Point taken NewLester. I completely agree with your assessment of this vehicle. I have only toyed with the Dynamic mode thus far and found that I need more experience before I take this car to the next level. This car, especially with the 380HP engine, has more than enough get up and go to deal with at this time.

Currently I have only 600 miles under my belt with this model so you could say I am a novice thus far. The thing lacking for me in Normal mode is the initial get up and go off the line which seems sluggish and the accelerator a bit mushy, unless you hammer it. Once this car is going down the road and pulling sufficient RPMs then this baby really rolls, enough to scare the pants off your passengers.

I plan on weekend spirited drives in the countryside where I can get the feel of this truly amazing machine better.

 

Yes. About that funny “pause” when you’re in Normal Mode.
Ever since I was reading professional reviews about the XE before I decided to purchase one, the pro-reviewers commented that as you push down on the pedal expecting the machine to respond with the impulse of any Dodge or Ford or etc, the XE almost feels like it’s “waiting to assess” where your foot will ease up before deciding what gear to start-off accelerating with. Hence that breath-catching “leap” the car gives. The reviewers seemed to treat it as something certain Turbo engine designs DO. They never said, “wow that’s odd.” Instead they said, you the driver soon learns the car, “anticipates” that the XE is going to do this and expertly “time” your aggressive throttle push ahead of that gap in the traffic that you plan to exploit.

That concept left me stunned. It sounded like way too expert driving for me to wrap my head around. So I decided I’d drive this car like a Jedi Padawan student, and keep telling myself ‘go easy---you have much to learn, here. You want to be worthy of this car’.

The UK forums posters are heavy analysts on these XEs, XFs, etc. They debate different methods of mastering acceleration in Normal Mode.
Some say, first use the left hand-paddle to shift-down one notch, then push the throttle, and the car accelerates instantly without any pause. Hmm…

Some of them say, don’t push the throttle aggressively ever, don’t even FLOOR the pedal ever (flooring is an “old” technique that isn’t needed anymore on these new performance cars---it’s just wasteful on your engine). Instead “surge” your foot down (one quick, deep, SMOOTH push with no jerking). There won’t be any pause in the acceleration.
(I’ve tried this a couple of times. It does eliminate the sudden “leap” that scares passengers,… but when I look at the speedometer, I’ve ripped 20 miles over the speed limit in a short few seconds I didn’t realize or intend to exceed—so that’s shocking too).

Some say, pee-pee on boring Normal Mode---stay in Dynamic Mode forever, even just for 10 minutes to the coffee shop. (But some of THEM are the ones who admit calling someone to tow their new XE out of trees).

 

It all comes down to transmission tuning.

XE, even in Normal Mode tries to aggressively conserve fuel. That is why it starts off in 2nd gear all the time and often uses 5th and 6th gears in city driving at low speeds.

We all know the engine is strong enough. Sure it does not make all of its torque down low but it definitely has more than needed. However, when your revs are down to 1200-1400 range, very few engines can be responsive down there.

 

Point taken NewLester. I will agree with you that normal mode is fine for right now. Dynamic is something that will take some time to master as this setup is vastly different than normal mode. The throttle is something I am going to have to take some serious time to work on how to master this vehicle. Strangely enough I totally agree with your assessment that pushing the gas to the floor does not react to domestic cars at all but rather the reverse. Depending on where the throttle is depressed has a direct relationship to how the vehicle acts (very strange). I guess it must be more of a safety feature in the programming of the electronic throttle whereas there is none of this in dynamic mode. For me this is fine in Normal mode. I don't want my wife getting in this thing and parking the front end into a tree.

In any case back to the topic of this thread. I have an appointment to take my XE S back to the dealer for service on Monday after having this now for 3 weeks. There is surely some bugs with the ICT screen and or systems running behind it. Here is what I encountered thus far.

- In some case the screen remains blank after the car starts. Sometimes it comes up after a minute or two to resume normal function and other times it has required a restart to get the system reset.

- My XE S model is supposed to be equipped with 'Configurable Mood Lighting'. This is not present in any of the menus on the screen and I have been through them all.
** Update 7/28/17 ** amg1824 your are 100% correct with the brochure stating the portfolio was the only vehicle with the mood lighting option. I ordered my car in April, one week after the 2018 models were released. The salesman and I went though all of the options configured on their ordering system and it stated on my quote 'configurable mood lighting'. This is all I went by since the official brochures were still month away from being sent to the dealers. On the order to the factory it states B65A interior Mood Lighting, so I will let you know what they say. Although this is not a super big deal to me, it was on my quote at the time of purchase so I feel Jag owes us something. Why have the top of the line in the car series not fitted or optioned with all options, silly.


- The screen to the left of the main screen where you should be able to customize widgets does not function at all. I cannot modify it with a long screen press but I can select it to come up as my home screen (which isn't much good seeing as it there is nothing there).

- Finally today, and the last straw, was I had no audio output from any source XM, Radio, CD, USB, Nav, or bluetooth. I shut the car down restarted it a few times and the same issue remained. Finally after letting it sit for about 15 minutes and starting it back up normal function resumed.

There is surely something wrong at this point. I put it off for a week just trying to schedule this in, but now I feel that there are serious bugs with the system or firmware. In any case I will get me a loaner and my dealer can get these issues resolved.

I will updated on this issue once I get the report back from the service manager on what the cause and resolution is. Hopefully this wont take long. I will be getting a loaner during this service so it wont be dreadful. Just want them to get this issue resolved and get me on my way.

 

Shaman...let me now what the results are. I just ordered my XE S. I looked at the brochure for 2018 it says different things then what the "standards" features say about the mood lighting. On the brochure it says the portfolio has configurable mood lighting while the XE S does not but it also says on the standard features on the website that XE S has configurable mood lighting. I heard that sometimes it is fixed after some updates, turn off car, lock doors, wait 10 min and try again. When mine arrives I am going to spend hours probably to make sure everything is updated. In all honesty, I am not optimistic that we will be able to change mood lighting, it is a separate option in the UK. Go to the UK site and build it for fun...different packs and things.

 

Just got my car back and had a lengthy talk with the service manager. Very nice guy and a straight shooter.

- The blank screen and audio cutting out are a known issue. There was a service patch recently released although the work on their internal work order did not show the version, however the manager has seen this in the recent past and this most recent patch has corrected that issue.

- I have not had an issue at all after the latest patch. It does seem to be a bit cleaner in performance when going screen to screen. The biggest difference I have seen it a difference in the audio output. I thought is sounded okay to begin with but after this update I can hear a significant difference in the sound quality. I also noticed that when connecting my USB device there was no more hesitation of skips of music. This alone I I would have gotten the software patch for as it is a big difference IMO.

It seems that unless you ask about a software patch there is no official notification to owners. He confirmed this as well. So I would have to say at this point befriend your dealer's service manager as this is where I found the truth to be.

Only time will tell on the actual results, but I have no reason to doubt him as I asked for the software versions to report in multiple blogs to others. He also stated that there is going to be another patch released soon, although he did not release a specific date that was going to address the Navigation system as well as other items on the ICT screen. He said he would text me when it is released.

As to the 'Mood Lighting', that is going to be a bit of a sore spot for me. See 'XE Lands in US' for my post and additional information.

 

I just saw this person upload a bunch of new videos. This looks so bad, I hope this is a 1 off problem car.

Have you guys looked at these videos to see if you get these issues also?

 

These look like they could be dangerous?

 

I have not had any issues since my update to my 2018 XES. I have the ICTP and all of the issues reported earlier (with the lighting exception) have been fixed. I will keep a close eye on it and report any issues no matter how minor.