When I drive, I always leave the sports button off. But lately it had me wondering, I always kept my e500 in S( Summer) instead of W(winter) and my dad always has his s550 in S(sports) vs C(comfort) both of which start the cars off in 1st gear rather than 2nd and allows for higher rev climbs. With this in mind, I was wondering about driving the XJR in sports ( starting off in 1st rather than 2nd) It also makes me think thats one of the reasons my transmission started faulting a month or 2 back (specifically in 2nd-3rd gear switch). In the mercedes, starting off in 1st also helped with mpg, I was wondering if the same would hold true for the Jag. Thoughts? How does everyone else drive.

FiL

 

Yeah thats Mercedes this is Jaguar , and S mode is not the way to go with Jags, first I don't get you people why do you keep saying our cars take off at 2nd gear at normal mode, because it's totally wrong. Our cars always take off at first gear no matter what, there are some people here keep saying they take off at 2nd gear , I have no clue how do they do that because my cat will never skip 1st gear, anyway with S mode on car won't shift to 6 until higher speeds so that means when you cruise doing 45 mph you will be on 5th gear and ofcourse you ll spend more gas. Use the S mode when you feel like racing a 7.45i or a S500, or a Mustang GT like I love racing stangs haha.

 

Jagmaster, Jaguars with the 4.0 V8 supercharged engine came with a Mercedes sourced 5 speed tranny. It is correct that starting in 2nd gear with the sport setting in the off position for these cars. Selecting sport mode will start the car from a standstill in first gear and increase the RPM shift points. If not in sport mode and the the accelerator is pressed to the floor, it will engage 1st gear.

 

The 95-97 4.0 XJR is a GM transmission. Yes, a british car baught my an american company who used the transmission from their leading competitor. Now did GM buy it from Mercedes....I don't know. A 95-97 will start in second unless you the accelerater is pressed more than 75%. Sport mode will always start in 1 st.

 

A GM 5 speed??

 

Yep, GM 4L80-E. It's only in the XJR6. The standard XJ6 has a ZF 4HP22 or HP24.

 

And the XJ12, and the Daimler Double Six.

 

George, I think you meant 4.2 AJ-V8 Supercharged, because I don't know if there is a 4.0 supercharged for X350. Anyway the 4.2 supercharged comes with the exactly the same 6 Speed ZF on regular X350s. And even if you disengage the S mode the car will take off at first gear. The old XJs with GM trannys (theres GM trannys in XJs?) might take off at 2nd gear but all the X350s will take off at 1st gear no matter what =)

PS : The old XJR used to come with W5A580 tranny from the Mercedes-Benz AMG E55, and the all other X308s came with 5 speed ZF trannys.

PPS : I know this sounds ridiculous but W5A580 was also came with all the SLR models and Maybach 57 & 62s, the only difference was they had speed shifters and different torque convertors.

 

You are correct in that the X350 and '03 - '06 XK's had the ZF in both engine configurations. I was only speaking about the 4.0L V8 engines. I see that this is the '04 and newer group, so I was thinking of the older models.

 

JTIS says that the 4.0 XJ8 in 2000 is a ZF trans. This should cover 98-03. It doesn't say for the XJR.

 

JagMaster nailed it. If you still question what gear you're starting in, watch the tach and count the shifts (on a long straight road with no traffic, of course). I come up with 5 shifts (6 gears) every time. Also agree that it's best to reserve "S" mode for when you really want to humble somebody who thinks they're going to smoke the old fart (my case) in the Jag. I get around 21 mpg on my daily commute and have noticed that "S" mode really does hold the gears longer, particularly on the 5th to 6th shift. I do wish that normal mode would hold 1st a little longer when leaving from a dead stop and that it wouldn't downshift all the way to 1st until I am at a dead stop. I sometimes get pretty abrupt shifts on the 1 to 2 transition.

 

I've noticed more wheel slip/spin in S mode in the rain. I've done it a few times by accident.

 

I second the abrupt 1 to 2 shift. It doesn't help that it takes twices as long to shift from 1 to 2 than any other gear. The 400 Lbs. of torque also add to it...but I'm not complaining about that.

 

Remember Drew, I said the Supercharged versions only.

 

Correct and I missed the "V8" in your first post. I know...read twice and post once

 

okay so im guessing everybodys happy now, and we all love our cars and we all know that we take off at 1st gear now =) also Allen the ZF6 has a learning algorithm mechanism like other higher end trannys , if you kick it down several times and dont let it shift before 5-6k rpm the car will start shifting at higher revs without S mode, I can record a video on put it on youtube for you , like once it learns it you dont have to push the pedal all the way down even if you push it little it will shift at higher revs but ofcourse it wont be like in S mode

 

I don't know, for the past week, I only drove in sport. I can't go back to standard. I prefer the instant response. And switch to non sport, when its raining. When I drive calmly it still shifts at about 2500- 3000 rpm. I can't tell you how many times i needed to over take (in standard) and it accelerated on a scale of 1-10 a four. adding more gas takes it to a obnoxious 8. Where as sport gets rid of that annoying gap

 

By the way, thank you for clearing up that rumor about the 2nd gear start up.

 

not a problem =) if you wanna keep it in the S mode its your car so drive it the way u like mate, but im glad you are enjoying your jaggy so far

 

I also leave my 2005 XJR in S Mode almost all the time. Am I going to cause damage to my transmission?