Hi,

I currently have a 2010 XF 3.0 S Portfolio and love it. however its diesel and I never do proper diesel miles (am a school run/town driver in general) so often get the DPF fault, I've also had restricted performance a few times and have been told something needs to be done with the turbo actuator etc.
Anyway, the upshot is, I keep considering changing it but all the new ones leave me underwhelmed compared to the lovely interior of mine.
I have seen a main dealer fully loaded white XJ 2016 model year with no miles on it, 2 year full jaguar warranty. It has black interior which is not my favourite but it is gorgeous. My worry is, the width of it. I do struggle with UK parking spaces in the XF from time to time. I am curious to hear from other XJ users, in particular the UK users to see how they get on with bay parking, do you often find someone has parked so close that you can't get in, do you find lots of car park dings because people get arsy and don't care about your pride and joy. I keep telling myself to save the money and keep my XF as it still gives me a fuzzy feeling when I look at it and get in it but I need to spend a few grand sorting bits out and its done 132k miles.

I would love to hear from you guys to help my decision either way.

 

So why not a 2016 XF petrol ? Although not all aluminium like the XJ it is mostly ally, with doors of steel, I understand. Only downside for me is the central console is rather hard on one's left leg.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-sea...el-type=Petrol

The current XJ is a big car, although similar to my X358, but it has a much higher waist line which can make it seem much larger when you're driving it. I drove one for 4 days last January and got on quite well with it, except when exiting a car park in Chester, when I couldn't reach the machine to put the ticket in, as the waist line made it too high to reach ! Manoeuvring it is reasonably easy with the reversing cameras and the front and rear sensors. It's a nice car, and I wouldn't say no to one.

 

Thanks Fraser, I totally agree and keep looking at the the newer XF's but Ive never found them to look as nice as my existing one, I personally find a lot of them look and feel really plastic in areas now. Maybe I just haven't looked at the right combination. It does seem that most V6 petrol XJ's are the R trim and the two tone seats just dont float my boat.

 

Parking width has not been an issue for me, but the I have the LWB version which can make swinging into narrow bays with cars opposite challenging. If I can see the white lines either side of a space I've not yet found one I've not been able to park it (I usually reverse into bays). The front parking sensors have been very accurate for me: when swinging the front I can place the car around 2" from an obstacle fairly consistently from the timing of the solid beep - hint it is a lot later than you'd think, but practise with something soft while learning!

The rear camera and properly adjusted side mirrors make reversing dead easy. The markings will be similar to the 2010 XF. I think the 2016s have a better quality camera image as well.

The exception is multi-storey carparks. Unless I have experience of a particular car park I will choose open air or on road parking because I got my XJL stuck at the top of the entrance ramp on one and had to get another driver to stop others coming up and reverse back down 3 stories of circular ramp. (It was a tight 90 degree turn at the top of the ramp that hit it from the opposite direction so you had to be touching the outer wall, with large concrete kerbs that would have fouled the side sills.) The SWB may well have made that turn - I was only a few inches off being able to edge it round.

That was a particularly nasty carpark (evidenced by the multicoloured paint scrapes on the ramps) but many are fine.

No door dents on mine after 8 years, but I generally don't park too close to risky cars (child seats/window blinds, stickers, blue badges, crap all over the seats, dents or poor condition, 4x4s with high doors, etc.)

My main concern when parking is will I be an obstacle to other drivers as the car pokes out of most bays by around a meter. That means you can't park it opposite ramps or box people in at the end of rows, etc. Also don't take the end space in the LWB unless you want to reverse back out of the carpark because you usually can't fit it lengthways between the rows to turn round.

 

 

You may have issues parking it straight in the space which has to do with how the windows dive down. Once you realize you can compensate for it but before that you will park like a new driver. XJ is SOOOOO much better than the XF I cannot imagine you regretting it for any reason.

 

 

 

 

How very true. I was going to buy an XF, but had a quick ride in an XJ...