It has shed all that old baggage (leaving a vast bootspace for new baggage). The car is an event, like Jaguars always were, but not a liability (like Jaguars always were). Niggles don’t condemn the XF, nor even undermine it. ‘It’s the pressures, you idiot! Call yourself a journalist!?’ FYI, folks, I checked the pressures every week.
Last month I apparently invited a load of abuse from certain correspondents for stating that strange wear patterns on the rears were down to a tracking problem.
We had a bit of a kerfuffle over tyre wear. Leather seats are lovely though (despite ghastly colour – that’s our fault) and the steering is quite lovely – all touch and appropriate heft.
Try to hustle it and it goes nuts, thrashing and roaring until you give in. And then there’s the eight-speed auto ’box, which exerts all its energy trying to bully you into eighth from the moment you set off. And the touchscreen is clumsily configured and hard to use on the move.
#JAGUAR 2012 XF AND CHANGE VALVE BODY AND COST CRACK#
Then there’s Jaguar’s first crack at stop/start., (aka ‘randomly stop/eventually start’). It gets on your nerves half way through day one. Trouble is, you don’t repeatedly shake hands with someone you meet four times day life’s too short. He had in mind a ‘handshake’ moment in which the cabin welcomes you aboard by theatrically extending its gearchange dial and swivelling its airvents when you hit the ‘on’ switch. Reserve, however, goes out of the electric window with Callum’s interior. British reserve translates to them as weakness. A measure of his success is that you feel unstressed about ownership, you stroll towards the car, not stride, you evolve serenely into a zen-like state of Simon Templar-spec unruffledness. This effortlessness extends to Callum’s design, too, at least on the outside. With the XF, fast progress is a calm, suave extension of your personality. You can see why – most of those rivals drive fiercely, but you really have to be ON it to stretch their legs. It’s a sublime chassis, though, with a poise and confidence that has seen the XF win every kind of group test, from April 2009’s XFR vs M5 vs E63 vs RS6 shootout, to August 2011’s diesel battle against 520d, E220 CDI and A6 2.0 TDI. It’s a fine enough engine, with 332lb ft of torque that gets pretty punchy through the mid range, but, like Tim’s earlier car, it still lacks the sort of urge off the line that would have BMW 5-series engineers scrambling for the steroids. Ours was the 187bhp version, but even since we’ve had it they’ve replaced it with a throatier 197bhp mix. I’m no pioneer – Tim Pollard ran a pre-facelift 2.7 V6 XF for CAR back in 2009 – but this year it’s been the new, smaller but more powerful 2.2-litre diesel engine (also seen in the Range Rover Evoque) that’s entertained us. Everything else has been about the bold, fresh future. The only occasions on which I’ve even given a thought to its recent ancestors – the loathed, front-wheel-drive X-type or the portly, old-mannish S-type – have been to rejoice in their banishment. It has been a pleasure to own, to drive, to spend time in, to talk to people about. Back then we would have given much to have a crystal ball telling us how things would pan out, and how, five years on, we would reflect on a year with the XF.Ĭut to the chase: Callum’s car is brilliant. Investment firms were circling, sales had slumped, and the value of the company would fall further if reaction to the new XF, unveiled at that year’s Frankfurt show, flatlined. At that moment Jaguar was in trouble, and for sale. I didn't design this car to save the company,’ Jaguar designer Ian Callum told CAR in October 2007. View all Jaguar XF Reviews Month 12 running a Jaguar XF - final thoughts as the Jaguar leaves the CAR fleet
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