I picked up my new Black SC XJL (VIN# in the 15K range) a few days ago, in spite of reading some comments from this board regarding other owners issues.

Previously I owned a 2006 Land Rover LR3 - and just like what I’ve seen on this board, the Land Rover forums (which I found after buying the car) were littered negative comments posted by unhappy owners. Reading those comments scared the crap out of me - but luckily I had virtually no issues with my LR3 (XJ replaced the LR3). So I didn’t let the negative feedback on this board scare me away from the XJ. As noted before in other posts, it’s important to realize that when the average person has an issue - they flock to places like this looking for answers. Few (if any) average owners come and post positive feedback. Only the true auto enthusiast will seek out a forum to post positive information about a car.

Anyway - here is my positive feedback from the car:

Trunk lid closes and opens every time without fail. Never an issue.

Backup camera pops on immediately when I put the car in reverse.

Sirius Radio - activated the system with no issues. Listen to it daily.

Heated, cooled, and massage seats work perfect (and make me not want to get out of the car)

NO rattling anywhere inside the car. Cabin is almost silent - except the awesome sound coming from the perfect exhaust note, or the amazing bowers and Wilkins 1200 watt stereo when I turn it up.

Voice commands are unbelievably accurate. I completed the voice training configuration tool - and I am shocked at how well the system recognizes my responses. Take 5 minutes and go through the voice training, its well worth it.

Bluetooth pairing on my iPhone 4 was simple, calls come through perfect and I can stream music via Bluetooth directly into the stereo and control playlists via the XJ touch screen.

DVDs play perfectly in both the front and back seat (I have the rear entertainment system). The remote control for the rear isn’t as intuitive as I would like - but again spending a few mins working with it is about all it takes to figure things out.

Touch screen is responsive and quick with changes. I have noticed that for the first 10 seconds after starting the car things are slightly slower but still completely usable. The system is complicated; it does take some time to learn where things are within the system. Once you spend 30 mins playing with it while sitting in the driveway; it’s a piece of cake to use. I did notice that turning animation on slows down the system and makes touches on the screen much slower. The animation barely changes the effects on the screen - leave it off and its fine.

Ironically, my complaint is the one thing I haven’t seen anyone mention yet. With all the research I did on the car ahead of time - no one bothered mentioning the ridiculous size of the key fob. The thing is gigantic (and heavy). I get that they wanted it to feel large and substantial in your hand - and it does. But jeez, that might have been overkill.

The day I picked it up from the dealer:

 

Nice looking ride. I am not having any issues either. But I have found that sometimes certain MP3 will make my B&W system sound not as good as others. I have the Napster and Rhapsody apps on my iPhone which allows me to download music into those apps and listen to them offline. Their respective websites says that they are 256kps files which I guess I believe and is very good quality although not cd quality. Well when I really push the system sometime I will get speaker pop mainly from the center channel or I will get a sort of vibration come from one of the front mounted tweeters. Now when I play a stored cd I can turn it up all the way to 60 and get zero distortion.

But at the end of the day maybe you will never have any issues maybe you will. Having your car a few days is really not enough time to tell. Happy driving.

 

blackxj,

It's refreshing to read a positive experience on the car! But unfortunately, as you mentioned, the nature of an online forum like this is to lean towards issues and concerns rather than enjoyment and praise. And that's fine - a forum for gathering information when things turn south is absolutely a great thing to have, but often the banging of the war drums become louder than those sharing good experiences.

Congrats on your purchase... wishing you many years of enjoyment of your car!

 

I havent tried Rhapsody or Napster MP3s. I do use Pandora which will let me stream a live music feed through bluetooth into the stereo and played quite a bit of music purchased from the itunes store on my iPhone - and I havent noticed the issues youve described.

You are correct, Ive not had the car for long - time will tell. But so far I am pretty pleased. If that changes, Ill be happy to balance out my positive feedback with the negative as well.

 

No, no don't get me wrong. It would be great if you never had anything negative to say about your Jag. And my issue with the MP3 is more and MP3 issue and not a Jag issue. Also my touchscreen is not slow its just not fast and could have been coded better. I love my car to death but if I were having some of the issue other are having I am not sure how happy I would be either. How did you insert the pic into your post. I am pretty computer literate and could get it to do it.

 

Well crap nevermind I just found it. Well it still didn't insert like your so maybe I still need you to tell me.

 

I have an account with flickr.com - I upload my photo's there then use the "insert image" button on the message tool bar - and insert the URL for the pic from my flickr account.

That way it pulls the image from flickr.com's servers and not from the forum - and it shows it full sized.

 

Gotcha thanks.

 

blackxj,

Welcome to the forum. Great to hear your car works fine right out of the box--I knew eventually Jaguar would get it right from the factory. I still think that most of the problems so far have been from incompetant dealers doing the TSB's, which Jaguar still needs to address somehow.

I no longer have any issues and am very happy with my car. I too do not find any problem with the speed of the touchscreen--I'm not sure why so many are complaining about it. I also think the nav system is fine (except that I can't change the time to destination from military to regular time, but no big deal)--if you want to see a joke of a nav system, try the one that was on an '07 Maserati QP I owned. It didn't even have street level detail other than main highways! Also as you stated, the voice commands work great.

I frequent quite a few car and motorcycle forums and, as you have said, most of the posts are about problems, but that is the benefit of a forum--to give and receive feedback to identify and solve problems. Unfortunately, it skews what a casual observer would be led to believe about just how many problems actually exist.

 

Blackxj congratulations on your purchase it's an awesome ride! My car is in the 13k vin range and I also haven't had a single problem so far with the car, everything is working as advertised. As others have mentioned you definitely find a lot of posts of people having issues with their car but that is the nature of forums. Its helpful in making decisions about buying a car but shouldn't be the only source of info. The only thing that freaked me out a little is that the car comes with a little bag of fuses, I found that a liitle odd. But not to worry BMW'S come with a whole tool set in the trunk.

 

Congrats BXJ. I'm pretty close to the situation, and have heard nothing on a fix for the delay in the rear view camera either when initiating it or after moving to drive. I'm wondering whether you don't feel it's that laggy, or somehow yours just worked when everyone else's software seems to lag. Again, Jaguar does not report a software upgrade or update to address the rear camera lag issue. That includes at the build facility, or at the dealerships that I'm aware of. It's something that is quite annoying, and if you wouldn't mind hitting that topic once more, I'd appreciate it. Just want to understand if it's not bothersome to you, or the transfer to the camera when engaging or disengaging is instant.

Just wait until you adjust the volume on the radio and then try to change something else on the touchscreen shortly after...you'll be on here saying "noooooooow I understand what they're all talking about." Little things like that, having to touch the tiny little plus sign to change from preset 1 to preset 2, or to go into the sub-menu for personal audio devices, or when your L5 S1 slips from the unnecessary girth of the FOB that as mentioned, serves no actual purpose other than to be gargantuan. Or when you get out of your car, go to get something out of the trunk, close the trunk, and then realize that you also have to go back over to the door to lock it instead of being able to do that from the trunk. If anyone has a Supersport, they'll notice that at night, the glow from the left and rear vents reflects a bright blue ring in the center of your side mirrors, which is amazingly distracting. Get your car detailed and then have to hit the winshield wiper fluid, and watch your detail go down the tubes as the entire front end of your car gets destroyed from the front headlight washer spray that would make even Peter North proud, and that can't be disengaged from the menus. You will eventually get tired of hitting "I agree" on the nav screen every time you get in your car. You'll get tired of the black screen that pops up after you've been in reverse and start driving forward, where it has a prompt to "turn off" something or other. Or if you want your Nav to default to a full screen view when you use it for directions, instead of giving the split screen at the start which shows something that i can't quite figure out yet...maybe alternate routes or something like that...not sure what it is. Or when you can't change the time on the nav to a 12 hour clock, and instead it only displays as miliatary time. Or when you try out the traffic monitoring system and find you can't get a channel a good chunk of the time. Or when you go to install your courtesy nets in the trunk, and realize that they didn't prefit the car for that option, and you actually have to drill holes in your trunk to install the XJ specific side nets. And a tiny little net costs over $250 after 1.5 hours of labor plus parts because they didn't just fit the trunk with an attachment of some kind.

The more obvious things have mostly been cleared up on later VIN models, but there are still the annoyances that you'll start to pick up on the more you drive her and play with it. Spectacular car all around, but every so often you find yourself thinking "how is it possible they missed that in testing at the factory?" Not to say that it doesn't happen with most or all other car manufacturers, and not to say that it's unexpected on a new model to some degree. Yet still, it's frustrating. Thank God it's as beautiful as it is.

 

Congrats, happy driving
I hope your ride will not let you down ,nice color as well

 

Blackxj, I don't think that was a compliment. LOL.

 

I'm pissed--I didn't get my little bag of fuses!

 

The backup camera engages immediately when you select reverse, but does not disengage until you drive forward over 10MPH. Until then you will see the parking aid screen with a button you can press to turn off the screen immediately and go back to the main menu prior to 10MPH. Before the software upgrade, you would still see the camera image while going forward until 10MPH which was a little strange.

 

I am soooo glad to hear somebody got a perfect car. And I am sure almost all the cars are perfect. Especially with VIN # in the higher range now and Jaguar being able to implement any fixes they may had to.
My car is pretty much as perfect, too. I got to check the animation thing on the screen. Hope that makes a difference. That slow touch screen is still annoying.

Keyfob: That is the first thing I noticed and my first comment to the dealer. I got used to it. But , gosh, that thin is huge and heavy.

Thanks again for posting a positive comment. IT is important to keep things balanced and remind people that the negative comments will always outnumber the positive one. Simply, because who has no problems or questions won't poke around the web and end up on forums as much as the ones looking for answers.

Nonwithstanding the few car nuts likle me, just loving to chat about that car.

 

Does this include If you shift to reverse within say 5 seconds of starting the car? I have a new one (late VIN) and I notice a substantial lag if done right away after starting, and moderate delay when the car has been on. I would, under no circumastances, call the rear camera screen immediate, so I'm just trying to make sure we are on the same page.

 

Hi kid delicious. I thought I am very particular but I think you are even more an perfectionist then I am. Anyways, I agree with the backup camera. I don't know if it is like that in all cars, but my backup camera screen sometimes doesn't come of for a long time; and on 2 occassions not at all. It seems if I don't give the system enough time to "settle and boot" after I start the car, it simply can't keep up. Half the time I am not seeing the backup screen because I forget to wait a bit until putting the car in reverse. And by the time it comes on, I am already out in the drive way.
So, some of these impressions have to do with personal impression. But I doubt to the extend that I have to wait that long. I will try to turn animation off as suggested here and see if it makes a difference.

 

Same on my car. Takes far too long to even call it "lag". Its more like a major delay.

 

I always wait maybe 10 seconds before I put the car in gear after starting, so I don't know if the rear camera is slow coming on if you immediately go to reverse after starting--I'll try that and let you know. I will say that when I do put it in reverse the camera comes on quickly enough, maybe a couple of seconds. Certainly not enough of a lag for me to complain--I think maybe you and gears are having a problem with yours (or maybe you guys are just too impatient ).