Move south. I had enough of this:

-Mike

 

Not me, I drive mine year round. It doesn't help my winter road rage though, because if I'm doing just fine to drive, then these f'rs with their AWD suv doing 20 mph need to get the hell out of the state...

 

Why? It holds pound coins, 50 pences and other coins perfectly well. I know this because the previous owner left a load in there, but it was covered by a cloth. But I don't keep change on display because in the UK a criminal will smash your window for 60p worth of change.

Here we still have a lot of Tolls where you need to use money, especially if you're not local to the area. But contactless card payments are becoming more commonplace, which is good for the cashless generation I consider myself part of.

 

Some annoying things...

The single windshield wiper blade is hilarious and does a terrible job even when it's working perfectly, and using the window washer is basically telling the car "I'd like to be blind right now". I've learned not to use it while driving.

Thankfully, I live in the desert so that's not too big of a deal...

The cupholders are awful. They do not work, and any drink placed in those cupholders is 99.9% guaranteed to end up poured into either the driver or passenger's lap, even if you aren't currently driving. If you let anyone else drive the car, that is the #1 thing to inform them about, because otherwise you'll be cleaning up soaked carpet later that afternoon.

That damn center window rear taillight will not stay on the window where it belongs. I've tried everything, but the hot Arizona sun and the weight of the light pulling down yanks it straight off after a month or two. One of these days I'm going to replace the thing with an LED strip and be done with it.

Vehicle is 9 miles long, yet the rear legroom is somehow still cramped. That never ceases to amaze me.

And finally, my #1 annoyance...

I've got two things on my Jaguar key-ring: My key, and my key fob. That's it. One small ring, one key, one keyfob. And due to the tight interior space, that silly fob manages to brush up against my right leg as I drive.

I finally got to the point where I bought a little quick-detach for my key so I could put it into the ignition without the fob still attached, because the key fob bumping up against my leg while driving was making me crazy.

And of course, despite all of this, I can't get over how much I love the car...

 

I've found that the cup holders work fine for the right sized bottle or cup. I've noticed that 99% of travel mugs get skinny at the bottom, I don't know why this is. My ceramic mug I drink out of in the house doesn't go skinny, so why do all the travel mugs?

I think there is a couple of important things that are forgotten when people complain about the cup holders the X308. Firstly it comes from a time, in Europe, where people didn't have a pathological need to have a cup of coffee, can of drink or bottle of water on their person at all times.
Secondly, it wasn't designed to be used whilst driving hence it's placement in the centre of the interior space. It's meant to be used when stopped as a place to rest a cup or drink rather than whilst the car is moving, it actually says in the manual it's not meant for use whilst driving.

I agree about the wiper though, I've mentioned this several times. I'd love to know why they made the wiper a single item, however I've never considered it to be ineffective. If you keep your glass polished and use a product like Rain-x then you'll find you won't need to use your wiper nearly as much, even in heavy rain. The sprayer I've disposed of and retrofitted conventional jets from an X300, please see the thread currently being discussed regarding that.

Finally, regarding your issue with the key. I've never found the cabin to be cramped or limited space wise, I'm 6ft tall too. The key has never really bothered me either, I'm not sure how you're catching your leg on the key unless you've got the wheel so low that it's in your lap. But it is possible to modify a later "flip key" and program it to work on your car. I've searched and found the thread for you if you'd like to have a go, it doesn't look difficult. https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ictures-93167/

 

I think all that space goes to the fuel tank. But its very small space for the rear.

 

What is wrong with the single wiper? I like it and think it works great. Granted, I don't deal with snow, but for rain coupled with the rain sensing operation, I actually believe it to be far more efficient than a two wiper system.

I will go further out on a limb and say that I also like the washer design. It seems to put the fluid right where it needs to be so the wiper can do its job.

That's my 2 cents.

 

But in the east coast where there is rain and not a drought, there is lots of rain, where one wiper can't handle. Not trying to hate on California, its a really nice state. But just where there is more rain you need to have two wipers. Plus Rain-X doesn't last too long. Thats why I put car wax on my windscreen.

 

I don't usually have an issue with just a single wiper. The washer is nice because of it's direct path to the blade, but as was mentioned before, as soon as it's sub-30 degrees, it freezes and then there's nothing but smeared muddy streaks. When it works, it's great. I haven't found a way to prevent the freezing from the original - will look into the heated retro from above.

I'm 6', 190 and I don't find myself cramped, but it is cozy in the driver's seat for me. Comfort isn't an issue (ignoring the parking brake handle thing), and I've driven 24 hours straight through with it without feeling like a pine board when I got out. Certainly comfortable as anything else I've owned as of yet.

I had forgotten about the third brake light. That thing is junk. I ended up with another window epoxy coupled with a small piece of foam underneath for extra support, and so far, that's FINALLY working. We'll see when the heat hits it though.

 

I should have sent this in before smtguy beat me to it, but I've been working overtime, and was too pooped to pop.

I've never had an issue with the single wiper, living in the wet and snowy Southern Indiana climate, but since I broke the tiny elbow fitting for the washer fluid below the wiper arm (clumsy in dim light) right after I got it, I haven't had a washer jet until very recently...seems to work just fine.

Thing is, When I bought my X350, I was VERY disappointed to find ordinary double wipers and a rear-hinged hood (bonnet) like every boring Taurus and Camry on the road. I figured the Ford engineers finally had their way, and exclusivity gave way to ordinary. Made me sad.

Ditto the high-mounted brake light. Perhaps you Texans with heavy back window tint have had better luck?

 

The single wiper does work, but not as well as a two arm system. The two arm system is generally configured to RHD or LHD with the vertical wipe clearing right up to the A pillar to give you a good line of vision from the driver's seat. With the singe wiper you have a large un-swept area at the top corners of the windscreen. Which on a car that has a small windscreen and is lower than most other cars on the road, like the XJ, it can cause visibility issues. But as mentioned some people wax their screen or use rain x type products to help deflect water from the glass in the un-swept areas.

Regarding the 3rd brake light, I've used a very powerful glue which is heat resistant and can be used in wet conditions. It's called "UniBond Repair Extreme", it's very good. But one thing that can be done to help the light is add support as mentioned, a simple discrete item perhaps wrapped in leather to match the shelf would go unnoticed by the majority of people.

I spent most of the afternoon working on my friend's 2016 Jaguar XF yesterday. We were hard wiring a dash cam, and working in the interior removing various trim parts. It made me glad I have my X308, because the quality of the trims used is a far cry from those in the XJ.

 

Sounds like we all agree on the 3rd brake light as being the poorest part of the X308. Too bad there is no after market LED unit to substitute as an easy replacement.

 

No. Hope I'm not jinxing anything, but I've got no idea what you're all talking about - the 3rd brake light on mine is fine, not sure even what there is to go wrong with it, or how it can "fall" as people have described it here. The plastic shell was loose when I bought the car, but I've secured it then and now it's still fine 6 years later.

I'm also a big fan of the single wiper, having two seems superfluous. It's better in heavy snow with one as the snow plowed from the whole windshield doesn't build up on the A pillar and then progressively blocks your vision.

For a heavy RWD vehicle, it's quite good in the snow IMO - no complaints at all. Snow driving with RWD is all about driver technique, if you don't "get it" then snow driving will be miserable with any RWD car.

I've also never hit my knee into the trunk button, but after reading this thread I've tried it and can see how others do that, lol

The parking brake doesn't touch me at all, never even noticed its position as intrusive at all - I'm quite big, but relatively thin.

The keys bug me when wearing shorts, I too got a quick disconnect Keychain to remedy that, lol, it's not my first car that gave me this annoyance though.

My backseat is huge in the LWB x308, anyone comparing legroom should go sit in the back of a brand new civic, that's genuinely tiny!

Most annoying thing is that it's old/high-mileage and that means the rubber parts on mine are all dry wrotting around this age and giving me lots of maintainance things to replace...

 

The notorious TRAC NOT AVAILABLE - ASC NOT AVAILABLE - ((ABS))