It puts Jaguar at an express disadvantage (or an express advantage, depending on the question at hand), because the majority of data available for comparison is from a few, large, non-Jaguar companies.

Common example you might see in Consumer Reports: 200 surveys were sent out "randomly" to assess the customer's satisfaction with the service departments of their local dealers. By chance, 190 of them went to ford, chevy, toyota and VW owners, 1 of them went to a Jaguar owner (who either loved or hated his local dealer). Jaguar rates either last or first with 100% (of a sample size of 1) of respondents who agree.

Better survey design: 100 surveys were sent to Toyota owners, and 100 surveys were sent to Jaguar owners to determine their overall satisfaction with their local dealers for a comparison. Seems reasonable, right? What if Jaguar owners expect more from their service and are more upset when their cars break? What if Jaguar owners are happier people and rate everything higher no matter what? Even for simple questions there are many, many confounding variables.

Best "scientific method" design: 100 surveys were sent to Toyota owners, and 100 surveys were sent to Jaguar owners. After completing them, we took all the Jaguars away from their owners and gave them to the Toyota owners, and vice versa. Then at a time after which all had an opportunity to have the cars serviced we surveyed them again. Then we switched back, waited a while and surveyed them a third time. We averaged the results and threw out the outliers, estimated the chances that our results would arise by chance to verify significance, and reported our data.

Consumer reports does not do this (nor would anyone expect them to), and even they admit that out of 1.2 million vehicles in the reliability survey "Jaguar ranked dead last in our latest car reliability survey based on a limited sample size."

 

Good to know!

 

I dreamed of owning a Jag for years. I bought a well looked after 2002 S Type and it has been an absolute money pit spending loads of time in the repair shop. I liken my experience with the Jag to falling in love with an intelligent, vivacious, beautiful woman and finding out that she is riddled with herpes! Great looking car but that means nothing when your walking to work in the rain. I doubt I will ever buy a Jag again.

 

I dreamed of owning a Jag for years. I bought a well looked after 2002 S Type and it has been an absolute money pit spending loads of time in the repair shop. I liken my experience with the Jag to falling in love with an intelligent, vivacious, beautiful woman and finding out that she is riddled with herpes! Great looking car but that means nothing when your walking to work in the rain. I doubt I will ever buy a Jag again.

 

I understand your pain...I think we've all owned lemons among many brands. We even had the infamous timing chain tensioner problem with our 1998 XJ8L that destroyed the engine, and it was 5K miles out of warranty so we had to replace the engine ourselves.

Every brand has crap cars. Jaguar quality has improved dramatically over the years. One positive effect of Ford's ownership was the increase in quality, as well as financing the construction of state of the art factories, systems design, and technology. Ford also directed Jaguar to make the cheap cars (S Type and X Type) to try and sell more and make more money. The quality of those cars were crap.

The three XKR's I've had/have were/are great cars. My wife's Vanden Plas is a great car.

It pays to be careful when buying used as well.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your threads indicate that you bought an old and high mileage car in 2011, tried to fix it yourself without those skills, eventually found a worn out MAF sensor, and later a worn out water pump. You mentioned also taking it to a repair shop, which doesn't sound like a Jaguar dealer with Jaguar trained techs.

But either way, what does your experience have to do with Consumer Reports Ratings? They do have ratings and recommendations for used cars and yours was described as having sub-par reliability. Even the most recent years, '09-10, are rated very poorly.

I just don't think it's reasonable to expect to buy an 8 or 9 year old car and expect it not to have issues, especially one with high mileage...even one of the most reliable brands like Honda and Toyota.

Bruce

 

Key to Jaguar ownership has been a good garage to work on it and get it right the first time. Dealership is not as good as my indy and dealer costs a hell lot more. Heck, the same dealer that sells Jag and Range Rover has been wrong 5 for 5 every time my mechanic has order parts for our HSE. Total joke.

Friend of mine leased two new Mercedes in a row; both got returned under state lemon law. Leased a Maserati Qporte after that and never had to see the dealer except for oil changes; go figure...

 

I think a xtype is "barely" a jaguar. Much like the chrysler "maserati". over the yrs jaguars have become alittle too reliable(AS A TECH) imo with fewer and fewer issues as each model yr goes by. Ever notice the highest rated cars also have the least or very much lower driver appeal and fewer bells and whistles. More whistles, more to find fault with. And im still amazed every yr by the number of people that say/think $$=perfection, hardly. It buys you more stuff, not perfection. If you expect to spend X amount of dollars to recieve perfection, youre gonna be disappointed in life.
On the floor mat issue, its dealer installed issue. Mats and clips are in the trunk when pdi'd
but thanks all for your continued faith in the car. Ide rather have a jaguar be pulled up by valet anyday over a toyota

 

I'm confused about this CR report -- and can only say that I WAS a Honda lover for years, but when I had a series of Acura's go bad, and CR never once reported them as being unreliable, that's when I realized something was up with CR! I have a 2003 XJ8 that now has 88k on the odometer. I bought it in April 2012 with 63K miles on it. Problems? None worthy of discussion -- one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned, and I'm not the first or even second owner of this car.

I do not put ANY stock in ANY CR reports for ANY reason.

When I get around to it (probably next year), I plan to upgrade to a 2011 or 2012 XJL, and expect to be very happy with it.

I know this post has little or nothing to do with the reliability of the newer Jaguars, but I'm sick and tired of the bad-mouthing that goes on out there about these wonderful cars. The only good thing to come out of all this is the low resale value of Jaguars -- I can't complain about getting a great car for a fraction of the new car cost when it's only a few years old!

 

Companies like BMW (particularly) I believe have more problems and more serious problems, but they bury their dead. They buyback lemons and dump them elsewhere. Jag doesn't have the volume that Audi, BMW, and Mercedes has, and I think that also hurts their reported reliability as they do have a smaller sample size where 1 problem can overstate the overall reliability. That's my theory and I am sticking to it.

 

Dear Bruce H
While I have asked forum members how to fix various issues on my S-Type I have never attempted this myself. I just wanted to know for knowings sake. I have been more than willing to pay a Jaguar technician to fix said car but the local Jaguar dealer/mechanic has told me that he will not repair Jaguar's of my vintage. Go figure! The other local mechanic who purports to be a Jaguar specialist appears to know less about them than most people on this forum. Indeed, I took my car to him with the faulty MAF problem, got charged $500 and the warning light came on 30 minutes after I had left his shop! I ended up fixing the problem with the help of you guys on this forum. And if the water pump issue wasn't enough the S Type is back in the shop again with the radiator now needing to be replaced.

I guess the real problem is that I live in regional Australia and just do not have access to trained Jaguar technicians. This is a huge disappointment to me as I would love to keep owning Jaguars.

 

You need an old Ute and an Akubra and let those worries go! I'd trade places with ya!

 

Dear Muddydog
I'd say you are spot on mate.

 

Dear Forum Members
With regard to my above quote I would like to give you an update. I sold my S-Type and as soon as the buyer drove it away I felt sad. I almost immediately went to look for another Jag and have bought a 2003 S-Type R with 115,000km on the clock. It is, as I write, on a transporter from Western Australia to me in NSW. Truth is guys I looked round at other cars and they just don't have the same class as a Jag. I can't wait for the R to arrive. I would also like to admit that I was way too hasty in writing off Jags and would also like to give my apologies to anyone who I may have inadvertently offended.

 

Welcome back, mate - hope you have better luck with this one.

I'm a bit boggled by your earlier comment that the local dealer won't do any work on older models. I'd have a moan at Jaguar Australia about that - it's not a very professional attitude, and it doesn't speak well for the brand. It's a shame there isn't a reliable independent you can turn to. I guess I'm spoilt, being in London rather than NSW.

 

I have to admit, none of my Jags have been particularly reliable. But there is a difference between reliability and "lots of nagging issues". I think I struggle with the latter in my Jags.

 

I checked with a local Jaguar dealership last year about something minor and their attitude was that I wouldn't want to pay them as much as they'd charge to do the work! I guess they know the value of the car and how much they charge for their work. I do know, however, that the local Jaguar dealership in West Palm Beach isn't shy about working on older cars and charging as much as the car is worth!

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Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that BMW hides their problems by buying back bad cars, etc. I had a similar situation years ago with an Acura that had a bad transmission and Honda was doing its best to hide the problem -- after repeated complaints, they finally gave me a new car (it was a lease, they simply substituted a newer car for mine and kept the lease terms the same) and sold mine to some poor sucker out of state -- the salesman had the gall to brag about the sale, and more or less chortled when he told me!

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I'm wondering if the post above about the number of Jaguar owners that were asked to fill out a survey was rather small, and also wonder if those who had no problems figured it wasn't worth their time. It's like looking at a car-related forum to see if the car is reliable. The forum will be filled with "problems" and have very few accolades. Reporting on the reliability of a car, especially one with such a small market, is tricky business and often rather misleading.

I've taken it upon myself to ask all Jaguar owners (who'll talk to me at gas stations, etc.) how they like their car -- they all rave about it and say that their car is very reliable. So, if I had to report my results, I'd say that 100% of all new Jaguar owners are satisfied with their purchase and report no reliability issues!

 

I would think that your 07 XKR would not have given you that much grief other than possibly the a/c condensate line or dashboard leather.

 

You would think. I definitely have the dashboard leather issue. I had a rear axle issue that required replacement (creaking sound). I have clicking sounds from the front brakes (TSB for that, too lazy). My thermostat went bad a couple weeks ago. Chattering sounds from the front suspension. Weird howling noise from the A/C compressor.

And the car doesn't have 60k miles yet.

But I am just really nitpicky. Most people who ride in my car think it's perfect.

I don't let these issues bother me too much, because the car is just so damn awesome in almost every other regard. Today I just had a lady in the office come up to me and say, "By the way, I just wanted to tell you your car is AWESOME! It looks so SICK!" I believe she drives a new Lexus...

 

Now that would be some combo.....the exotic lines of the XK with Lexus reliability.......I would keep that car until they put me in the ground!