Let me start by saying I LOVE the way this car drives. I have a'17 XE35t Premium. I've always wanted a Jag and finally was able to get one in April of this year. Since then the car has been back to the dealer for many things. First it was a simple rattle on the rear parcel shelf which was fixed after 2 trips. Then it was water leaking onto the right A-Pillar in heavy rain. This required a new windshield, which didn't fix the issue. When they replaced the windshield they didn't adhere the rain sensor properly which caused it to malfunction. Took the car back for water leak again along with the rain sensor issue, seat creaking and headliner rattling. Seam was sealed to fix the water leak, rain sensor reinstalled and lower seat replaced. Still has seat creak and headliner rattle. Took the car back AGAIN, they kept it another week and replaced the headliner clips along with fixing a rattle in the B-pillar which they said was what I was hearing and it was not the seat. Guess what? Headliner still rattles, seat creaks and the driver door now creaks when going around a curve or stopping!! I'm very disappointed! I opened a case with Jaguar Customer Service earlier this month and just updated them that the issues persist. At this point I think this is a design flaw or this particular car was built by a bunch of drunks. Never have I had such quality issues. Have any of you experienced any of this? I hope Jaguar makes this right, I'm sick of driving loaners!!

 

Depending on where you live, maybe someone here can recommend a dealer close to you.

 

Not sure what your "creaking" noise is but on mine (2 mos. old) there is creaking from plastic panels. When I enter my driveway the car twists a bit and I hear a couple of creaks. In cleaning the car, I noticed I could duplicate the sound by pressing on the panel behind the rear wheel. Another sound comes from inside but is not bad. I'm thinking this will go away as panels rub together for a while, but maybe not.

As someone said, it's a performance car trying to be a luxury car, not a luxury car trying to be a performance car.

 

Our XE 25t came with a "creak" between the center stack and console that was a bit irritating. Over time it worked itself out and we are noise free now.

 

The noise from the headliner is right above my head. It's a tapping sound and it's annoying. The creaking is from the seat and the door. I do have the creak you speak of when pulling into my driveway but that's mostly the glass roof. Never had a new car with such poor quality. My dodge charger didn't have not 1 single rattle or creak. All the Mustangs I have owned never had this issue. The car is brilliant but the creaks, rattles and water leak have left me questioning the quality. I'll be upgrading before the warranty runs out for sure.

 

Here’s the fateful truth, and this has been distilled down from a lot of the threads in the English Owner’s forum (they are the one who tended to own the very first series XE’s, and went through three times as much as what we experiencing now). To some degree, we are all still “the pioneer owners” of this car, and have to suffer the expected manufacturer’s learning lessons that those long-established cars from the competitor makers have already squeezed out of their models.



The previous posts here are very correct: Jaguar doesn’t deny that it made a very daring decision to produce their most AFFORDABLE performance Jag EVER, and to do this, their daring decision was to peel away as much cabin luxury as possible, so that most of your XE’s cost is in its powertrain, aero skin, and suspension technology.

…That means that, “cabin-wise”, many owners will notice it’s not nearly as nice and bug-free in the cabin as a Jaguar can typically create, or BMW, Merc, or the master of cabin quality, Audi.



So some of the units off the factory will have “the creaky plastic” problem, or the sunroof control problem (that was my car), or the leak at the pillar (which I read was always solved by replacing surrounding rubber/plastic, NOT pulling out a piece of glass!), and the ripping leather crease, or the creaking door panel (which is oftern solved by cleaning the TWO rubber seals around each door of the car, to get off any grease or lubricant sitting on it). And ALL these problems from XE owners are famous, since about 2015.



I DO have the headliner rattle problem too, and after FIVE attempts to addressing it, we found a dislodged ceiling clip rolling around somewhere near the sunroof area. After a SIXTH repair failed, you can imagine the potential scuffs, nicks and cuts the dealership could be putting on the surrounding plastic areas of your car…..like the joke about how much damage a repairman will do to your kitchen cabinetry as he gets closer and closer to finishing repairs on your oven.

I am fortunate enough to have a body-shop that is hand-trained by Jaguar themselves (apparently an expensive travel and training procedure), and they know what quality issues to pay attention to, and just what factory procedure has to be followed to reverse-assemble a piece that has to be removed or replaced. ….Replacing the overhead fabric ceiling of your XE btw, requires removing the front windscreen (the ceiling is molded in one monolithic piece that is not supposed to be twisted or flexed AT ALL).



Your suffering of those cabin problems is common, and the car’s amazingly addictive driving feeling leaves you with a tough decision to make: you’ll need to EITHER accept a fine performing car that has a noisy less-than-fine cabin, OR pester your dealerships until they are able replace all the issues inside.

Notice I said dealer”S”, because you may have to travel far around and sample each to finally pinpoint the quality service crew that an XE deserves to have. (judging from your reports so far, you do not have a quality service team caring for your car).

Notice also I said, “able to REPLACE”. The XE is designed like a Clockwork Robbie the Robot. Once a faulty item is found, the service people are just supposed to confirm it is faulty, and Jaguar will tell them REPLACE it. The service guys are not supposed to be monkeying around trying to “correct” or “straighten” most snap-in items. Toss-out and REPLACE is the method that my service shop is trained by Jaguar to do.



At first, that kind of concept scared the poop out of me, and I don’t know why. After seeing the finished results, I’m fine with that: **** on this “straighten with some tools” nonsense---this way the car gets to look “factory” afterward, like it’s never been touched by a hammer or screwdriver after something’s been fixed.

 

Thanks for the reply. I totally understand what you're saying and I have thought about all of these things ALOT. To me, I can understand a little rattle here or there. But I have a freaking symphony of rattles and creaks. I have tried cleaning the weatherstripping and every other trick myself, but the creaks remain. A car shouldn't sound like the door and the seat are going to fall apart when you go around a corner, this is just unacceptable to me and apparently unacceptable to jaguar since customer service seems ready to replace this car if it is not fixed this time. I do love the way this car drives but it's straight embarassing when people ride with me and hear all of this noise. At this price I expected more. I've wanted a jaguar for a long time and I was very excited to finally own one only to now ask myself why the hell I paid this much for poor quality. Very disheartening. If this is indeed the norm, I can see why they struggle to sell cars. Hopefully they'll change my mind and either get this car straight or replace it with one that is.

 

 

I would press for new car at the first opportunity. Enough is enough. I'd take a new car over a fixed lemon.

 

Trust me, if I hear another rattle or creak when I get it back it's going to be gone. I honestly expect the dealer to tell me there's nothing else they can do which should trigger a replacement to happen. The only thing I worry about with that is they don't make the 35t anymore and I'm not accepting a 4 cylinder car as replacement. I guess I'll see what happens this week, for now I'm driving another loaner.

 

Replace it with an S model.

 

Got the car back today. The diagnosis is what I expected, nothing further the dealer can do. They told me there aren't any parts they can replace to fix these noises. My biggest issue is these noises didn't exist until a couple months ago, if this was normal the car would have had these noises from day 1. Now I wait for my customer service rep to contact me back. I forwarded her the email I got back from the dealer. I guess I'll see what happens next.

 

So my customer service case rep called me today to see how things went. I told her what the dealer told me and that the car is still making many noises which apparently can't be fixed. After talking a few minutes she asked what they could do for me at this point. I told her I wanted this car replaced. So I am now to be contacted by someone else in a couple of days. She says this process takes about 30 days. I guess we'll see where this goes. Anyone else with experience in the replacement process?

 

So, you'll get a 2019?

 

I honestly have no idea. I was instructed to take the car back to the dealer so they can work with them on the issues. This could take 30 days or more! I now have an error with the SOS system how convenient! JLR will update me weekly about the approval for a replacement car. Hopefully it gets approved, otherwise I'm stuck with a creaking and rattling car that can't be fixed and I'll never own another JLR product. I'm taking the car in on Monday. Yay, another loaner! 😡

 

I am on my 4th JLR car and none were a lemon. Buddy bought 2 new Mercedes and both were returned under lemon law, so go figure...

 

We had an Lr3 and it was great! My father in law has had 2 Range Rovers without issue. I think I just got a car that was built on a Friday. I had a 2018 XE as a loaner for a week, it had 12k miles and didn't make all the noise mine does, so I know my car is not "normal"

 

So after my car was in the shop for over a week while they investigated they finally made a decision to deny my request for replacement. They did however offer me a goodwill payment equal to 2 car payments since the car has been in the shop so much. Bummer. I guess I'll drive it for a while and decide later what I want to do. Resale is so bad I'd take a bath on trade in at this point. Not happy with the poor quality of this car.

 

What state are you in? In my state it is not up to the dealer to decide whether the car is a lemon and should be replaced; especially on a new car. There is a legal definition and if it is met; that's it.

 

South Carolina. I spoke to an attorney I know and he said he didn't think it met the lemon law because the car was a service loaner before I bought it. The law reads it must be a new car that was only used for test drives. So, it falls into a gray area. It wasn't the dealer that decided this, it was Jaguar Corporate. If this is their idea of quality they need to stop building cars. As much as I love this car the quality of interior and chassis is terrible.