New Member - South East London

[Christopher ISLES]

Hi - I'm Chris and have been a Jaguar owner for the past 11 years, now on my 2nd car. 

Contrary to the bad press around, I had a great experience with my previous car, an X-Type 2.2D SE manual with wood/leather steering wheel, wood trim and oyster leather seating and was sorry to part with it. It served me well but, alas, with the relatively soon to be implemented Ultra Low Emission Zone in Central London with proposals to extend out further, already proposed in parts of Greenwich, time was right for a change. It had given me few problems although costs were starting to rack up. So, a couple of weeks ago, I upgraded to the XE D R-Sport 180bhp 2.0l. So far so good, the new Jag is about 60% more fuel efficient than the X-Type, has minimal road tax  and came with an impressive array of extras fitted by JLR at the behest of the dealer as this was a 7 month old 2017 trim Jag, an ex demonstrator.   

[Old Peter]

Welcome to the Club, Chris.

The x type was a much maligned car according to people who have never even been inside one.  I had one and found it a great car with never a problem.

Our daughter lives in Brockley and I have to take a rather circuitous route with my S Type.  In the future will will visit in SWMBO's Yaris Hybrid.

I hope you enjoy the club as much as you will enjoy your XE.

Regards,

Peter.

[Jaguar Owners Club]

Hi Chris....welcome to the Club

It's one of those photos that display mixed emotions with the old and the new side by side....shame you couldn't keep both.

Good to have you onboard

Cheers,  Trevor

[Christopher ISLES]

Hi Peter and Trevor,

Thanks very much for your warm welcome extended to me. 

I would have loved to have kept the X-Type as well as getting the XE, but sadly there's only room on my driveway for one car and I wasn't going to leave one in the road.

A neighbour, a few houses up the road, has an immaculate 2003 S-Type taking pride of place on his driveway!

Best wishes

Chris

[Trooper2142]

Hi Chris.

Welcome to the club, you have a very nice XE i think blue is the best colour. A report on how you get on with your car and more photos would be good.

Regards Tom.

[Christopher ISLES]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for your warm welcome.

I've only had the XE for a couple of weeks so a report on performance is perhaps a bit premature. That said, I am averaging 47.6mpg around town - a vast improvement on my previous X-type (28 to 30mpg) and getting used to driving with an automatic gearbox after a lifetime of driving with manual transmission. I've read on some review sites that reviewers complain about the "small" rear window and rear passenger space - I personally don't have any issue with that at all - I'm 5'8" tall and my wife and I have the front seats in comfortable seating positions which afford plenty of leg room for passengers in the rear. The parking aids, especially the rear view camera, are helpful and the XE is pretty quiet. Even though it has a Sports suspension, the ride is better than I was used to with less road noise.  

Guy Salmon do a good "handover" with a gift wrapped car!! As can be seen from the picture below, the gloss on the paintwork was superb. The other photo shows the XE in their car park before they had cleaned and prepared it for handover to me (it was sourced from a dealership circa 200 miles away).