Jaguar Land Rover

[Willy Nilly]

It seems that JLR can do no wrong when they design an SUV and people queue up in the streets to pay full list for them.

So why don't they put the same effort into their cars and start beating buyers away from the dealerships?

I appreciate that SUV's are the in thing and they make a decent margin on them thus they invest more, but their cars seem to be forgotten about. Or am I wrong?

Over to the panel.

[Willy Nilly]

But the reliability of Land Rover does little to put people off so why does it matter with their cars?

Land Rover seem to have ever conceivable SUV sector covered, well, except proper work horses, yet Jaguar have a hand full of cars that sell in modest numbers. Where as the Germans have everything covered from dressed up Fabias to luxury salons that people are happy to pay a premium for.

[Willy Nilly]

craigjm said:

I think the problem with Jaguar is that lots of people expect it to be wood and leather smoking jacket type stuff but those days are gone. The profits are not in Europe or US anymore they are in China and India and they are now building for those markets.

Although, as I have said, SUV's are the in thing at the moment, there are still plenty of cars sold that compete with what Jaguar sell.

JLR seem to have the "premium" end of the SUV market to themselves. I know of 3 people personally with D4 commercials (a market they have closed the door on). The horsey clients at work have a selection of Land Rovers from new to ropey. We're tripping over new L405's 'round here. Both the bosses daughters have new Land Rovers, so does a colleague (which is his 4th LR).

In the "premium" car market we see roads full of BMW's, Audis and Mercs, which I am sure have lost a bit of ground to SUV's, but people still want them. Bought or leased new by aspirational types and end up with east Europeans, so it seems. So where are all the Jags? Why can they make very expensive SUV's with questionably reliability so popular, but can't, or at least don't seem to be able to sell many cars? Yes, the domestic market for cars isn't as big as China, but one might be forgiven for thinking they'd eat a little more into the market share for the German brands.

[Willy Nilly]

Mastiff said:

Jazzy Jag said:

Mastiff said:

Willy Nilly said:

But the reliability of Land Rover does little to put people off so why does it matter with their cars?

Land Rover seem to have ever conceivable SUV sector covered, well, except proper work horses, yet Jaguar have a hand full of cars that sell in modest numbers. Where as the Germans have everything covered from dressed up Fabias to luxury salons that people are happy to pay a premium for.

Are you actually talking about Land Rover here? If you are then you are talking bks and I will happily book you on an off road experience to prove the point.

Actually, no I won't - as anyone who knows anything about LR products is aware that their off road ability (which I take is what you mean by work horse) is fundamental to their design and build.

Even the "soft road" stuff (Evoque for example) will go further than most people think. The big stuff will go MUCH further than a Defender would ever have gone, and blow cold air up your arse as it does so, which you may need considering the amount of hot air being blown about by some on this thread.

To be fair, Willy nilley was probably not referring to off road capabilities but the fact that a farmer is unlikely to throw some sheep in the back of a Discovery like he would have done in his defender pick up.

There are no commercial variants of LR products IIRC.

Ah. My bad then. Apologies to all.

A bit hungover this morning.

They did do a Discovery 4 Commercial and I believe that there is a Discovery 5 variant waiting in the wings. Never really understood that as the built Discover 4 Commercial as a car first - then converted it into a commercial, then sold it for LESS than the car.

Defender replacement is a year or two away yet.

A friend of mine is a big LR fan. Runs a D4 commercial. 50-60k/yr, so has a new one every other year. The current one is his last, because there will be no D5 commercial. His current D4 will be worn out before the Defender gets launched. As it happens I know 3 people with D4 commercials and there are a lot more out there and JLR don't want to know any more.

This is going off topic though and doesn't answer why JLR don't push the Jaguar brand more as they have been so successful with the Land Rover and Range Rover brands.

[Willy Nilly]

RobDown said:

This is such a typical Pistonheads thread

OP asks a click-bait question "why is the incredibly successfully, record breaking car-seller Jaguar so poor at selling cars?"

Thats then followed by several comments from the hip with no factual grounding "the record breaking sales are because he reliability is so poor"

Then the factual inaccuracies are highlighted....

....but it makes no difference to PH'ers because someone who's dad once worked for JLR (and who once drove a rover 20 years ago) says they're no good

And so on.

Love it

So where are all the new Jags then? Around here we are tripping over new Land and Range Rovers, not so Jags. I drover past the JLR dealership today and the Jags were all on the sideline being LR's and RR's, I don't think there was one Jag on the front row by th main road.

I'm not knocking JLR, just wondering why, in the UK, they appear to be able to squeeze every last drop out of the premium SUV market, yet don't appear to be pushing their car division with the same effort. It's al very well saying "Jaguar sales are up by 70%" But 70% of not much is still not much. How are they doing against the established opposition of BMW, Audi and Mercedes?

To reiterate, I'm not offering an opinion on whether a Jaguar is a better car than its contemporaries, just wondering why when new Land Rovers are everywhere in all their guises we are not tripping over new Jags in a similar manner.