Automotive

You can be taking a normal drive and pushing it in the corners would just be potentially dangerous (the car may go into a spin) in the XKR/XKR-S and at the same speed it wouldn't faze a BMW M3.  

It's not about throttle induced oversteer, it's just a poorly balanced car.  Reminds me of the first generation Lexus IS 300, you took a turn in that car and the rear felt light.  That car has approx. 200 horsepower, it's not an oversteer tire spinning car.  It was just a poorly balanced car with bad dynamics in turns.  

The XKR is also a bit odd, with three occupants in the car and no cargo, braking on slightly bumpy roads in downtown Monterey, California (30 mph braking to 3 mph crawl speed) the car's rear felt unstable and the rear tires were moving left and right (tail wagging).  I don't know what's wrong with the car, possibly poor brake distribution or the slightest unevenness in left/right weight distribution upsets the car.  I've never felt that from any car, and over the past three years I've been in rental cars 30-60 days a year, not even the Hyundai Elantra rental car had tail wagging under normal braking.  

I will say, the Jaguar XF, the one you don't like, is probably the best driving out of all the Jags.  Good steering (possibly by ZF), good transmission (by ZF), good engine (the V8 naturally aspirated model that was featured when the car debuted), but past the phosphorous blue lighting in the interior, the interior was all a plastic shell with "hang on trim" clipped onto the plastic base layer.  A really cheap modular LEGO block way of building a car's interior.  The plastic on the edge was also improperly trimmed, could've given me a papercut.  

No, there's something just not right about Jaguar.  I so wanted to like the Jaguar.  I so wanted to find a more interesting alternative to the ubiquitous Mercedes-Benz and BMW vehicles that's all over the place.  But sadly, at the end of the day...  Small car companies like Jaguar just do not have the money for R&D to create a excellent car.  Sure, I can get exclusivity and design with a Jaguar, but I can't get the safety, reliability, quality, and the driving feel that makes a great car great.  

But then again...  If you're leasing it, why not right?  It'll be reliable the first 3-4 years.  Oh wait, that's what Maserati Ghibli is for.  Great design, poor interior materials overall (not to mention the clashing smell from the seat to the dashboard) except for the nice leather on the seats.  Like the Fiat ABARTH with red leather seats; high quality leather worthy of being on a Poltrona Frau leather armchair, but huge 8 millimeter spaces between stitches, rushed construction on the seams, and the rest of the interior just doesn't equate to the leather on the seats.  

Actually, if I want to be critical, the Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG has an Alcantara (artificial suede) ceiling headliner and a high quality smooth, small grained, yet thick luxurious leather with an excellent smell and a buttery feel, hand rubbed wood trim, et al.  BUT the let down comes with the dashboard made of cheap injection molded vinyl that has a faux leather grainage that doesn't match any other part of the car.  Do people notice?  No, the average person doesn't even notice and if they did they wouldn't care.  But for the person who really understands and who has experienced - no, not merely experienced, who has lived their entire lives under the best circumstances would almost knowingly get a mental allergy to that material.  

Think the E55 is bad?  Try the Mercedes-Benz S550 with the standard leather interior (for the USA market) made from 2007-2013.  The whole interior was injection molded vinyl and the stitching on the perforated leather seats was done so badly that sometimes the holes in the stitching were within the perforations of the leather.  But Mercedes-Benz still sold them by the thousands to customers who don't appreciate nor understand true quality, and even if they did understand they didn't care.  

Oh, and how do people buy watches?  Brand recognition and purely aesthetic design usually.  Does the fact that many Cartier watches (nice watches by the way) come with generic ETA movements bother anybody?  Some people just get taken...  

What's worse?  To break the law out of ignorance or out of maliciousness?  "Officer, I didn't know it was the law that I have to walk my bicycle in the crosswalk, I thought crossing the street in a crosswalk meant I could cross it however I wanted."  Or to break the law when you knew it and just didn't care?  "Officer, I know I can't ride my bicycle in the crosswalk, but I didn't want to dismount and walk slowly across the crosswalk."  All police officers would say short-term they're both just as bad as the result ends in you being fined or sent to jail (results oriented mentality); but some police officers would say long-term ignorance is worse because you don't even have the conscious decision to follow the law if you completely don't know it.  

More posts: AMGBMWFiatGhibliJaguarLexusMaseratiMercedes-BenzS 550XKR-S

  login to reply