XE S buyer's guide

XE S buyer's guide

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bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Thursday 21st November 2019
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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!

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Saturday 14th December 2019
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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!

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Thursday 19th December 2019
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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!

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Thursday 26th December 2019
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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!)?

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Sunday 5th January 2020
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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...

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Friday 31st January 2020
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Does the XE S have adaptive cruise control or other driver assistance systems?

I can only see mention of condition monitors and lane keep warnings...

bobsavage789

Original Poster:

657 posts

55 months

Friday 31st January 2020
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kiseca said:
Can't recall for the S specifically, as it is a trim level in itself including the engine in the UK, but for all other trim levels, cruise control is standard, adaptive cruise control is an option.

I believe you can tell by looking a the badge on the grille. If the growler is on a rectangular black plastic plate, I believe that's the radar for the adaptive cruise control, and if the growler is just a round badge attached straight on the grille, there's no radar / lidar / whatever they use.
Thanks for the reply: Nothing worse than when there's no plastic around the growler!

I'm looking at this one:
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2019...

No sign of ACC, but seems well specced otherwise!