1,600 km completed so I selected Dynamic Sport Manual mode and promptly bounced the limiter. I thought I'd broken the engine until I remembered the transmission won't upshift a redline in this mode. Pandering to journalist wannabee racers who don't understand how to drive. If you need to hold the gear how is it tricky to hold the rpm just below the automatic shift point but not tricky to do so just below the limiter?

With an automatic you want it to upshift.

I remain impressed by how quick this car is compared to my 4.2 V8.

The awd can be felt operating if the rear wheels get scrappy. Very impressive drive and a lot of fun.

 

If I'm in manual mode, I don't want it to upshift for me at all. It seems like it'd be easy enough to make that a Setting in the computer though, since it's electronically shifted anyway.
The only drawback is the panicked call from my wife thinking she broke the car because she accidentally touched one of the paddles in a corner, and the car wouldn't shift anymore.

 

That's why Jaguar allows you to disable the paddles in D in the newer models.

Dynamic mode will hold the gears at redline. Again just in the newer models. Pointless feature but some seem to like it.

 

Yeah, I just told her she needed to learn how to drive properly.

 

I guess you could have played hero by "fixing" it, lol.

Personally, I like the options afforded by the various modes. If you don't want it to bounce off the limiter, stay only in dynamic or only in sport and there is no issue. You want complete "manual" control (which I do upon occasion, apparently like you) , put it in sport dynamic and have at it - I like watching the gear indicator change colors as it nears redline!

Finally, I'm still perplexed why Jaguar can't adjust through a flash update, the fact that on the '12 NA 5.0, paddles are disabled in D mode. There is no menu option, and the rationale is exactly the scenario your wife experienced... I read in a publication somewhere that it was supposed to be adjustable by the dealer, but they claim this is untrue.

 

Well, and I told her that if she left it alone for a while, or put it in neutral and back again, that it would reset, but she'd already pulled over and turned the car off by that point, so problem was solved

Exactly, because probably 29 out of 30 times I drive it, I let it shift for me, it does it very well. But sometimes I like the fun of diving into a 90 degree corner, popping the left paddle down to 1, and rocketing away in manual mode. Like they say time and again, modern automatics are faster than manuals, but it's the fun of being able to do it yourself.

Yeah, it seems like that'd be easy enough to do, I can't imagine they dramatically changed the shifting program between the years. She's fine with it now that she understands what happened, the thing that made it worse was the check engine light had come on, and we hadn't had the car that long (thermostat seal had slipped, that old 4.2L issue, but we didn't know yet that it wasn't something worse).