Jaguar XJ 3.0 Diesel Luxury drive

Jonnycoupe

Jonnycoupe

Jonnycoupe

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Joined
19 Oct 2002
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Evening all,

I had the pleasure of borrowing a managers car from work, we've had a new team leader on the XJ and XF programmes and he seems to know the right people from his previous role so this should become more frequent :D The car would otherwise sit outside Castle Brom vistors centre for a week unused. I took the opportunity to throw another 250miles on it over 2 days and evenings.

I also used the opportunity to take the girlfriend out for a nice meal in a flash car and propose, I'm pleased to say she said yes :p.

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Its a base model, but of course this is Jaguar entry level so plenty of kit as standard. £55k Jaguar XJ (X351) 3.0 V6 twin turbo diesel with 275bhp and 441lbft of torque coupled to a 6 speed ZF auto box. 1896kg and over 5.1m!

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Stratos Grey with 19" Toga wheels. Splendid combination as the darker colours work best with those dark C pillars.

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Ill add to the thread as we all know what can happen when you start writing big posts! Next coming up pictures from inside although I seem to have only really focused on the HMI rather than the seats etc!
 
I love the front on these Jags, just looks so mean. The back reminds me a bit of old school jags. Nice car!
 
Inside and some features as im a geek and dont have a leather fetish - although im pleased to report I did not see any creases ;)
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Pleased with this picture. Can see the nice clock, the HVAC vents look great but are a bit cheap feeling if im honest! Twin glass panaramic roof with electric blind covers and the front unit tilts and then tilts some more and slides such that its quite pronouced from the roofline. Left hand display on the TFT instrument panel is the typical Infotainment info, in this case Radio 1 on FM, (DAB was useless) and then fuel and temp. iPhone sync with bluetooth was flawless and I was particularly impressed with the voice control for calls using the contacts direct from the phone, sat nav touchscreen is not intuitive though. Needs improvements on that front but they are coming MY13 and will catch up to the new kit in the MY12 XF.

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Right hand menu is opening and controlled using the right hand thumb D pad. Normally a Rev counter. Left hand drops in and out of nav as each guidance point is reached on your route. Very slick.

Just touched the brakes as we approach the roundabout...
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If your mood then changes to more enthusiastic driving intent then the car is happy to respond.

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Adaptive dynamics is on all XJ products, this monitors wheel position 100times a second in order to manage pitch and roll across a range of driving conditions and road surfaces but you can shift the car from the wafty nature, albeit it a little fidgity at low speed, to the more focused 'dynamic' mode with the box in sports mode. The car will hold the gears as selected by the paddles, gear indication on the left and the only interference to the gears comes from not changing to a stupid engine speed and if you rev the car to the redline the gear indicator will simply change to a orange colour rather than white. Superb transition and offers two real characters to the car. I didnt really fancy using Sport much, annoyingly will hold onto a lower gear than D during cruise and doesnt really suit the nature of the engine.

I'm no journalist but ill cover some of the driving attributes I had the chance to discover more in the real world use rather than our usual drives in some follow-up posts tomorrow.

Over the 7500miles that the car is old it is averaging 36mpg, average speed only 40mph. I put 250miles on it at 32MPG with a fair amount of 'demostration' drives. Today I did the 20 miles to work which is a good mixed route including an urban section of coventry and managed 41.6 beating the NEDC.... of course on the way home i set myself the challenge of getting double in the Insight :p 82.9MPG... nearly!
 
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Robbie G said:
I'm guessing there's more than one Saxon Mill in the entire UK...

If it is that one, I've eaten there; it's not really nice in the 'propose to your bird' sense.
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Just so happens I had a meal there one evening and thought it was quite nice for that.

Though I kind of agree with your last point. :o

Jonnycoupe, do you work for jaguar or something? :)
 
Dont worry chaps i didnt actually propose there. We have two kids and been living together over 5 years now so not the typical OMG he proposed type event. :D
 
Im a contractor with my own company but yes, essentially i work at JLR in product development/advanced product creation so I focus on pre-production concepts and package studies.
 
One of the things I'm looking forward to over the next 15 months is driving as many Jags/RR as possible :p (I have a 15 month placement with them starting in just over 2 weeks) Got to ride in several last summer placement (All engineering cars), would have driven them then, but didn't have my licence at the time :( Good thing about them not being yours is you can rag the **** out of them, and nobody bats an eyelid ;)
 
Good stuff. Which site? Ive got my class 3 licence in August. 3 days of driver training. Oh yes :D any XJ drops into super high perf class so youll need to be 28 to drive those on the road!

I should be getting this car for a weekend down to Devon aswell. No doubt more of a rare sight down there rather than Coventry and a proper motorway wafter.
 
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Jonnycoupe said:
Good stuff. Which site? Ive got my class 3 licence in August. 3 days of driver training. Oh yes :D any XJ drops into super high perf class so youll need to be 28 to drive those on the road!

I should be getting this car for a weekend down to Devon aswell. No doubt more of a rare sight down there rather than Coventry and a proper motorway wafter.
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Based at Whitley, but quite probably moving to Gaydon at some point (still unconfirmed). Can't remember exactly, but there's different rules depending on if it's a manager car, or an engineering car on ages etc that are required, and I was asked to help move cars between sites whilst I was there (Until they knew I didn't have a licence), so I don't think there'll be a problem :)
 
Congratulations on the engagement. I have a real desire for an XF at the moment but the wife wants to buy a house :(
 
As much as I hate to admit it. I like these, but wouldn't want one. I'd personally take a 7 series over it. Having said that, If I don't get on with the propsective M3, then I'd take a 550i, bar the fact that I can't find one. However, the Supercharged XF is 2 a penny, and that might become a contender.

I remember seeing the XJ for the first time last June and really liked the design.
 
I love these, just the back looks a bit weird in pictures but I like the look in real life. The interior was lush in the one I sat in. The XF and XJ are now two really good looking cars.
 
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