Does anyone else have this problem? It seems my brakes are so sensitive it is almost impossible to stop smoothly. They grab way to hard. I brought my 2010 XF back to the dealer after 2 weeks and they insist everything is according to specs. What gives?

 

If you press the brakes suddenly then you activate the emergency brake boost effect which is pretty sharp.

Otherwise the brakes are very smooth.

The brakes are very powerful so compared to say American cars you may need to practice easing up on the pedal as the car comes to a stop.

 

Thanks, I'll give it a try, but they still seem very touchy. I guess I'm too used to Cadillacs.

 

The brakes on the XF have a lot of "mush" at the top of the pedal which makes them hard to modulate. They also don't release cleanly. Car and Driver commented on this in their road test of the XFR vs rivals on December 2009. Quote "the brake pedal is soft and numb, so any attempt to gently reduce speed is met with an imprecise application of braking power that sends the heads of passengers bobbing towards to the windshield."

 

I also went from a Cadillac to an XF, and it took me several months to get used to the brake pedal. Anyone who rode with me nearly got whiplash.

After wearing the pads down some the braking response becomes a bit more user friendly.

 

I guess I am not used to driving North American cars with their superior brake pedal feel ???!!??

The XF has superb brakes that are easy to modulate, have no "mush" anywhere in the pedal travel and they release just fine. Nobody in Europe has any complaints about the brakes except for the dust on the wheels.

I despair sometimes of North Americans who can neither build cars nor drive them, it seems.

Most North American cars have appalling brakes.

 

Thanks a lot Jagular. I hope you don't mind if I don't count myself in your fan club.
Buy any chance have you started breeding? Or is it too late?

 

I think I know what good brakes are: my other car is a 911 and my previous 3 cars were 911's - all had good brakes and I've used them all on the track. I also happen to believe that Car & Driver have enough experience to know whether a car's brake's are mushy or not. I guess it depends what you're used to and who you believe in.

 

When I test drove two XFs I felt that the brakes on both grabbed a bit - although definitely not 'mushy' in any sense of the word. When I got my own new XF (3 weeks ago) the brakes also seemed to grab a bit for the first few miles but within a day that had gone. I think it was partly due to the newness and partly because I was accustomed to the poorer brakes on my previous car, a RHD X-Type 3.0. The brakes on that car were certainly below what you'd expect, although fitting better quality pads brought them up to 'average'.

What I do realise after driving two other cars since having the XF is that the XF's brakes are fairly sensitive, but after a few hundred miles driving I can't fault them at all. I didn't see any adverse comments about the brakes in the many reviews I read before buying, and it seems a bit blinkered to keep criticising the car for having "mushy" brakes on the basis of just one tester's comment.

 

I guess that was a little uncalled for. Did I ridicule your ethnicity? I merely posed a question about brakes. I guess maybe we should have stayed out of WWII and maybe I'd be driving a VW now!!!

 

I did test drive an XF at the dealership and there was no problem. When I took delivery of my 2010 XF and drove home, I thought it was just the "newness" of the car. I did bring it back and the tech said there was nothing wrong. I do have 4000 miles on the car now and no difference. I am getting used to them now and compensating for the quick grab. It's just when others drive my car they are astounded by the brake response, "too grabby".

As for Jagular, get a life. I did appreciate the initial responses but then you went too far, limey!

 

The "too grabby" is part of the complaint. Other people have driven my car (they are owners of an M5, an E63, a Ferrari 360, a Maserati Quattroporte, a 996 GT3 and a 997 Turbo) and they all have said he same thing. There's an inch of mush or slack - call it what you will - at the top where nothing happens then the brakes grab. It's too binary. What you;re really looking for is no mush and smooth progression from the get go and an ability to modulate the brakes at the point of the ABS threshold and to feather off the brakes without a lurch. Let's be clear: this is not about braking power or braking distance but about brake feel and progression. Other manufacturers can get it right, why not Jaguar?

 

Initially, I found the brakes on my new 2010 XF Premium to be difficult to modulate well and bringing the car to a smooth stop, after driving my 5 series BMW, was quite difficult. However after a short while I adapted and I now have no problems. The initial dead spot, commented on in this thread, is not particularly noticeable on my XF.

Interestingly I had 2003 MB E500 with the, then, new electrically activated brakes (i.e brake pedal with no mechanical connection to the master brake servo). These were almost impossible to modulate correctly. MB had a recall that "re-calibrated" the system so that the applied braking pressure and travel calibration allowed smoother braking.

I do notice that the XF pulls up very quickly and "seems" to have a short stopping distance compared to my other cars, however I cannot verify this with real data. I have also noticed that some data in an Edmonds review showed that the XF had a short 60 - 0 stopping distance when compared to the MB E series and BMW 5 series.

I think that when you move from vehicle to vehicle, adapting to the different steering responses, braking and acceleration characteristics can take a little time, especially if they are significantly different. All these things contribute to drivability and driving feel which constitute a representation of the overall "Jaguar" feel of the car. I suppose that if enough people do not like the "feel" they will make changes, but Jaguar must be careful not to loose the overall character of the car. BMW and their change to electrically assisted steering in the new BMW 5 series is a good case in point here as it causing a great deal of controversy since it affects the overall feel of the car.

 

Sid,

Now that you you have 4K miles of XK experience, is there any way you can drive another XF and evaluate the brakes? Drive the one they use as a demo.

To me, one of the most important factors in the driving experience for any car is "brake modulation". If it turns out that your brakes are "normal" (like other ZKs) than "it is what it is". If your cat still has a hard pedal and the dealer can't help, it's time to bring in the Jag zone tech support, or whatever they are called.

Don't give up till you get satisfaction.

 

I agree with Jagular. I find the XF's brakes to be very efficient, progressive, and smooth. No mush at all. I would say more immediate in application to other cars I've driven both domestic and foreign. My other car is a Lexus GS and it has similar brake characteristics to the Jag, so when I drive rental cars the brakes seem very mushy and delayed.

 

And I would argue - no "suggest" - in this nicer kinder forum world we live in here, that the Lexus, any Lexus in fact, has brakes that exhibit no feel whatsoever. They are totally numb. They may stop you in the required distance but you feel nothing at all. And the reference to rental cars is irrelevant, you wouldn't buy one so why use it as a reference point? If that's your reference point no wonder you think the XF's brakes are good. If you want an accessible reference point for good brakes find someone with a used Porsche Boxster and then you will see what I'm talking about. It's not braking distance but braking feel and the ability to modulate.

 

Mostly agree. One of the things I liked about BMW's is that they not only have great steering and responsive engines but the braking was superb. It was easy to balance the car on the accelerator and brakes. I have heard many times that BMWs were good not just because of their engines etc. but because of the way you could modulate the brakes which give them an advantage. I drove the Boxster and can agree that this car is amazing (better than any BMW I have driven, anyway). In that light the Jag is not that good, but they are adequate and considerably better than MB and Lexus. Could they be better, absolutely. Are they bad, not really, but then I am not trying to balance my 4000 + lbs Jag on a track event. Now if I had the XFR, I think I might be complaining.

BTW, just in case you are wondering, my XF is my sporty sedan and I have a BMW 3.0Si Coupe to provide me with my sports car handling. Not as good as the Boxster, but good enough for me!!

 

It's not braking distance but braking feel? Give me a brake!

In real world driving on real roads it is absolutely about braking distance and feel is just not relevant.

Objectively, the XF brakes are superb. Many have no difficulty using them to proper effect. Whether they allow you to "modulate at the ABS point" or not is completely irrelevant. Studies have shown that although drivers may think that modulating the brakes at lock up is still a good idea it was never a good idea on the street. Fact is that almost all drivers do not apply the brakes hard enough in an emergency and forgo extra braking force available. You should NEVER try to modulate the brakes of an ABS equipped car in any emergency stop.

That is, actually and objectively, the end of this weird debate about what makes good brakes.

Oh yes, and BMW have a terrible ride, all of them.

 

The 911 is laughable. The ONLY reason the 911 stops well is that the engine is in the wrong place and enhances braking forces by weight transfer effects. That engine placement also makes the 911 an impossible car to drive well due to those same weight transfer effects. Porsche itself has proved this by a) making their racing cars and their flagship car mid engined and b) by saddling the better Cayman with less power.

Incidentally, the Cayman S brakes as well as the 911 Carrera S despite the advantage the 911 has from weight transfer effects.

The Jaguar XFR stops nearly as well as the 911 Carrera S despite the much superior ride the XFR exhibits.

the 911 was a dumb design when it first came out and nearly broke Porsche until they launched the Boxster and the Cayenne.

 

This is just such a funny thing. People who don't get the 911 have generally not driven one, owned one, don't know how to drive one properly, and are often jealous. Let's just leave it at that and laugh out loud.