Has anyone suggested windshield wipers that actually work?

 

Go to the store and buy them, wipers need to be replaced way more often than most people think. I've driven in extremely heavy rain with mine, and often find the last setting to only be appropriate for snowstorm/hurricane conditions.

EDIT: A clean windshield is also often taken for granted.

 

What car company would release a 2017 sports car with a 5 speed?

Btw bose is just a brand, much of their acoustics center around placement and other design, their speakers themselves aren't that special. Go sit in a 1998 camaro with bose speakers and tell me the sound system is impressive compared to a 2015 kia. The sound system in the XJS is bad because that is how all systems were at the time, a bose speaker has zero to do with it.

 

It seems like a lot of responses are fix this or improve that, but if they made a new XJS those would all automatically be improved. A new XJS would have all electric fans and an aluminium radiator, modern electronics, etc. So none of those things are worth mentioning.

Additionally, other improvements to the XJS would be automatic, like more power, a better transmission, etc.

So assuming they would basically be making a new XK more in the vein of the XJS, and looking at the design of the F-type I would probably only mention a few things.

-Ditch the rear seat entirely or make the car big enough to accommodate rear passengers.
- Give it a really good final gearing so it stands out as a GT car that can cruise across countries.
-Maintain a softer ride or work out a dynamic suspension, don't feel competitors pressure to make it handle at a racetrack like the F-type, keep with the GT design!
- Use the new straight six and give a manual and superchargered option
-Add more luxury items, so the XJS is more like the XJ. Think bentley continental GT and not corvette.
-fix your goofy *** offset steering wheels that look like an oval.
-don't make a play about it.
-push/explain the idea of a GT car. It has been all but lost because everyone thinks of any 2 seater or high end car as an exotic sports car that is made to go fast on a track. A GT car is made to eat up the highway and is much much more usable for the average person. A sports car sounds cool on paper but is rubbish as a daily driver.
-maybe make it a hybrid to supplement its range and make the roof a solar panel, design the car to go 800 miles without stopping.

 

Actually, the Electrolux wiper motor/mechanism is a vast improvement over the Lucas mess. Lucas motors are subject to water intrusion, and the plastic shield fails after a year or so of exposure to sun, crumbling, letting water in. But even the Electrolux system didn't fix the pre-facelift wiper switch problems that are about 50% of the issues. The switches can be repaired, but it is not a job for the faint hearted. Too many springs and small components that don't want to stay in place. And you have to figure out a way to hold it together since it was originally riveted together. God-awful design.

 

As this thread goes on I am beginning to see that your remark is more on-point than I originally thought

What I'm seeing is a lot of suggestions of how today's technology would make the XJS a better car. Fair enough and, after all, the original question was very open-ended. But many of the suggestions can been seen in modern day Jaguars. Evolution marches on.

It might be more meaningful ( to the extent that wishful thinking can be meaningful ) to ask "What do you wish Jaguar had done differently, given the technology and resources available at the time?"

Cheers
DD

 

Good advice, I suppose, but I do actually know about replacing consumables. My issue is that the wipers barely move with water on the (otherwise clean) glass and not at all *with* new refills (blades).

I drive an '84 XJ6 five or six days a week and while no one would write a sonnet about the virility of the wipers, they're serviceable in all but the very worst torrents. I'd assumed my XJ-S wipers were just the garden variety lame technology but this thread has me wondering if mine aren't uniquely bad.

 

Read the section in Kirby Palm's book on that very problem with your wipers. Sounds like you need the relay mod he describes. They should have plenty of power.

 

Heh heh, good luck with that! To this day there is no consensus in what defines 'sports car' just like there's no agreement on what defines a 'classic car'.

It's all rather amusing, really. People will call their Porsche 911-variant (whatever their called these days), XKR, or whatever a 'sportscar' until some slight deficiency comes up....at which point the retort is inevitably "Whaddya expect, it's a GT car"! So, you thought of it as a sports car until someone beats you to 60 mph by 1/10th of a second and now you say "Itsa GT car"

Nowadays we have extremely high performance street cars that have speed, acceleration, cornering, and braking ability that, not so many years ago, would've been associated with full-on track cars. These vary same cars are equipped with a slew of luxury refinements, quite often include a rear seat, AND most certainly can "eat up the highway" as well. Sportscar or GT? Heh heh, you decide....but don't expect universal agreement .

It was easy decades ago. A sportscar generally had a small open cockpit, short gearing, and no/very limited creature comforts. High power was not an essential ingredient. Not a car many people would prefer for travelling long distances. For long distances something more comfortable, with a closed cockpit, was required....and if the car in question has sporty-ish handling and braking, and could hold high road speeds in a relaxed manner, then you had a "GT".




I would tend to agree but (what many consider to be) sports cars are pretty nice these days.

What's your definition of a sports car?

Interestingly (well, to me, at least) if you look at 20 years if XJS advertising you can see how Jaguar compensated for the age and lack of competitive performance by slowly re-categorizing the car. In the early days, when the XJS had competitive acceleration, braking, cornering, etc those attributes were emphasized....even though it was always marketed as a "GT" car. As the years rolled by and the performance and technical spec became outdated it was pushed (at least in USA advertising) as a more of a 'personal luxury car'.

Cheers
DD

 

The XJS was always a GT car. The XK series was the continuation of that concept. The F type is a true sport car. I would prefer a true GT type car, At one time I would have liked to have a car that had a usable rear seat for my young kids and a hatch back that would be useful for luggage and family stuff. I had a Datsun 2+2 that filled the bill for several years. This gave me the option of using my Z and leaving the minivan parked. I have always liked the luxury coupe option, such as the older Cadillac EL Dorado, Lincoln Mark type car. The MBZ S series or E series coupe would be similar, as was the XJ6 coupe. It seems that most current buyers opt for an SUV or less likely, a full sized sedan. I think that an XK or XE coupe would be very attractive to me although I'm sure that sales would be very low.

 

Cabin packaging is very poor, it's a very tight car inside for being so large on the outside. Jaguar probably could have adopted an automatic overdrive transmission a lot earlier than they did too, since both Ford and GM came out with them circa 1980.

The AC/heater could have been improved upon too, the performance is pretty inferior compared to an 80's LTD/ Crown Victoria for example.

 

Two of the most pertinent responses on the thread Doug. I doff my cap to you! The first point, above, is indeed the prism though which, in my view, all appraisals of the XJS should be viewed through. And to remember that "at the time" means late 1960s, and "resources available" means VERY sparse resources. Given those points, I defy any car maker anywhere to do better. At that time, in the UK, autoboxes were very rare, upmarket and exotic things. Automatic aircon, which on my car at least still works extremely well, was unheard of in the UK, and was not fitted as non-automatically temp controlled standard, let alone become universal, even in Mercs and suchlike, until the late 1990s. Put differently, which roughly equivalent car on sale in the mid 1970s would you prefer?


Your second point is one of my hobby horses too. The fact is that my Ford Mondeo 2.00 litre petrol estate does absolutely everything, at the objective level, better than any 1970s, '80s or even '90s car, from Rolls Royce downwards, at about 1/10th of the price. Speed, ride, acceleration, seating, NVH suppression, fuel consumption, chassis rigidity, reliability, safety etc etc. BUT, I do not love it. I believe cars are like women, you fall for them, and whether at the "objective" level my lovely wife is more gorgeous than a Hollywood star (she is), is irrelevant.


Great posts Doug.
Greg

 

Was she reading over your shoulder whilst you were writing that?

 

You should know, Steve, presuming you are married, that they know what you do and think, they do not need to read or have evidence, somehow they know...
Greg

 

Ah, the old Spidey Sense!

 

This is very true. It is difficult to achieve great sound in an older car, even with expensive modern components; this, as compared to modern cars with lesser components. This is because a car interior is a difficult environment in which to achieve accurate sound reproduction. It is for this reason that modern cars' sound systems architecture design includes the car interior's size, topography, materials, etc along with smart design software to determine the type of components, location, power, frequency strength or weakness, which in the end is far more important than just throwing in expensive and powerful
components. Myself, I've spent quite a bit on components on my '94, yet whenever I get in a modern car with a semi-decent sound system I can hear a sort of pleasant "balance" that I'm just not used to hear in my "pride" system.

Cheers,

 

I don't know if my XJS benefitted from a special audio equipment (it has an Alpine system) but I must confess that I was rather impressed by the sound quality: it is not ridiculous at all when I compare it e.g. with the sound I get in my much more recent Super V8 2006 Portfolio which has a top end Alpine audio install.
Maybe that is also due to the fact that the whole interior of my XJS was carefully hand-trimmed with leather (it is an Insignia model).
The quality of the materials inside the cabin, as well as the positioning and fine tuning of loudspeakers is indeed essential to get a decent sound in a car and maybe Jaguar craftsmen were well aware of that when they trimmed these cars.

 

I don't know if Jaguar ever offered special sound systems on XJS cars, other than the CD changer, but I do know that the sound of the stock system on my '94 convertible was average at best and when I was done with the upgrade there was a substancial difference in sound clarity, in high frequency response and at sub woofer level, no comparison. But still, somehow the sound of a later Lexus sedan felt, in a way, more subtle and balanced, even than my own achievement. Heck, even the so-called "premium sound" on my 2002 XJR did not sound "premium" very much, but when I was done with its upgrade then everything sounded true "premium", meaning that Jag sound may not be the best around necessarily when it comes to sound.

Cheers,

 

Quadcam V12 with 48 valves...
6 speed auto and 6 speed manual...
Leave the design as it is (prefacelift) but use some modern lighting...

All I would do you be improve the engine and transmission. That is it

 

I just started reading this post, so excuse my redundancy if already requested.
I would like the 4.0 XJR-S engine with a 6 speed auto transmission. A better front sway bar and add the rear sway bar back on. A better engine cooling system, a beautiful Nardi wood steering wheel, and last but not least…resale value going up and up, right after I buy another one as a spare.