I was out with the family for brunch on a perfect sunny father's day. Perfectly cleaned Lunar Gray 10 SC, which although I am biased looks just fantastic in the sun. At a stop light with all the windows down, my teen sons in the back, a Jamaican guy in a nice Accord pulls beside on the passenger side. (imagine all dialog in a very cool Jamaican accent) He says to my son "is that your dad"? My son says yes, he says "ask him if he will leave me this beeeauuutiful machine in his will"....... "what a faaaantaaaastic automobile"....."what an amazing machine".

Granted he did approach from the best rear 3/4 angle (:-))but I've not had a reaction like that to any of my cars.

 

Jaguar spends far too much marketing dollars on the launch of the car and completely forgets to market after the car is launched. This is why they do not hit mainstream numbers. They have very bad follow up marketing it is an English disease ! As a marketing exec it is obvious.

 

I'm glad this thread popped up as just this morning when I pulled into the parking lot a woman got out of her car to say how she always admired my car and asked to look inside. It's things like this that make me love my car, I just don't see that happening with an E-Class or a 5-Series, maybe it does but they just seem too common for that to happen.

 

>asked to look inside.

Yup, whenever a Jaguar arrives people notice!
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Jaguar - it's not an automobile, it's a Motorcar

 

Here in Houston, Jags are well respected. They do have the poor reliability reputation, but the result is they think you are a baller that can afford the repair bills.

Also, Jags are everywhere here. I see XF's everywhere almost as much as 5 Series.

 

I see this as a very good thing.

 

beautifully said

 

Great thread! Lots of good information and insight. Funny side note: I drove 6 hours to purchase my XFR from a British Chap who had owned the car for two years and didn't seem to know what he really had. When looking over the car and testing everything he was shocked when I hit the button for the powered rear sunshade. He exclaimed "I didn't know it had that!" LOL I think he was getting spooked by some of the little bugs the car was getting (he obviously was not mechanically inclined). I have successfully sorted out all of the minor issues with help from this Forum.

 

Thread was a great and long read. I am on my second jag right now. I first owned a 2012 XF. I did my research as usual before buying a car and seen a lot of 3 series and 5 series but never really felt in love... so about 3 weeks later I seen a jag and was "wow this is really nice". So i decided to head to the dealer drove the car around and i was automatically in love, but that car wasnt in the very best spec, so I did some more searching. 4 more weeks later, I finally found a good priced with decent kms on it. So I called him up spoke about the car and started sending in my info and getting all the paper work ready so when I arrive it's just a test drive and paper signing; as this dealership was about an 8hr drive, one way in the winter during a storm... when I got there and seen the car I had already made up my mind prior to the test drive, heck i dont even remember taking it for a test drive; just a start up. It was a Polaris white 2012 XF with black and white trim interior.

I had the car for about 7 months. I had soo many compliments and some concerns with the car, that I lost count. But like most of you guys said the most popular concern when people heard jaguar was "isnt that an old mans car" "I was 22 at the time in school" and the other was reliability. But aside from a water pump I had no issues with the car. After about 7 months of ownership the car got wrecked, because of foolishness with having the full traction control off..went up a curve and took out a fence, the damage didnt look that bad but it was written off as repair costs were 33k....

so after that I ended up getting a lexus is350 f sport, because i wanted to try something else. It was a fast little nimble car. But I just wasnt satisfied, drove it for like 4 months and started searching again. And started looking for either an XJ/L or XFR. But I felt like the XJ/Ls were more of an older persons car while the XF was for the younger demographics. After about a month and a half I found me a black on black 2012 XFR. I was so excited again...that I bought the car without a test drive again. And i have never bought a car without a test drive besides my first jag and this.

and now that am driving i, noticed I was turning heads and breaking necks again, even though the lexus was a 2014 and top of its line. I am actually trying to get used to the car because of the power difference; it actually scares me right now. I dont know if it's because the jag has a little be more of a body roll than the lexus or it truly is the power that's scaring me. But I have done some unexpected powerslides, that put me in check, haha. Nonetheless, I actually enjoy driving again, even with the high gas price tag on the car. I dont have any pictures of my xfr right now but will update it when I do.

 

I have owned BMW and Mercedes. My wife's car is BMW F30 3 series. My car is a 2010 XF Supercharged. Jaguars are not as mass produced as the German counterparts. I respect them all, but feel the Jaguars have more character to them. There are less shops that work on Jaguar, parts on a BMW or Mercedes are easier to find. All around more support and resources for BMW and Mercedes. Finally what Ford did to the company, many people think Ford still owns Jaguar, but as we know they do not, since 2008. Those are all negative marks against our Jaaaags.

 

 

Wow can't believe this thread is still alive after 4 years! Well I have moved on into getting myself a Tesla Model 3 and gave the Jag to my dad. It was great car and had no issues between 10k-50k miles.

 

Holy thread resurrection, batman!

I've received mixed perceptions from people r.e. my Jag:
- several 'old man' car comments from my sisters;
- colleagues mock it for its abysmal fuel consumption, call it a 'posh mondeo' and don't understand why anyone would want to pay that much annual road tax for a car;
- a JLR employee who was impressed that I "put my money where my mouth is" (I work in an engineering department that does car stuff, so I think he presumed we should all be petrolheads);
- one comment from a friend that implied I 'skipped an upgrade step' going from a Skoda to a Jag: he thought the natural upgrade progression from a Skoda would be an Audi or BMW...
- general wonder/amusement over the air vents, gear selector and TV from passengers.

My jag has been the least reliable car I've ever owned, but no-one else has asked anything about reliability.

Why are Jags exclusive?
The comments in this thread suggest that seeing another jag is a bit of a novelty elsewhere in the world, but I don't think they are as exclusive in the UK as elsewhere - I live in a village with ~2000 inhabitants, and I see lots of other Jags parked up each evening (including another XFR). Their lack of popularity here vs german alternatives is presumably down to people buying their 'executive' saloons based on stats.