I purchased my 2011 XFR 3 months ago, with approximately 26K miles on the clock. I am not uninitiated in the charms/quirks of English cars. I had previously owned a wonderful/infuriating Land Rover Discovery, and had grown accustomed to the random acts of "**** just stopped working and then started working again" and the semi-annual "major repair required."

Prior to the XFR I owned a 2010 Mazdaspeed3. I can honestly say that nothing broke on it. EVER. I modified it all on a stock bottom end and dynoed it as 375 whp/415 wtq and nothing ever broke. Nothing leaked. Nothing squeaked. It never went to the dealer for anything after I drove it off the lot with 3 miles on the odometer until I traded it in with 63K miles on it. That thing was bulletproof.

Now that brings me to my XFR, and here in this thread I shall detail the ongoing trials with my beautiful, wonderful and questionably manufactured car on which, I'm happy to say, I got a premium extended warranty.

1) Entertainment system. Frankly the infotainment system in my Jag is antiquated. My $22K (when new) Mazda economy car had a much more advanced infotainment system than my $80K (when new) Jag. It could stream music from my phone over Bluetooth and it would read my text messages and allow me to speak my text replies. No such feature in my Jag. For such a high-end car, I'm amazed at how poor the system is. One bright spot; the Bowers & Wilkins stereo is fantastic.

2) Water pump. My water pump was leaking and it had to be replaced (under warranty, of course). The dealer explained it was a common problem. With only 30K miles on it, that's ridiculous.

3) Cooled seats. The driver's cooled seat fan stopped working. Took it to the dealer and they replaced the fuse. No dice. They replaced the fan. Nope, still nothing. So they had to order an entirely new fan controller for the seat from England. It was ordered 3 weeks ago, and arrived this week. We shall see if this resolves the issue.

4) Rear seat vents. Blow hot air. When the A/C is on max it blows cool (not cold, but cool) air. When the A/C settles down it then blows hot air. Need to have the dealer look at it. I suspect some insulation is needed in the center console over the transmission tunnel.

5) The passenger wing mirror stopped dipping. Out of nowhere, the passenger wing mirror stopped dipping in reverse (yes it was set to dip). Dealer fixed it.

6) Front passenger window would not auto-raise. I performed the reset, but it wouldn't correct it. Dealer had to adjust the anti-pinch settings.

7) Left rear shock is leaking fluid. I discovered this last week when I was under the car at a muffler shop having the center resonators cut out. Dealer will have to replace it when I bring it in for the vents and seats.

8) The under-dash panel cover in the driver's footwell began falling down. It was replaced under warranty. I suspect that the previous owner had work done under there and the cover was damaged. Dealer replaced it.

9) Various thunks and squeaks: The front end thunks when reversing down my driveway when going full lock. The speedometer shroud squeaks.

10) Sunroof wouldn't seat properly when fully closed. Dealer stated several bolts had come loose (seriously??). Fixed by the dealer.

11) TPMS Sensor receiver went out and was receiving random warnings for all four tires. Dealer repaired.


Now, with my bitch-fest complete I'm telling myself that the previous owner (a Hispanic woman based on the voice on the handsfree phonebook when I bought the car) probably didn't perform all the necessary maintenance on the car and so these issues are simply an accumulation of items that the previous owner didn't resolve during the time she owned it. I am of the opinion (possibly by delusion) that once I get these items resolved the car will be as rock-solid and reliable as the car it replaces.

Time will tell.

 

Lol I owned a discovery II for 4 years and can attest to the love/hate relationship you describe.

Sorry to hear about your luck with the XFR. Hopefully once all the problems are sorted it'll be just good times ahead

 

Yeah bud good luck! Other than the rear differential that was a known problem I have had no big issues with my XFR. In your hands hopefully it will get restored to where it needs to be!

If it makes you feel any better, the water pump was definitely a known recall

 

I'm with you on the previous owner not doing a damn thing and having to do 3 years of repairs in a few months. Other than a few random TPMS warnings, all has been good.

 

The cabin filter is behind the panel in the passenger footwell, cover was probably mishandled by the careless person (aka dealer mechanic) that changed the filter.

Being mostly a Lincoln, Lincoln likes to put electric door actuators for the AC system that get flakey and then fail. So that's probably that issue.

 

LOL, forgot I had those too. The dealer had to reset the TPMS receiver. Added to #11 on the list. LOL

 

I'm kind of worried about the rear diff issue. Is there anything that can be done to proactively mitigate the potential of rear diff failure?

 

Sounds like the failure is caused by the fluid leaking out.

Even a little gear fluid leaking makes a huge mess. So just take a peek every now and then to see if the axle is still dry.

 

There was a recent post on JD Power quality surveys. There is one superior upper tier. After that there are two large grouping of the better car manufacturers. I personally don't think you will fare any better than Jag unless you move into top tier manufactures for quality. I hope Jag makes a commitment to be there as I like the overall product better than any other. There is not a Porsche I gravitate to that is affordable to me, otherwise I would buy one possibly.

 

^^ The numbers say these cars are relatively reliable and of good quality. To the OP, sorry to hear about the many issues on your car, and I'm sure the statistics probably don't serve as much of a consolation. FWIW, and to provide a counterpoint to the 'British cars' stereotype, mine have been as reliable as any German vehicle I've ever owned. There - I've just cursed myself...

 

12) Infotainment systems crashes with bluetooth incoming calls. Ok, this one is just bizarre. Yesterday I received an inbound call. The system is set to announce the callers. The system voice said, "You have a call from... " so I clicked the steering wheel button to answer. I heard nothing. After a moment or two, the infotainment screen went black, the A/C switched off and I waited for a few seconds and then the system rebooted. I've been able to recreate it several times:

13) Since the infotainment crash above, the passenger seat cooling isn't working... again.

 

Sorry you have it backwards!!

The Lincoln LS was co-developed with the S Type. Both cars have a lot of each other in them.
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>The Lincoln LS was co-developed with the S Type. Both cars have a lot of each other in them.

Three of them, actually. The last Thunderbird was built on, basically, the
same platform. Shares most parts with the Lincoln and correspondingly with the S-Type.
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Jaguar - it's not an automobile, it's a Motorcar