Be careful what you ask for
Written: Aug 01 '03 (Updated May 19 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Power, ride, comfort, price
Cons: Much of what made previous XJs special has been lost, trunk space
The Bottom Line: A very good luxury sedan at a significantly lower price than most competitors. But not nearly as unique as previous XJ sedans.
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| mkaresh's Full Review: 2004 Jaguar XJ-Series XJ8 4 Dr Sedan |
I have long found it difficult to take the Jaguar XJ sedan seriously. Although fully redesigned for the 1988 model year and heavily revised seven years later, the car’s long, slender extremities and low height (for a large luxury sedan) lent it proportions from a bygone era when cars got lower and lower each year. Stylistically it was an anachronism. Intentionally, but an anachronism nonetheless. The low height had a second effect: inside the XJ was quite cramped for such a long luxury sedan. Both the front and rear seats were mounted much closer to the floor than the luxury sedan norm, and still headroom was limited for six-footers. A large transmission tunnel produced narrow footwells, again a thing of the past for most makes. All in all, the seating position much more closely resembled that of an upscale sports coupe than a sedan. Why would anyone buy such a large car with so little room inside?
I haven’t been the only one thinking this way. On any rational scale the XJ always fell short of more modern competitors from Germany and Japan. This was clear in every magazine comparison test in which the XJ took part. When it came time to redesign the XJ once again, a momentous decision was made to bring the XJ fully up to date. The 2004 model year car is a couple inches longer and wider. The wheelbase has grown over half a foot to 119.4 inches; only the extended-length versions of the German sedans (which is the only S-Class Mercedes offers here) now have longer wheelbases. As the wheelbase grew more than the length, overhang is down, it appears at both ends. Most importantly, the XJ is now 57 inches in height, a gain of nearly four inches. This puts the large Jag nearly up to the Mercedes S-Class, if still an inch-and-a-half shy of the large BMW and Lexus. (Hyperlinks lead to my reviews of these related products.)
But is this good? Before driving the 2004 I would have thought certainly. Now I’m less sure.
Styling
Jags have traditionally sold based on their styling. Many people thought the Series III XJ sold from 1979 through 1987 was the best looking sedan ever. The next generation car had much simpler, squarer lines, and the car’s allure suffered. Consequently, when the XJ was first redesigned under Ford’s ownership it regained many of the classic details of the Series III, most notably scalloped headlights. The big Jag’s allure returned with its curves.
Not about to make the same mistake again, the 2004 car so resembles the 2003 that many people might not be able to tell the car has been entirely redesigned. However, I’m not most people. To my eye, the lines of the previous car don’t come off nearly so well on the new XJ’s significantly taller bodysides. The rear side window’s generic outline also contributes to a certain pudginess. A window aft of the door, as on the 1988-2003 XJs, or including a BMW-style kink, as on the Series III, would have helped reduce the visual mass of the car’s flanks. Sure, the rear fender kicks up, as people expect in a Jag, but this overly subtle curve appears artificially added to the slab-sided body.
All in all, the new XJ’s exterior styling reminds me a bit much of the X-Type, certainly not the association Jaguar is hoping for. With the X-Type, a Ford Mondeo (European Contour) was reclothed in Jag-style metal. To my eye the proportions seemed all wrong for Jaguar’s traditional lines. But the reason then seemed to be that the structure was borrowed from an existing Ford rather than being developed from scratch. Now I’m not so sure. The new XJ was developed entirely from scratch. With an all-aluminum body, it had to be. Yet like the baby Jag the lines don’t quite work. It seems that the X-Type’s problem was less its Mondeo origins than the tallish body required for an au courant high driving position.
Larger wheels do help reduce the visual mass of the new XJ’s body. The standard 17-inch wheels do nothing for the car. The base tires are fairly low in profile, with a 55 aspect ratio, yet the blah styling of these wheels, like the similarly styled wheels standard on the X-Type, make the sidewalls look fatter than they are. The 18s (with 50-series tires) optional ($800) on the base car and standard with the Vanden Plas trim help quite a bit, and the 19’s standard with the supercharged R (with 40-series tires) really add some life to the car. Twenties are optional on the R, but their styling, with a large number of thin spokes, does nothing for me personally. My advice: anything but the base 17s.
What should Jag have done? I’m not entirely sure. Jag dealt with the S-Type’s tall bodysides by looking to pre-XJ Jag sedans for inspiration. (Hyperlinks lead to my reviews of other cars.) But I suppose XJ buyers weren’t looking for a longer version of that car, and it’s quite possible that the S-Type’s lines would not work on a longer car. Fuller bodysides (with more curvature) might have helped the new XJ. Ultimately, space efficiency might be incompatible with the XJ’s traditional lithe character. The old car always benefited from its relatively low height. Raise the roof, and the XJ starts to blend with the competition.
My father was along for this test drive. The new car’s styling failed to do anything for him, and he loved the Series III to the extent that he came quite close to buying one back in 1986. He much prefers the more distinctive styling of the S-Type to the new XJ’s, and I must admit that for once I agree with the guy.
All three Jag sedans now share similarly styled interiors, with a band of color-keyed material arching over the matte black center stack controls and much wood inlaid in elliptical forms on the dash, doors, and console. Very organic, soft, pleasant, especially compared to the Germans.
A notable omission in the forestry department: unlike in the cheaper S-Type, no wood trim surrounds the new XJ’s door-mounted controls. Just a thin chrome outline around matte black plastic. As your eyes frequently glance at this area, and one hand spends its time there, it substantially impacts the overall atmosphere of the interior. The treatment in the new XJ cheapens the entire interior.
Otherwise the new XJ interior generally feels a step up from the S-Type’s. Where it fails is in comparison to the old XJ’s. The two cars were parked next to one another in the showroom. I went back and forth. Front and rear the old car’s interior feels far more special. Although the lower, coupe-like seating position plays a large role, the styling of the old interior also deserves credit. I get the sense it was styled first and made to fit people later, while the reverse was true of the new car. Good for room and comfort, but not so good for the soul.
Then there are the lost details. Take the armrests on the doors. Those on the old XJ have a wonderfully organic shape that would require ten thousand words to describe in lieu of a picture. The new car’s armrests, in contrast, are flat along the top and squared off at the ends. They appear tacked onto the doors where the old car’s flowed into them. In a similar fashion the new car’s center stack rises abruptly out of the perfectly horizontal center console. In the old car the center console flowed up into a much shorter center stack in a long smooth curve.
Fit and finish was not where it needed to be on either the 2004 sedan in the showroom or the second one I test drove. On both cars the trim around the door openings did not come together correctly in places. On the car in the showroom the glove box lid sagged on the left side. It could be pushed back up into position, but I suspect a bump in the road would bring it back down again. The car I test drive did not have this issue, so at least it’s not endemic to the design. In both cars the trim panels on the doors did not fit as tightly as they should, such that when pressed with an elbow a retaining clip clicked. Does this imply anything about the car’s reliability? Quite likely it does not. Still, especially at these prices the interior should be assembled with more rigor and precision.
Accommodations
As I’ve already mentioned, the seating position is much higher in the new car. In front the height of the dash led me to raise the seat an inch or so above its lowest position, something I do not feel the need to do in many cars aside from BMWs. Even with the seat raised the long, relatively flat hood dominated my forward view nearly as much as in the old XJ, a rarity in this age of sloping hoods.
Both the dash and door panels are more imposing in the new car owing to their much greater height. The basic styling might be the same, but the spirit is largely gone. You certainly no longer feel you might be piloting a low slung GT coupe. The benefit is that the front cabin of the new car is much roomier, objectively and even more subjectively.
The same is the case in the rear seat. I’ve criticized the old XJ’s rear seat in the past. But going from car to car I acquired a certain fondness for it. Yes, your rear is quite low to the ground so as to provide even a modicum of headroom, but the heavily bucketed contour of the seat cushion provides passable thigh support. Yes, it’s a trick found in many sport coupes, but it works here. The rear seat of the new car is mounted higher and roomier, yet despite FIVE additional inches of legroom (on paper) I did not find it an especially pleasant place to be. For one thing, the rear seats in many other large luxury sedans are more comfortably positioned and shaped. Without the aid of a side-to-side comparison, I’d guess the class leaders are the BMW 7, Lexus LS 430, and Cadillac DeVille. The Jag’s in contrast struck me as simply good.
More than the seat itself, the interior is not set up to enhance the subjective comfort of the rear passengers. The door panels and front seatbacks are tall, limiting the view out. In the S-Type the view forward for rear passengers is much better.
This leads me to an interesting question: what’s the benefit of the XJ over the S-Type? The XJ used a riveted and bonded all-aluminum body to get the car’s weight well below that of other large luxury sedans (including Audi’s less innovatively assembled aluminum A8). Even so, the S-Type is just as light. Now, the XJ is a larger car, with five inches more wheelbase and nine inches more length. But where’s the payoff in interior room? Front legroom is the same in the two cars, and the XJ offers only a single additional inch in the rear. The stats suggest generous legroom in both cars. And in both, but especially the XJ, the numbers exaggerate. I’m not tall at 5Í”, but do like to drive with the seat quite far back for someone of my height. With the seat where I like it in both cars, the rear seat in the new XJ is actually more cramped than that in the S-Type! My father actually asked me to slide the seat forward a bit when riding behind me, something he should not have to do in a sedan with nearly 82 inches of combined legroom. Knee room is downright plentiful in most other sedans of similar length. I am baffled by what happened with the new XJ.
The 2004 XJ does offer significantly more rear headroom than either the previous design or the S-Type. Tallish males needn’t fear contact with the ceiling.
Ultimately what the XJ gets you over the S-Type is an inch-and-a-half more shoulder room and the impression of at least twice that. How much is this worth? The expense and effort of an aluminum body? My father and I actually preferred the cozier feel inside the S-Type.
A final thing annoyed Dad in the rear seat. Because the old XJ had a side window aft of the door, the top of the side windows did not start curving down within the door. This lent the impression of a longer, more elegant rear cabin inside even the standard length car. In the new XJ, the top of the rear side window begins to curve down within the door, and thus within one’s peripheral vision.
If the XJ’s additional length relative to the S-Type doesn’t show up in legroom, then where does it go? Functionally it’s not needed in the hood, as the two cars use the same V8 engines. Some is there anyway—the XJ’s hood is quite long. What about the trunk? The old XJ was quite weak in this department. On paper the new car looks competitive with 16.4 cubic feet. The large BMW and Lexus offer more, but the large Benx offers a bit less. In reality, this volume is obtained through length, as the trunk remains vertically shallow despite the tall bodysides. It’s a improvement over the old XJ’s trunk, but what isn’t? The S-Type’s trunk is a couple cubic feet tighter, but it’s more usefully shaped.
Storage inside the cabin if fairly good, with usable space in both the glove compartment and a center console. The latter strongly resembles the S-Type’s down to a cover that slides rearward a couple of inches to expose a pair of cupholders.
On the Road
As already mentioned, to keep the new XJ’s weight down despite its larger dimensions the body is constructed out of aluminum. For reasons of strength and cost, the aluminum stampings, extrusions, and castings are mostly joined using rivets and epoxy rather than welding. Aluminum is much harder to welds than steel and welds have durability and strength disadvantages at any rate. Although the tiny Lotus Elise sports car uses similar construction, the big Jag is the first mass-produced car to be assembled this way. Unlike with the mostly welded Audi, which weighs about as much as other large German sedans, the Jaguar really does demonstrate the advantage of aluminum. The base XJ8 weighs only 3,766 pounds, 400 less than the next-lightest Mercedes. Even the Lexus LS 430 weighs nearly 200 pounds more, and Toyota is the master of lightweight steel structures.
Given the base car’s relatively low weight, I strongly suspected that the 294 horsepower of its normally-aspirated 4.2-liter V8 would be plenty. After all, I found this engine sufficient in the heavier XK8 convertible last year. So this is the car I tested.
My suspicions were confirmed. The refined base engine provides more than enough power for nearly all drivers nearly all the time. With a six-speed automatic, a near-perfect ratio is always available. Jag claims sixty comes in 6.3 seconds, and I don’t doubt this.
Unlike other reviewers, I have no major issues with Jaguar’s “J-gate” mode of manually shifting the automatic by moving the shift lever to the left of D (6) and then forward through 5-4-3-2. (Sadly, first cannot be manually selected.) Other tap-up, tap-down systems might be a little easier to use, but now that Jaguar has provided firmer detents there’s less danger of getting a different gear than you sought. This feature will see limited use in many hands, at any rate. The transmission has a sport mode, and in any case adapts to the driver’s style. In most situations it picks the correct gear all on its own.
As in other Jags I’ve driven, throttle tip-in is overly aggressive such that the car lurches from a dead stop unless you take care to depress your foot slowly. This is quickly learned, but shouldn’t be necessary in this sort of car.
Aside from this minor issue the powertrain (shared with the S-Type and XK coupe) is generally faultless for power, refinement, even economy. The EPA city rating of 18 is matched by many competitors, but the highway rating of 28 beats them all.
In the handling department the base XJ’s mission becomes clear. The car feels more like the big Lexus than the big BMW. Like the former, the new XJ has higher limits than initial impressions suggest. This is good for safety, not so good for driving enjoyment. The steering is overly light in effort, cornering is not as flat as in the big BMW despite automatically firming shocks, and the chassis could teach the throttle a thing or two about reacting in a suitably reserved manner to driver inputs. Not that the XJ could be mistaken for the Lexus. Its steering despite the low effort provides much more confidence-inspiring feedback than that car’s, and even in base trim the XJ’s chassis feels more balanced. It’s a significantly easier car to drive quickly. Problem is, even without the R’s supercharger the XJ is going way too fast for public roads by the time it gets fun. In normal (i.e. legal) driving all sense of sport is absent.
No doubt the XJR with its firmer suspension tuning would be much more fun to drive, perhaps even at normal speeds. The problem is, the XJR’s 390-horsepower supercharged engine will be excessive for most. It shouldn’t be necessary to get this engine to get an entertaining chassis. The 2003 XJ8 was available in a “sport” model that combined the base engine with a sport-tuned suspension. A similar model should be offered with the new car, but at this point is not.
Ride quality in the air-sprung 2004 car is excellent. Road imperfections were only slightly heard and felt. But then nearly every car in this class rides very well. In ride feel, as in handling feel, the XJ falls between the isolation chamber Lexus and the tightly buttoned-down Germans. After reading how the new XJ’s riveted and bonded aluminum structure is 60 percent stiffer than the old car’s unibody despite weighing 40 percent less, I expected it to feel exceptionally solid. It does not. A large BMW or Mercedes feels more solid, although this might owe something to their more mechanical feel. The Jag, again more like the Lexus, feels softer and plusher.
I did detect one notable lapse in the XJ’s chassis refinement. When accelerating through bumpy curves, I felt moderate shuddering through the seat of my pants. I suspect the suspension was not keeping the rear tires in contact with mildly bumpy pavement as well as it should have. I further felt at first that the body should not have transmitted the resulting shudder so much, but now figure it possible that the rear suspension’s shortcomings were more than the body should be expected to compensate for.
I drove the S-Type R last year, not the regular S-Type, so I cannot directly compare the XJ with the midsize Jag. My impression is that the larger car despite weighing about the same feels heavier and more tightly constructed, and provides a significantly more composed, smoother, quieter ride
Pricing
I plan to perform a more thorough pricing analysis once more 2004s are available. Despite the new XJ’s expensive aluminum construction, at $59,995 it is priced only about $3,000 higher than the old car. This puts it about $3,000 over a Lexus LS 430 (base plus sunroof), but nearly $10,000 below a BMW 745i and even more below a Mercedes S-Class. In fact, despite its costly aluminum construction the XJ is priced much closer to the midsize 5-Series and E-Class than to their larger siblings. Thus the XJ’s price seems extremely reasonable.
The car’s toughest price competition might be in-house. The S-Type is ten grand less.
Final Words
The new XJ’s innovative aluminum construction is impressive, and it generally comports itself very well as a luxury sedan. In feel it arguably combines the best of both worlds, the precision of the Germans and the softer, lighter feel of the Lexus. The rear seat is the worst of the bunch, but still is hardly a bad place to be. And it’s priced well below the Germans and nearly as low as the Japanese upstart.
Sadly, in seeking to match competitors in interior room and comfort Jaguar has severely compromised the character of the car. Though certainly refined and comfortable, the new car never felt special. Rather, it felt like a typical, fully modern high-end luxury sedan that had been overlaid with classic Jaguar styling cues. It’s quite possible that we’re witnessing yet one more instance in the death of difference within the auto industry. Lately Volvos are sleek, Saabs lack hatches, and BMWs are smooth and quiet. Now we have an XJ8 where you sit high off the ground.
For that special character that sold Jaguars back in the days when their reliability was infamously bad, there are two better ways to go. Some old friends of my family recently considered replacing their old XJ sedan with the 2004, but ended up with a 2003 instead. The wife (who would generally be driving the car) liked the old car better, and her husband liked the lower price better. (Supposedly the difference was $11,000 after dealer discounting was considered, though I do not see how this is possible.) Initially I could not believe they thought the older XJ better, but now I understand. Technically the old car is vastly inferior, but even though it was developed under Ford’s stewardship it possesses character in spades.
The other route, the one I can actually see my father going, is the less expensive S-Type. It’s nearly as roomy, and while not as refined or smooth riding is more fun to drive. Above all, despite sharing parts with the Lincoln LS it feels uniquely Jaguar in a way the new XJ does not.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 61,200
Model and Options: XJ8 with heated seats and steering wheel
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