I've been wondering about this for years.

Am I the only person that owns a 95-96 XJ6 who thinks the hand brake arm on the right side of the drivers seat is completely in the way of the right leg when driving, to the point where it is constantly digging into my thigh as I'm driving, especially on long trips? I'm constantly shifting my leg position around, raising the seat up a bit higher to be more even with the handle (but then my head almost touches the roof), etc.? No matter how I move my leg, when I let it relax as I'm driving, it rests against that handle, and it's very fatiguing.

I adore this car and have had it for years, but it's something that's bothered me from the very first time I drove it. I've considered many times just unscrewing the handle and taking it out. I never use it, but of course there may come a day when I *really* need to use it for the first time and I don't want to risk taking it out. On long trips I even put a small pillow/cushion over it.

Anybody else feel this way?

 

Nope - cant say i ever noticed it.

 

Move the seat further back so that your leg is more stretched. And the front of the seat is slightly higher so that there is more support under the back of the knee.

 

you don't use it even when parking on hills?
here it is common practice to park car and put handbrake on. to make sure the car does not move. saftey redundancy incase gearbox slips. also holds the car much better than the gearbox does. and puts less wear on the gearbox components.

over there you guys seem to refer to it as an "emergency brake" which is unlike other places in the world which refer to it as a PARK brake.
hense the indicator light being a P for park. intended purpose is park car and put PARK brake on. especially more important in a manual car. less so in an automatic.

but regardless.
i can't say it is something i have ever heard anyone complain of.
are you particularly tall? overweight? something that may separate you from other drivers of this car?
here it is on our left as we are RHD (still on the transmission tunnel) and it seems to be in a great position in my mind.

 

Thanks guys, I know this is a frivilous thread I was just curious. I'm 6ft, 190lb. I've always had the seat all the way back. I've been driving 1.5 hours to and from an ICU hospital that my wife is in and it's just been more noticible on those long rides. We usually only take this car out on short drives, weekends, or occasionally longer out of town drives. Those longer ones is when I really notice it.

On the way back home tonight, I may have figured something out. The seat tilt forward/back has always worked, but I think I noticed that when I try to raise the seat as high as it goes, or at least to where the right bolster of the seat is even with or a little higher than the parking brake handle, it's not really lifting the entire seat...just the front part of it. I've tried holding the whole switch and just lifting the whole seat at once, and holding the back end of the switch (the one closer the the rear of the car) individually, and it doesn't seem to be lifting the back part of the seat.

To the previous post about using it as a parking brake, that made me laugh because I get what you mean...when we've toured other cities in the US (I'm a professional singer and guitar player), and renting cars in other countries, that parking brake is absolutely essential. But here in Southwest Ohio, I can't remember the last time we've had to park on even the slightest incline where we needed to set the parking brake.

Either way I'm obviously never going to remove it. I'm about to make yet another hour and 20 minute drive to the hospital where my wife is (Dayton to Columbus, Ohio), and I'll fiddle with the seat buttons and confirm if the switch is actually lifting the back part of the seat higher or not. I'm thinking it's not.

 

the seat is raised at the front and the back independently from each other.
allowing tilt on the seat.
personally i am 5 ft 10 and i have the seat fairly close to the lowest setting so i am clearing the roof.

lift the the front of the seat control switch to raise the front of the seat, and push it down to lower the front of the seat base.

lift the back of the seat control switch to raise tha back of the seat and push it down to lower the back of the seat base.

it is possible the seat motor for the rear adjustment is broken or that the switchpack is worn and is not making contact when the switch is moved. this can be resolved by taking apart the switchpack, maybe inserting a small shim and then reassembling it. can take some playing around to get it right.

 

Thanks for all of the replies, honestly I didn't think too many people would be interested in such a personal, frivolous thread.

I was wrong about the switches/seat motors. I've always known how it works, what the front and back side of the switch does, and I confirmed on my trip today that there's no problem at all with the switch or the motors. But no matter what I do, I can't get the seat high enough to where the bolster on the right side of the seat is even with or even slightly higher than the parking brake.

I drive with cruise control almost all of the time, definitely all of the time in wide open highway situations, and generally like to relax my right leg a little bit and just kind of "hover" my foot over the gas or brake pedal. Even when I do that, my thigh rests right against that parking brake, all of the time. It just digs into me after awhile, and I'm constantly lifting my leg up a bit, moving it forward, back, trying to get around the parking brake.

I'll try to send a picture of the seat in the very highest position tomorrow to show you what I mean. I'm only just under 6 feet so I still have clearance for my head to the roof, but no matter what I do, the seat surface will not get even or a little above the level of the parking brake handle. And the handle is definitely fully pressed down into place.

Thanks for taking the time to humor me on this trivial issue. It would be kind of fun if someone comes up with an idea on what's going on or what might be different about my situation vs. other 95/96 XJ6 cars. This is the standard, short wheel base, by the way. It's absolutely beautiful (Glacier White), and rides and drives like a new Jag. I fear that she is listening to me right now quibbling about nothing haha.

Somehow they always seem to know, and get even.

Thanks

Nick

 

there certainly is not much room between the seat and the handbrake as can be seen as when you move the seat back it rubs.

there must be something very different about your idea of comfort compared to that of "most" other people.
the reason i say that is you are not an extremely tall person, nor are you a fat *******, which leaves me to believe you must have a very different driving position compared to that of most people.
maybe you are sensitive to something that others notice but don't even give second thought to.
maybe there is something simple you can do to adjust your driving position.
put your seat further back so your leg is stretched out more? (or forward so it is more bent)
maybe you just manspread more than others and you need to train yourself to keep your legs closer together.

i assume the RHD and the LHD have the same distance from seat to handbrake and the only difference is left v right.
maybe the big difference from my view point is the fact that here in AUS being a RHD my right leg is the active leg on the pedals and therefore closer to my door with more room where as my left leg being my lazy leg is closer to the handbrake and simply by fact it does not move so much is why i see no issue.
which would make sense being as though the car was built for and therefore tested for driver comfort as a RHD.

 

Guess what? This wasn't such a minimal issue, Jaguar changed the lever to be more straight and not cut into the driver's leg. This happened for the 1996 model year I think. You can actually swap the lever for a 96+ model, but you have to remove the driver's seat. Could be a worthwhile task for you.

Personally, I have a 1995 and notice the lever but it doesn't catch my thigh in a bad way. I have considered updating it anyway. On the other hand, the one thing that does bother me is how the ignition key lock is absurdly close to my knee. I can't have anything on the car key because it will dangle and touch my knee constantly. I have never figured out a way around this. I also imagine that in a front-end impact, my knees will be in trouble. So i won't do that.

The lever change might only apply to the lefty models. I'll research.

 

BINGO! That is great news, other than removing the seat. I knew there had to be a reason that it was bugging me so much. And I am 100 percent with you on the keys being so close and constantly touching my knee, to the point where I took everything off the key ring and just use the key. It drove me crazy.

Thanks so much for this!

 

MNA5141BA was the first version brake lever. Later came the BC version for the X300 and the BD version which fits the X308 and retroactively the X300. Most likely the BC and BD are the straight lever.

Maybe you will want to take it apart and look at the possibility of bending the original lever while off of the car, in a vise? I don't know if that is possible, it is fairly thick metal. Your results would be of interest here.

 

And I mentioned earlier I think this lady Jag was listening to me quibble about nothing and she just got even.

I came out this morning to drive from Dayton to Columbus to my wife in the hospital, and I haven't messed with any of the switches on the seat or anything like that at all, but for the very first time none of the switches will move the seat forward or up. And the switch that moves the back of the seat forward and back only moves back.

I had no idea what was going on but I kept trying to move the seat into position especially the back because it had fallen so far backed up there's no way I could have driven like that, but the seat remains stuck tilted all the way back with the backrest of the seat almost all the way back. I don't have another vehicle right now and I was late getting on the road so all I could do was run into the house and get some pillows wanted to sit on in a couple behind my back so that I could actually drive the car.

To me if it was a fuse of some sort it would have impacted all the switches in both motors, but one thing I just noticed when I came out to the car to get my charger, I have a AC plug plugged into the cigarette lighter that I've been using to charge my phone to and from the hospital. That cigar lighter is not working anymore even when I take the AC adapter out of it and put the cigar lighter back in it.

So I'm hoping somebody can tell me that I've blown a fuse probably with using that AC adapter and that the cigar lighter fuse is related to the motors in the seat that lift the base of the seat upward and effects the ability to move the back of the seat forward? I sure hope so because that's something I can resolve here before I leave Columbus otherwise it's a very uncomfortable and not the safest way to drive back to Dayton tonight

Sorry for the auto complete garbage but I only have a minute here and I'm just trying to get a solution as quick as I can

 

Correction I just retried the cigar lighter and it does still work so that fuse is not out for the cigar lighter. But both the switch that moves the back of the seat forward and back or tilts the seat front to back only tilt the seat for their back in the back of the seat further back. Trying to move the entire seat forward doesn't work at all either it only moves back and now it's all the way back. By the way trying to move the back of the seat forward, tilting the seat forward, or moving the entire seat forward does not make any clicking sounds at all, they are totally silent. But moving all switches to go further back you can hear them click and the motor engaging, but at this point everything is as far back as it can go

This is really strange please help when you can guys

 

as mentioned a few posts previous

"or that the switchpack is worn and is not making contact when the switch is moved. this can be resolved by taking apart the switchpack, maybe inserting a small shim and then reassembling it. can take some playing around to get it right."

 

Sorry about that, I do see that at the end of your post that I replied to earlier. I'll look into that in the morning, I'm actually staying the night at the hospital tonight, a lot going on (she had a massive stroke/brain bleed on Christmas Eve, this is day 96 in a row in 5 different hospitals).

I'll try to find an open area in the parking lot here or maybe drive it to an auto parts store and figure out how to get it apart and take a look at it. I really want to get it worked out or I drive back to Dayton. If I can't figure it out I can get by with all the pillows and cushions that I have. I should also be getting our second vehicle back Tuesday or Wednesday. Thanks again to all of you for the help.

 

best thing to do to test is to take apart the switchpack, then plug it in whilst it is apart. that way you can test all the switches direct on the circuit board and make sure they all work correcly.
i have had to do trhis to my drivers one due to switches not working correctly.
currently my passengers side one does not work properly for moving back and i need to get around to fixing that one too