Picked up a 2011 XJL last week. So far, it's been great, everything appears to work, the paint is in immaculate condition.

I do have a few questions for the forum:
How does the XJ do in the snow? It's got new Pirelli A/S tires on it, but should I plan for getting snow tires this winter? We don't get much, most years, but there will be a few days.

Does the B&W audio system recognize playlists through the USB connection? I can't seem to get it to work. The auto-volume also seems a bit wonky over USB.

What's with the rusty brake calipers and bracket? Can you paint over the bare metal plate on the caliper without a problem? (using caliper paint, of course)

Anything else I should watch out for?

Thanks!

 

Same age car as mine, hope you really enjoy it, mine has been brilliant, take a look at this thread on the UK forum regarding the callipers,
Rusty Caliper part...

 

Looks really good. Did you take the calipers off do paint them?
So far it's been great on the highway. Still learning to drive an automatic in town, however.

Cheers!

 

Glad you like the car. When I did my callipers, I removed the retaining springs but left the callipers in situ, I just used a 1/2" brush and a small artist type brush for the awkward bits, worked fine.
I used a spray on brake cleaner to clean everything and then used calliper paint. The paint can recommended two coats so the longest part of the job was waiting in between coats, I did one wheel at a time but would suggest jacking the car up and maybe using a stand and the jack so as to do two at a time to speed the job up.
I did the fronts one day and then the rears the next weekend when the weather was nice.
Two years on they are still looking good.

 

Whenever I get wheels (always). They used some high temp spray paint. Works great, lasts long. They just spray the calipers nothing fancy. Lasts for years. On the Audi I had them spray painted red to give it the Porsche Cayenne effect. On a car like the XJ L just did them black.

 

Hey mate, welcome to the forum. In response to your other questions, I had the Pirelli P Zero Nero tires on my car and hated them...they handled quite badly in the rain and even worse in slight snow/icy conditions. I changed my tires earlier this year when I nearly lost control of my car after hitting a small patch of black ice...switched over to the Continental DWS tires and have never looked back since then. Just last week I took the car out of town for a nice long 3 hour drive with the family and the journey and ride were exquisite...the car just ate up the miles!

A number of forum members have switched their tires over to the Conti DWS (Dry, Wet, Snow) tires and love them. Note that Continental also sells the DW tires (no S for Snow), so make sure you order the right ones with the S.

As for the USB audio playlist question, sorry, can't help you out there...I use bluetooth audio streaming which works excellently with my Nokia Lumia 920. I do know that other forum members have used USB streaming...you may have to play around with the settings...make sure that you click on the + (plus) sign next to MyMusic for getting an expanded list of available input source playlist options. I had to do that for when I wanted music from my cellphone instead of that stored on my car's disk drive (I had ripped a few CDs onto the drive).

Hope this helps! Cheers and enjoy your car...I have owned mine for over two years now and still love it like the first day I bought it...feel very blessed to own a piece of machinery like this.

Edit: I checked my car yesterday on the way home and indeed there is an option to select "USB" as the Input Source when you click on the plus sign on the right of the "MyMusic" option under the Audio/Video menu.

 

Thanks for the advice on the tires. The Pirelli P Nero Zeros on there now are brand new, so I guess I'll see how bad they do around here next winter before deciding. I ran 2 sets, summer and winter, on my old 335i, which was the best of both worlds.

My HTC One streams almost flawlessly as well. The USB connection works fine, but doesn't seem to recognize playlists stored on the drive (.m3u format). It picks up the folder structure and the .mp3 files, just not the playlists. My '09 BMW would recognize the .m3u playlists just fine. I tried plugging in an old iPod and it did read the playlists on that (otherwise it worked a lot like the USB drive). Not sure if it doesn't do playlists over USB, or just doesn't recognize .m3u files.

Started to do the calipers this weekend (gloss black). Noticed the pads were just a 'tad' worn...~2mm left, well below the spec for the CPO inspection. So they're fixing that as soon as they get the parts in. Did get the surface rust off with some naval jelly, worked like a charm, but didn't want to put new paint on right before they worked on the brakes.

 

Cheers mate, no worries. What "naval jelly" is this for removing rust? Would be good to have on hand...my front calipers had rusted too, but I managed to get Jaguar NA to replace them thanks to our friendly Jaguar customer service rep - Mike who frequents this forum.

 

"Naval Jelly" is phosphoric acid in a gel-like solution. Converts rust (Iron Oxide) to Iron Phosphate, which is pretty much inert, and leaves a blackish coating that can be painted over. Goes by various brand names...I used Krud Kutter "The Must for Rust" because it came in the smallest bottle. Works pretty good on light surface rust. I hit it with a wire brush after the jelly had dried.

The rear calipers have an excellent bright coating (Zinc?) on them. Wish they'd put that on the front ones.

 

I have Jag XJ Super Sport 2011.
It has about 24000 miles.
Your question, how is it driving in snow?
I have and will never drive it in snow. But I would quess-- it sucks.