F Type? (blasphemy?!)
Discussion
I've been making noises recently about letting the Vantage go. It's been a short affair, however due in part to my XJ daily driver not behaving itself very well of late along with some pretty impressive maintenance bills on the V8V I've been thinking of going back to one car.
I love the vantage, but it wouldn't be a great daily driver for me. It's already fairly high mileage at 60k and I fancy a younger car. I love the up to date infotainment/nav stuff in my XJ and the auto in traffic and longer business trips. As it's coming up to insurance renewal and MOT/service time for them both (probably a good £3-4k) I've been shopping around. I can get a 2014/15 V6S F type coupe from Jag with a 2 year warranty for low £40's with a good chance it'll have a transferrable servicing pack on it, leaving me paying only for rubber and brakes over the 2 years. I've realised you either pay for depreciation or maintenance, so this would be switching the latter to the former.
Bills seem less all round for the Jag, including petrol and insurance, and I have a good Jag indy I already use for the XJ. If I trade my current cars before their services it'll reduce my cost to change in real terms. I'd love an SP10 vantage or an S in the future but can't yet stretch to £60k+ and still wouldn't want to daily one.
So, has anyone here swapped their Aston for one, or come from one to an Aston? I'd be really interested to hear experiences and opinions. I know it won't quite be as special as the Aston but it's still a British GT car with an awesome noise.
Cheers
I love the vantage, but it wouldn't be a great daily driver for me. It's already fairly high mileage at 60k and I fancy a younger car. I love the up to date infotainment/nav stuff in my XJ and the auto in traffic and longer business trips. As it's coming up to insurance renewal and MOT/service time for them both (probably a good £3-4k) I've been shopping around. I can get a 2014/15 V6S F type coupe from Jag with a 2 year warranty for low £40's with a good chance it'll have a transferrable servicing pack on it, leaving me paying only for rubber and brakes over the 2 years. I've realised you either pay for depreciation or maintenance, so this would be switching the latter to the former.
Bills seem less all round for the Jag, including petrol and insurance, and I have a good Jag indy I already use for the XJ. If I trade my current cars before their services it'll reduce my cost to change in real terms. I'd love an SP10 vantage or an S in the future but can't yet stretch to £60k+ and still wouldn't want to daily one.
So, has anyone here swapped their Aston for one, or come from one to an Aston? I'd be really interested to hear experiences and opinions. I know it won't quite be as special as the Aston but it's still a British GT car with an awesome noise.
Cheers
Cheers for the replies. I know the F type isn't as good as the vantage, but as a daily driver/only car I still think it would be better - I'm not sure what else can compete for such a new car for the money. As my vantage is an older model and starting to show signs of its age I'm sure that in my case the much newer F type would almost be on a par - fresher suspension parts, interior etc would make up for where it lacks in other areas.
If I was comparing similar age/mileage cars there would be no contest - I much, much prefer the vantage. It's just I think a 2 year/20k F type will be better than my 10 year/60k old vantage - whilst also being much cheaper to own and still looking/sounding good. As most here have praised the F type one way or another it can't be an awful choice!
I do need to see what the boot is like - I've never struggled with the vantage but if I need a big boot I can borrow Dad's RR so I'm not too worried about that. All I ever need to carry is a bit of shopping or a couple of overnight bags.
If I was comparing similar age/mileage cars there would be no contest - I much, much prefer the vantage. It's just I think a 2 year/20k F type will be better than my 10 year/60k old vantage - whilst also being much cheaper to own and still looking/sounding good. As most here have praised the F type one way or another it can't be an awful choice!
I do need to see what the boot is like - I've never struggled with the vantage but if I need a big boot I can borrow Dad's RR so I'm not too worried about that. All I ever need to carry is a bit of shopping or a couple of overnight bags.
JohnG1 said:
A while back I was pottering along on an A road, maybe doing 50mph. An F-type overtook me, probably at 60mph. But the racket it made was over the top and silly. All snarls, pops and crackles.
I need to work out whether they have a switchable exhaust as standard to avoid this - I really don't like artificial pops! The worst offender for this I've been in is the new Bentley GT Supersports - a solid few seconds of bangs/pops that sound like firecrackers rather than a powerful car - very artificial and a bit anti social.shunt said:
Exactly where I was, 10 year old Vantage with lots starting to fail. I'd had it for 6 years with little trouble, but my daily is an M135i. Sorry but the 135 did most if not everything better so I found myself never using the Aston. Beautiful cars they are dated now.
Faults I lived with
Ticking, tappets, fixed after I p ex'd it
Windows not closing, suspected door module failure.
Tyre pressure monitoring failure, disconnected, age of units
Paint bubbling around door handles. Common.
Snapped suspension springs, expensive to replace
Utterly s
t sat nav.
LED headlights failed due to condensation
I enjoyed my time with the Vantage, but it's an old car now and needs updating.
My F Type isn't an Aston, but thank God for that.
Sounds similar to my ownership. Only had it since the beginning of the year but to date it's had:Faults I lived with
Ticking, tappets, fixed after I p ex'd it
Windows not closing, suspected door module failure.
Tyre pressure monitoring failure, disconnected, age of units
Paint bubbling around door handles. Common.
Snapped suspension springs, expensive to replace
Utterly s
t sat nav.LED headlights failed due to condensation
I enjoyed my time with the Vantage, but it's an old car now and needs updating.
My F Type isn't an Aston, but thank God for that.
discs and pads all round
hand brake cable replaced
exhaust cats replaced
air con compressor replaced
injector replaced + precautionary oil change
purge valve replaced
door struts replaced
full geo setup
new wheels (didn't really need but look nice)
+ all the cosmetic bits detailed in my thread
Thank god for the warranty - although it only covered about half that. Now I have all that done the car seems good, I also have the MOT protect in with the warranty so anything picked up will get sorted. Unfortunately won't help the interior leather shrinkage or door handle bubbling though.
I've had a bad experience which has put me off my specific car a little, so hoping to make a clean break of it and get back in a really good example next time. Just have to save a bit first!
In fairness I knew about some of those issues when I bought it and the price took them into account. It was the stuff that went wrong after I bought it that annoyed me, thankfully the warranty did pick some of it up. Happily it's all sorted and a good car again, just not suitable (IMO) for me as a daily and only car.
Do you know where your colleague got that level of discount from? I'm seeing around 10% seems to be the standard offered by brokers. At that level of discount buying new would make sense, there would only be a couple of grand between that and the 3 year old AUC's I've been looking through.
Do you know where your colleague got that level of discount from? I'm seeing around 10% seems to be the standard offered by brokers. At that level of discount buying new would make sense, there would only be a couple of grand between that and the 3 year old AUC's I've been looking through.
Just got back from test driving a 380hp coupe at my local Jag dealer. Mixed impressions, but positive on the whole. Rob - I'll message you in due course when I get closer to buying one, many thanks for asking for me.
I went in the Vantage to get a feel for both back to back. Firstly the jag is nowhere near as loud. The pops and bangs weren't as apparent inside as I thought they would be, although it does make a really nice noise. Just not quite a V8 minus the fuse. Compared to my specific vantage I felt it was a better cruiser. It does the split personality thing well, with the active exhaust off and the car in normal mode it's very smooth and refined. I like that the exhaust can be toned down when required and the gearbox is sublime (ZF 8). The only criticism here is if I want to go quick/make a bit of noise in the vantage I just change down and it's all there. The jag makes you think a bit more about it as you have to put it in the right modes to get the right noises/gearbox sharpness.
It felt a little faster than the vantage (0.2s on paper to 60), although the near instant gear change has a lot to do with it. The engine pull is very similar although with noticeably more torque. I couldn't hear the supercharger whine in the cabin which was ever so slightly disappointing. I also found the sports seats, although really great looking, weren't very comfortable as the backrest was too hard, even though they were the expensive and very adjustable option.
The interior was nicer than in my car, the much newer leather looking great and no wear on the seats (20k mile car) and no shrinkage anywhere like mine. Also no dash rattles!
Something that did get me today though was the reaction the Vantage got. From an S5 giving the thumbs up and having a noisy play on the ring road to when I nipped into Audi to get a part for Dad, a number of staff come over to look at it and ask me to rev it etc, one even said 'I hope you're not going to exchange that for anything here!' I know a Jag will never get that reaction no matter how pretty or loud it is.
Decisions!
I went in the Vantage to get a feel for both back to back. Firstly the jag is nowhere near as loud. The pops and bangs weren't as apparent inside as I thought they would be, although it does make a really nice noise. Just not quite a V8 minus the fuse. Compared to my specific vantage I felt it was a better cruiser. It does the split personality thing well, with the active exhaust off and the car in normal mode it's very smooth and refined. I like that the exhaust can be toned down when required and the gearbox is sublime (ZF 8). The only criticism here is if I want to go quick/make a bit of noise in the vantage I just change down and it's all there. The jag makes you think a bit more about it as you have to put it in the right modes to get the right noises/gearbox sharpness.
It felt a little faster than the vantage (0.2s on paper to 60), although the near instant gear change has a lot to do with it. The engine pull is very similar although with noticeably more torque. I couldn't hear the supercharger whine in the cabin which was ever so slightly disappointing. I also found the sports seats, although really great looking, weren't very comfortable as the backrest was too hard, even though they were the expensive and very adjustable option.
The interior was nicer than in my car, the much newer leather looking great and no wear on the seats (20k mile car) and no shrinkage anywhere like mine. Also no dash rattles!
Something that did get me today though was the reaction the Vantage got. From an S5 giving the thumbs up and having a noisy play on the ring road to when I nipped into Audi to get a part for Dad, a number of staff come over to look at it and ask me to rev it etc, one even said 'I hope you're not going to exchange that for anything here!' I know a Jag will never get that reaction no matter how pretty or loud it is.
Decisions!
Well....I'm afraid I've done it. The private sale of the Aston went well and it sold within 2 weeks to the second viewer. So after promising myself I would continue using the XJ over winter and not look at any other sports cars until at least next summer, I found myself browsing the Jag approved used site. Purely out of curiosity. Unfortunately that led to me finding a perfect spec car within budget, which then unfortunately further led to me viewing and inevitably leaving a deposit. This all happened last week and I collect it tomorrow.
So, back to the main reason for this thread in the first place. From the test drives I've had it seems more livable/useable daily than the Vantage. I'm trading in the XJ for it so will save on only running the one car. It's also had new tyres, a service and some warranty work done at the dealers for me so I *shouldn't* have to spend anything on it for a bit. Being an AUC I also get 2 years Jag warranty. So I get a <3 year old/25k mile car for the same price as a very early 4.7 Vantage, or even a 'Timeless' 4.3. No brainer? I'm about to find out...
P.s sorry for the crappy phone pics, I was too busy inspecting it at the dealer!
So, back to the main reason for this thread in the first place. From the test drives I've had it seems more livable/useable daily than the Vantage. I'm trading in the XJ for it so will save on only running the one car. It's also had new tyres, a service and some warranty work done at the dealers for me so I *shouldn't* have to spend anything on it for a bit. Being an AUC I also get 2 years Jag warranty. So I get a <3 year old/25k mile car for the same price as a very early 4.7 Vantage, or even a 'Timeless' 4.3. No brainer? I'm about to find out...
P.s sorry for the crappy phone pics, I was too busy inspecting it at the dealer!
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