E350 CDI Sport or Jaguar XF S 3.0 Diesel £7k - Page 1 - Car Buying

Red Cupra

Original Poster

377 posts

134 months

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Sunday 5th January 2020

I'm looking for a well equipped, swift and reliable cruiser for work that's also fairly good on fuel.

I've been looking at the above cars and was wondering if any of you guys have any first hand experience of either or hopefully both to help me make my mind up!

My requirements are:

Good turn of pace
Reasonable economy for the power
Comfortable
Good auto box
Reliable

Cheers all

ZX10R NIN

30,521 posts

154 months

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Sunday 5th January 2020

Summit_Detailing

2,429 posts

222 months

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Monday 6th January 2020

I was choosing between these two cars last year and a CLS.

Ended up with an XF as you get more car for your money (newer, less miles, slightly more toys) over the E, and that is despite having had a few Merc's previously.

As ZX10 said above the ride quality is better in the XF, it has more seat adjustment and I preferred the ZF box in the XF to the 7G in the Merc.

Performance wise, much of a muchness in reality - rolling performance is excellent for day2day driving thanks to the torque...smooth too.

Slightly more rear seat space in the Merc, a consideration if you have 6ft+ passengers travelling in the back frequently.

Negatives of the XF -
Don't buy one without Xenon headlamps, the standard fit Xenon's in my 2012 facelift are poor so would hate to sit behind some halogen candles in a pre-facelift.
I'm hoping some new xenon bulbs, further up the kelvin scale will help...c.£150 for the pair however!

Make sure the cambelt's have been changed, garages will often quote c.£400 but this is for the front belt only, it's the same again to do the rear one! - mine is booked in for the end of the week so it's fresh in the mind.

They seem to be tyre and alignment sensitive so make sure it has premium tyres fitted or at least budget for some & a session on a laser alignment rig. Mine feels like a different car now all the wheels are pointing the right way and the Nexen's have been ditched!

All in all I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Happy hunting.

Cheers,

Chris

CX53

3,025 posts

139 months

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Monday 6th January 2020

The E Class just reminds me of a taxi. This is good and bad because taxi drivers wouldn't buy so many unreliable cars! But the Jags are a very good looking car (interior colours and trims are what make or ruin these for me though!!)

I've been looking in to one of these recently, and this is all anecdotal so take from it what you will...

My mate has one and has had a couple of big ticket things to fix in his 3 years of ownership, one of which being the manifold. I think on non service stuff he said he's spent around 3 grand on fixing broken stuff - grand a year, not horrendous on a now ten year old High end car IMO.

My mums friend has one and it's been nothing but trouble, she does however drive crazy miles for work, 35k plus per year!

Lad at work has just bought one for 6 grand, black with grey leather and no wood trim in sight. It's lovely and cannot think of a better car for the money, but it seems to me like they are not without their issues, be prepared to spend a bit more maintaining a Jag than you would the Merc, but I'm sure it'll be worth it.

anonymous-user

83 months

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[news]

Monday 6th January 2020

CX53 said:

The E Class just reminds me of a taxi. This is good and bad because taxi drivers wouldn't buy so many unreliable cars! But the Jags are a very good looking car (interior colours and trims are what make or ruin these for me though!!)

I've been looking in to one of these recently, and this is all anecdotal so take from it what you will...

My mate has one and has had a couple of big ticket things to fix in his 3 years of ownership, one of which being the manifold. I think on non service stuff he said he's spent around 3 grand on fixing broken stuff - grand a year, not horrendous on a now ten year old High end car IMO.

My mums friend has one and it's been nothing but trouble, she does however drive crazy miles for work, 35k plus per year!

Lad at work has just bought one for 6 grand, black with grey leather and no wood trim in sight. It's lovely and cannot think of a better car for the money, but it seems to me like they are not without their issues, be prepared to spend a bit more maintaining a Jag than you would the Merc, but I'm sure it'll be worth it.

Doesn't the engine suffer with oil being diluted with diesel if the DPF regen is stopped? I too have looked at the XF and they look amazing value, but I suspect they are cheap for a reason......

Summit_Detailing

2,429 posts

222 months

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Monday 6th January 2020

Cheaper than equivalent Mercedes, BMW, Audi because of steeper depreciation throughout their lifespan, not because of specific mechanical weak points over and above those suffered by the aforementioned brands imo.

Pretty much all modern cars have a handful of potential weak areas, the internet is brilliant for highlighting these but doesn't do so well at highlighting the thousands of other cars on the road which have been problem free.

As always a well presented car for sale with good mot history, receipts for work carried out and things like decent brand tyres will go some way to showing how it has been looked after previously and hopefully limiting potential future spend. They are all mechanical things though so something could fail at any time.

CX53

3,025 posts

139 months

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[news]

Monday 6th January 2020

Joey Deacon said:

Doesn't the engine suffer with oil being diluted with diesel if the DPF regen is stopped? I too have looked at the XF and they look amazing value, but I suspect they are cheap for a reason......

Yes I have heard something along these lines as well, apparently newer models had the DPF put in a different place which sorted the issue but not sure of the year this happened