certainly gave them freedom, a direction and a sense of confidence and ultimately that makes a big difference to any company's performance. I can not think of any car this side of Bentley which is so luxurious with pace and stable performance as the current XJ in Portfolio edition, and that at less than half the price of Bentley.

I ditto your comments about the XF S. It is more practical with the diesel and does not loose on any of the thrills of V8

[Bomi]

Lovely thread. Saw it today and enjoyed reading it. Congrats on the car; looks lovely. Looking forward to your driving experience. How does the engine sound? Would love to hear it.
Bomi

[akj53]

What I liked:

• The power and torque of diesel engine.
• Instant pulling power under any speed.
• Very good gear box, perfectly mated to engine.
• Very convenient to drive.
• Great & very comfortable highway cruiser and a great town car.
• Stable at all speeds and conditions. Amazing grip
• Does not feel like its size and weight.
• Astonishing breaks
• Luxurious and graceful interior and ambiance.
• Plenty of features.
• Great fuel efficiency (best is yet to come)
• Competitively priced.
• High feel good factor.

Things which could have been better:

• No LED day time running lights.
• Rear headroom & legroom not great for tall people (no issues for us)
• Switch material & colour feels poor as compared to other things.
• Dealer experience not up to the mark.

If I remember correctly, I used to press a button on my Altis’s key fob to unlock and open the doors. Same we used to do here with our 525i. But no such thing here, as with Jaguar, keyless entry meant walking up to the car with keyfob in your pocket, and open the thick door. Something new for us. I sit in the sumptuous driver seat and adjust it to suit my comfort. With 18 way adjustments available, every driver is bound to find his comfort level. I close the door which closes with solid sounding ‘thud’. I try to adjust the steering for rake and reach and am pleasantly surprised to find that even the adjustments are electrically powered. Later on the steering wheel will also rise to facilitate an easy entry and exit. This feature can be switched off also. After adjusting the ORVM and inner RVM, I save the settings of seat, steering and ORVM in memory. Nice feature to have when 2 people would be driving the vehicle.

We used to insert the car keys in the steering column to start the car, well no such thing here. Press the Start button and ignition lights up. Press the brake pedal and Start / Stop button and the engine fires up, and the starting drama of gear selector rising and a/c vents unfolding happens. This is like no other car. You can hear the engine noise inside but it is not much or annoying. Outside the car, you can hear that it’s a diesel. Turn the gear lever to D and slowly start off. The engine noise subsides and we feel as if we are driving a petrol one so will not have to bear noisy journeys.

I explore the touch screen, set the destination in navigation system, and set a/c temperature of both sides to 22*C. It displays both external and internal temperatures. After this we dock the iphone4 easily via Bluetooth. We also have a USB port for accessing stored music. Phone and audio system can be operated through touch screen or steering mounted controls.

At slow speeds ride is firm and slightly strange to us initially as we are used to our Altis and BMW 525i’s ride using 60 and 55 aspect tyres respectively. Here the tyres are 35 and the suspension is much better. However over 20 mph the feeling of firm ride vanishes and you can immediately feel that the car is much more planted on road with better grip, maybe due to extra wide 255 tyres. Road feel is quite different from the cars with thin tyres to save fuel.

My Altis has about 137 BHP and 17 kg torque and is considered a good powerful car in India. Our Beemer had about 186 bhp (don’t remember the torque but may be about 25 kgs) and was a very powerful and stable car. In 2008 I had seen the then just released 730D in London and was astounded that it had 55 kg torque. Here I am driving a car with 61 kg torque at 2000 rpm & 275 PS @ 4000 rpm.

To overtake I press the pedal lightly and the car immediately picks up speed effortlessly. While braking at any speed, retardation is smooth and linear, no jerks and no shuddering. Later when Siddharth was driving, I remarked to my wife that so far I have not felt any gear changes. Siddharth pushed the car more strongly and we were pressed into back of our seats. In the back my wife was sliding left and right on smooth leather seats during fast lane changes, acceleration and braking and finding it difficult to sit at one place. Motoring like this we never experienced before.

Later Siddharth took his office staff for spins and later told me that he had touched 135 MPH (217 KPH) effortlessly and engine was not feeling strained at all. Earlier the maximum I had touched was 195 KPH on 525i. I told him to drive sanely and safely in future.

Later whenever we drove and pressed the car, it bolted like a scalded cat. Only under hard acceleration from standstill I felt gear changes between 1st and 2nd and sometimes between 2nd & 3rd also. But while cruising in town or on highways, we never felt any gear change. Engine noise never felt like a diesel and on speeds greater than 20, suspension felt just slightly firm, not soft or very hard. Perfect I would say.

More about our drive to North Wales will follow with photos.

I had posted one video on page 5. No body has commented on that astonishing video. I give below the link once again.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/...id=78917831001

Please see this.

[akj53]

Originally Posted by Bomi

Lovely thread. Saw it today and enjoyed reading it. Congrats on the car; looks lovely. Looking forward to your driving experience. How does the engine sound? Would love to hear it.
Bomi

Thanks Bomi. You can listen to the petrol engine in the video given above.

[informmaha]

Congratulations to Mr.Sidharth and you too sir on your acquisition.

A great car indeed. The car looks amazingly cool and i envy your choice

I would also like to know whether this has an Adaptive Cruise Control or the Cruze control? You had mentioned about the Automatic Speed limiter, this does not help me in coming over to a conclusion whether distance between the vehicle in the front can also be set.

I did my studies in Coventry, so had chance to go and have a look at the jaguar plant couple of times and i know how they work on the woodwork and the upholstry, so no doubt about the quality, fit and finish of the interiors. They take immense care and these premium vehicles are not robot driven, as should be the case for all higher end cars i suppose.

Even with loads of work piled on me, could not resist reading your post

Thank you very much for sharing those pics and a detailed review

[abhinav.s]

Amazing write up and pics. Hats off to you for your eye for detail and the detailed pictorial review. Congrats to you and your son for an awesome choice of the Jag.

[noopster]

akj-sir, this is a fantastic review about a fantastic car. Take a bow!

One question: kitna detee hai?

Originally Posted by akj53

We have never done it so far for any of our cars. Why dont you suggest some names for our Jag.

How about Melissa? She looks like a Melissa! Mel for short.

[Champion]

Dear akj53, although quite late in the day, CONGRATULATIONS! The Jaguar is astounding and those curves are a treat to the eye. I have been a big fan of the car since her release. However I haven't read into the details like you have given it here. The gear knob is James Bond-style and rightly so since it's also British. And the rest is there for all to see.

Btw, Melissa is a nice name (kudos noopster)!

Cheers
Champion

[akj53]

Originally Posted by PlatzdaTurbo

I jus HAVE to say, the way those A/C vents come up...NEAT man !! Really cool. I wish the germans ( Audi especially ) had that.

Well Audi pioneered LED day time running lights and they make the best interiors among Germans so they have their strengths also.

Originally Posted by informmaha

A great car indeed. The car looks amazingly cool and i envy your choice

I would also like to know whether this has an Adaptive Cruise Control or the Cruze control? You had mentioned about the Automatic Speed limiter, this does not help me in coming over to a conclusion whether distance between the vehicle in the front can also be set.

I did my studies in Coventry, so had chance to go and have a look at the jaguar plant couple of times and i know how they work on the woodwork and the upholstry, so no doubt about the quality, fit and finish of the interiors. They take immense care and these premium vehicles are not robot driven, as should be the case for all higher end cars i suppose.

Thank you and I envy you that you have seen the Jaguar factory many times.
We have standard cruise control. Adaptive Cruise control is available as an optional extra, we did not buy it as that will make Driver less alert plus electronics do not work as intended all the time. We cant set the distance between 2 vehicles.
You are absolutely right on the interior part. Handmade with care, does make a difference but it adds up the cost also, so thats why only premium cars have it.

Originally Posted by abhinav.s

Amazing write up and pics. Hats off to you for your eye for detail and the detailed pictorial review. Congrats to you and your son for an awesome choice of the Jag.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by noopster

akj-sir, this is a fantastic review about a fantastic car. Take a bow!

One question: kitna detee hai?

How about Melissa? She looks like a Melissa! Mel for short.

Ha Ha, old habits die hard. We have driven it only about 450 miles so far. It is showing 25.5 mpg which means about 9 KMPL overall. Not bad for such a heavy car eh??

Thanks for the name suggestion, we are considering it.

Originally Posted by Champion

Btw, Melissa is a nice name (kudos noopster)!

Champion

Thanks. Your vote makes up 2 votes for Melissa.

[noopster]

Originally Posted by akj53

Ha Ha, old habits die hard. We have driven it only about 450 miles so far. It is showing 25.5 mpg which means about 9 KMPL overall. Not bad for such a heavy car eh??

Oh dear, I was only kidding! But that actually sounds very reasonable- 9 is what my old Accent used to give me!

[jagxf]

@akj53: 9kmpl? are you sure? our 5.0 v8 gives about 7 in city driving conditions and around 10 kmpl on the motorways.

[Ash_vtec]

The petrol XF is really that frugal ??? Diesel i can imagine., but the petrol giving such figures is amazing. My accord V6 gives me 4-5 in town and 8 on the highway. Nothing more !

Yes i know when you buy a Jaaaaagggg you give a rat's left nut about fuel cost. Purely academic discussion here

[akj53]

@jagxf

You are getting very good mileage from a V8 engine. Congrats.

There could be multiple reasons for our poor FE i.e.,
We live in City Center and there are too many traffic lights in the nearby area.
Dealer says that engine will open up slowly and will give better mileage after few thousand miles.
Siddharth pushes the car too much whenever he gets the chance.

I calculated the above myself, I will check from car's MID in L/100kms format. Jaguar says that it should give 51 mpg (18 kmpl) on highways and 41 mpg (14.5 kmpl) overall, but that would be in standard test conditions. I would expect 15 and 13 kmpl on highway and overall later on. If mileage does not improve after 1000 miles, we shall talk to dealer.

BTW I saw your thread and your speed video. Though the acceleration was fantastic but please dont do such runs in city as you never know somebody may come on road all of a sudden.

How much have you driven and did you experience improvement in FE after 1000 miles.