XE S buyer's guide

XE S buyer's guide

Author
Discussion

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

54 months

Thursday 21st November 2019
quotequote all
Hi all,

I'm nearing a car change and have looked into various finance deals for new cars, but I'm not keen on just 'throwing away' £300-400 a month with nothing to show for it at the end.

So I've looked at XE Ss (380hp version) and like what I see. I used to have an XF S (the 3 litre diesel 1st generation one) and that always felt like something was going to go catastrophically wrong.

Anyone have any experience with the XE S? What pitfalls are there? Anything I should look out for on used cars?

Thanks!

covmutley

3,028 posts

190 months

Saturday 14th December 2019
quotequote all
Had my 2015 s for about 9 months now. Love it.

The clock loses time so needs resetting occasionally. Not sure there is anything else I dislike. Looks great, sounds great, drives great,. Not the most space in the back I suppose - but there is the xf if that's a concern

Got mine from a jag dealer, so got their 2 year warranty. Hopefully should guard against any big bills

Edited by covmutley on Saturday 14th December 09:15

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

54 months

Saturday 14th December 2019
quotequote all
covmutley said:
Had my 2015 s for about 9 months now. Love it.

The clock loses time so needs resetting occasionally. Not sure there is anything else I dislike. Looks great, sounds great, drives great,. Not the most space in the back I suppose - but there is the xf if that's a concern

Got mine from a jag dealer, so got their 2 year warranty. Hopefully should guard against any big bills

Edited by covmutley on Saturday 14th December 09:15
That's great to know: many thanks!

kiseca

9,339 posts

219 months

Wednesday 18th December 2019
quotequote all
Ran a RWD 25T for 2 years (240bhp 4 cyl petrol, one of the Ford engines before the Ingenium petrols were introduced). Lovely car that really only wanted for a more characterful engine.

A lot of this is general knowledge that I picked up about the range rather than specific about the S but I hope some of it is helpful. Anyway:

Problems tend to be mostly centred on electronics and the Ingenium engines whether petrol or diesel. The V6 isn't one of those - it's a well understood engine and I didn't see any weak spots popping up on the forums for it, but I wasn't looking for them either.

Electronic problems will be shared with all XE models based on trim. They were mostly irritating problems rather than serious ones but often the dealers / Jaguar seemed to have trouble solving them and took time as well as unsuccessful attempts. Sometimes a software update solved them, e.g. the base radio's treble and bass controls did nothing at all in the early cars.

I don't think the S is available with the base radio so that should be OK, though I also heard a few times of the sub woofer on the Meridian systems stopping working. This happened to me too but in my case turning the radio off and on again restored it.

Built in Satnav isn't particularly good unless you get the upgrade that allows you to preplan the route from a mobile phone app. It can also crash quite a bit.

Some complained of rattles or squeaks from one of the front seats or from the dashboard, again Jaguar struggled to silence them.

Gearbox can get very insensitive and reluctant to kick down and also that needs some kind of software reset to cure.

Stop / Start would often stop working and seemed very sensitive to battery condition. It has it's own battery.

They are all prone to bad road rash on the sills, particularly towards the rear just ahead of the rear wheel. Many will have protective film applied which helps.

Those are the only ones I remember.

There didn't seem to be any catastrophic car stopping common problems for any of the Ford engined cars, it was all irritating things that were doubly irritating when you tried get a dealer to solve them.

I loved the car. The engine I had was adequate, nothing more, but the chassis is first class and that's without the adaptive dampers which the S has as standard. Rear room is a bit tight, and every one I know including myself bashed their head on the roof the first time getting in or out but overall the car was great to run, beautiful ride, lovely balance, and excellent handling.

When I can afford to buy a used one (I leased mine) it will be an S for the great car with a better engine than I had before, or a Veloce for the even better handling and better gearbox programming, and I'd be very happy with either.

Mine was troublefree, never had to go back to get anything fixed, reset, updated or restored. However, I was lucky rather than representative, from what I could pick up on the forums.


bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

54 months

Thursday 19th December 2019
quotequote all
kiseca said:
Ran a RWD 25T for 2 years (240bhp 4 cyl petrol, one of the Ford engines before the Ingenium petrols were introduced). Lovely car that really only wanted for a more characterful engine.

A lot of this is general knowledge that I picked up about the range rather than specific about the S but I hope some of it is helpful. Anyway:

Problems tend to be mostly centred on electronics and the Ingenium engines whether petrol or diesel. The V6 isn't one of those - it's a well understood engine and I didn't see any weak spots popping up on the forums for it, but I wasn't looking for them either.

Electronic problems will be shared with all XE models based on trim. They were mostly irritating problems rather than serious ones but often the dealers / Jaguar seemed to have trouble solving them and took time as well as unsuccessful attempts. Sometimes a software update solved them, e.g. the base radio's treble and bass controls did nothing at all in the early cars.

I don't think the S is available with the base radio so that should be OK, though I also heard a few times of the sub woofer on the Meridian systems stopping working. This happened to me too but in my case turning the radio off and on again restored it.

Built in Satnav isn't particularly good unless you get the upgrade that allows you to preplan the route from a mobile phone app. It can also crash quite a bit.

Some complained of rattles or squeaks from one of the front seats or from the dashboard, again Jaguar struggled to silence them.

Gearbox can get very insensitive and reluctant to kick down and also that needs some kind of software reset to cure.

Stop / Start would often stop working and seemed very sensitive to battery condition. It has it's own battery.

They are all prone to bad road rash on the sills, particularly towards the rear just ahead of the rear wheel. Many will have protective film applied which helps.

Those are the only ones I remember.

There didn't seem to be any catastrophic car stopping common problems for any of the Ford engined cars, it was all irritating things that were doubly irritating when you tried get a dealer to solve them.

I loved the car. The engine I had was adequate, nothing more, but the chassis is first class and that's without the adaptive dampers which the S has as standard. Rear room is a bit tight, and every one I know including myself bashed their head on the roof the first time getting in or out but overall the car was great to run, beautiful ride, lovely balance, and excellent handling.

When I can afford to buy a used one (I leased mine) it will be an S for the great car with a better engine than I had before, or a Veloce for the even better handling and better gearbox programming, and I'd be very happy with either.

Mine was troublefree, never had to go back to get anything fixed, reset, updated or restored. However, I was lucky rather than representative, from what I could pick up on the forums.
That's very helpful: thanks.

As far as I can tell, there are very few major issues with that generation of XE, but I'm hoping any gremlins will have been ironed out by previous owners. That's my hope, anyway!

kiseca

9,339 posts

219 months

Thursday 19th December 2019
quotequote all
bobsavage789 said:
That's very helpful: thanks.

As far as I can tell, there are very few major issues with that generation of XE, but I'm hoping any gremlins will have been ironed out by previous owners. That's my hope, anyway!
For what it's worth, my car had none of the problems I listed apart from the subwoofer going on strike for half a song and it did have a few chips already on the sills. All the other problems I listed were what I picked up on the forums as repeated complaints with the model.

Just clarifying that because when I read my own post back, it sounds like I had a string of irritating problems with the car hehe

fatboy b

9,493 posts

216 months

Friday 20th December 2019
quotequote all
The V6 is essentially the same guts as my V8. They can suffer with a couple of design issues with the chain tensioners and lubrication issues to the back inlet valves. There’s also instances where the tappets haven’t been hardened properly. Mine suffered the latter under warranty which caused damage to one of the heads. Final bill was £11k. I believe on V6s they replace the engine. It’s rare, so any tappet noise above the regular injector noise, then run.

Deadlysub

512 posts

158 months

Wednesday 25th December 2019
quotequote all
I test drove one on Saturday and absolutely loved it. They are rare cars, I have been looking for the right spec 340 for a good 4 months but my patients has paid off and a great spec car has come up for sale which I have put a deposit on.

covmutley

3,028 posts

190 months

Wednesday 25th December 2019
quotequote all
Nice one. I'm sure you will love it.

I hit my first problem this week, quite literally... potholes! O not exactly the cars fault. It resulted in 2 buckled wheels and a tyre needing replacement too. Annoying, especially at this time of year.


Deadlysub

512 posts

158 months

Thursday 26th December 2019
quotequote all
Take it you have the 20 inch wheels?

The car I looked at, failed it’s Mot because of a bulge in the tyre, which I’m guessing was from a pot hole.

Simpo Two

85,418 posts

265 months

Thursday 26th December 2019
quotequote all
covmutley said:
I hit my first problem this week, quite literally... potholes! O not exactly the cars fault. It resulted in 2 buckled wheels and a tyre needing replacement too. Annoying, especially at this time of year.
This is an interesting one. In theory the council is liable for the damage and you can make a claim from them. Except when I rang mine and asked for 'Highways' I got a particularly acid man who said I had to prove it was one of their potholes - which is of course impossible unless you have all four wheels monitored constantly by cameras connected to GPS...

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

54 months

Thursday 26th December 2019
quotequote all
covmutley said:
Nice one. I'm sure you will love it.

I hit my first problem this week, quite literally... potholes! O not exactly the cars fault. It resulted in 2 buckled wheels and a tyre needing replacement too. Annoying, especially at this time of year.

Yikes: how much are new wheels (or if Jaguar are feeling especially generous, they may replace them under warranty!)?

Deadlysub

512 posts

158 months

Thursday 26th December 2019
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
covmutley said:
I hit my first problem this week, quite literally... potholes! O not exactly the cars fault. It resulted in 2 buckled wheels and a tyre needing replacement too. Annoying, especially at this time of year.
This is an interesting one. In theory the council is liable for the damage and you can make a claim from them. Except when I rang mine and asked for 'Highways' I got a particularly acid man who said I had to prove it was one of their potholes - which is of course impossible unless you have all four wheels monitored constantly by cameras connected to GPS...
I claimed through the council a few years ago and to be fair it was fairly easy. All I had to do was take a picture of the pot hole, the damage caused and provide a receipt for the new ones and they reimbursed me all within a month.

Simpo Two

85,418 posts

265 months

Thursday 26th December 2019
quotequote all
Deadlysub said:
I claimed through the council a few years ago and to be fair it was fairly easy. All I had to do was take a picture of the pot hole, the damage caused and provide a receipt for the new ones and they reimbursed me all within a month.
Well done! I also asked Mr Acid if he could tell me when the offending pothole might be fixed. Naturally he said this was not known. Weird. However, the council do have a very nice interactive webpage where you can add the location of 'your' pothole to the collection. That's progress for you. In fact the hole was filled soon afterwards, but perhaps because it was 100 yards from a Ringway Jacobs depot and their regional manager MD was tired of hitting it? Sorry, back to the thread...

covmutley

3,028 posts

190 months

Saturday 28th December 2019
quotequote all
They were able to be straightened luckily, so only £60 per wheel, but still.

The guy who did it was less than complimentary about JLR alloys. Called them 'soft'.

fatboy b

9,493 posts

216 months

Saturday 28th December 2019
quotequote all
covmutley said:
They were able to be straightened luckily, so only £60 per wheel, but still.

The guy who did it was less than complimentary about JLR alloys. Called them 'soft'.
Think yourself lucky you haven’t got a BMW. They just crack.

Deadlysub

512 posts

158 months

Saturday 4th January 2020
quotequote all
bobsavage789 said:
Hi all,

I'm nearing a car change and have looked into various finance deals for new cars, but I'm not keen on just 'throwing away' £300-400 a month with nothing to show for it at the end.

So I've looked at XE Ss (380hp version) and like what I see. I used to have an XF S (the 3 litre diesel 1st generation one) and that always felt like something was going to go catastrophically wrong.

Anyone have any experience with the XE S? What pitfalls are there? Anything I should look out for on used cars?

Thanks!
How is your search going?

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

54 months

Sunday 5th January 2020
quotequote all
Deadlysub said:
How is your search going?
I've become a bit fussier of late, so there seem to be only one or two examples with the spec I'm after (the driver's aids; larger infotainment screen). I've stated looking at other options, especially as my budget might increase due to a pay rise...

Deadlysub

512 posts

158 months

Tuesday 7th January 2020
quotequote all
It took me a long time to find the right spec.

JimmyJim22

1 posts

51 months

Thursday 16th January 2020
quotequote all
From the above the only problem I've encountered is the stop/start. Personally I wouldn't want to use it anyway but will get it sorted under warranty anyway as everything that can work should work really.

Only other 'issue' I've found, which isn't really the cars fault, is that my 20" rims are susceptible to the increasingly sh*tty English roads.

Other than that I'm in love with my still and will be for the forseeable. Styling and power tick all my boxes.