Took the car in for its first service today right at the 16k km mark. My dealership is Thornhill Jaguar/Land Rover just north of Toronto. We'll see how this goes. Gave them a laundry list of things to take a look at:
-Seat belt pre-tensioner recall
-Creaking dashboard from plastic around infotainment screen
-Auto start/stop - was intermittent, now it's completely stopped working
-Noise from somewhere in front of the driver when levelling off (upshifting) after accelerating - sounds like a low train whistle sound of various duration (1-3 secs). Used to be rare, but now it's more frequent
-Noisy parking brake - only noticed this when standing outside the car - quite noisy when engaging and disengaging - more so than when the car was new
-Poor bluetooth connection for my wife's Nexus 6p - she keeps losing connection and then it reconnects after a few seconds - very annoying when listening to music. It might be her phone, though, because it seems fine with my phone (older Android version)
None of these things are vital, so that's why we've waited until we had to go in for servicing anyway. Still very happy with the car, but wow, would I ever be happy if the DS would come with the tranny/engine combo that is in my loaner!
The loaner is the 35t (not the s), and it's a sweet ride, with all the pickup and responsiveness that the DS lacks. It also corners very differently and there's no dip and wobble when braking or accelerating hard. Now, the reason I want this engine/tranny in the DS instead of just going ahead and getting the F-Pace - oh, where do I start?
First off, the F-Pace is one of those infuriating SUVs (there's so many of them - the Jeep GC is another prime example) which is big on the outside and small on the inside. It feels cramped around the driver, the back seat is a joke, there's less cubbies and shelves, and the cargo space is smaller and less versatile than the DS (the rear is more raked). Absolutely no adjustments for the rear seats, so no way to make the cargo area bigger or for the kids to recline when they want to sleep.
Lots of other details as well. The dashboard and other interior bits in the DS aren't exactly high end luxury (lots of cheap plastic), but generally it's a stylish place to spend your time and the cheap bits are at least mostly hidden. The F-Pace just looks cheap period. There's an ocean of black plastic above the instrument cluster and glovebox, which might as well have come from a Hyundai (in the DS this is broken up by the passenger side storage shelf). There's a weird swooping line/break in the plastic all around underneath the windshield - looks like a bad attempt at putting a slight ripple in that plastic ocean.
Other things: the start/stop system is way more jerky than in the DS. The Meridian system has great clarity, the treble has less sibilance and the mids do a great job of reproducing voices, but where's the bass? I adjusted the bass up a few notches, but there's barely anything happening - absolutely no rumble. The base system in our DS is lacking in some areas, but there's actually some decent bass.
Don't like the small windows on the F-Pace. Way less visibility from the driver's seat than in the DS. Something that did work in the Jag is that the steering wheel buttons allow you to toggle presets - hallelujah! But (and this is a big but) the stupid thing only toggles the presets on one screen. As you know, there's three screens where you can set 6 presets for each. With the steering wheel buttons you stay on just one screen - it doesn't jump to the next screen when you get to the end of the list. This is something JLR has to figure out - this is just dumb.
So, to sum up, the driving experience is amazing, but the interior feels cheap, and it's just not set up for a family, which makes you wonder why you would get an F-Pace in the first place? Why not just get an XF and enjoy even better handling being lower to the ground and better responsiveness being a lighter vehicle? The point of an SUV is to have some space - that's what the DS has in loads compared to any competitor. The Jag drives well, but compromises on space, so what's the point?
I'll have some fun today, but I'll be happy to get the DS back!
-Seat belt pre-tensioner recall
-Creaking dashboard from plastic around infotainment screen
-Auto start/stop - was intermittent, now it's completely stopped working
-Noise from somewhere in front of the driver when levelling off (upshifting) after accelerating - sounds like a low train whistle sound of various duration (1-3 secs). Used to be rare, but now it's more frequent
-Noisy parking brake - only noticed this when standing outside the car - quite noisy when engaging and disengaging - more so than when the car was new
-Poor bluetooth connection for my wife's Nexus 6p - she keeps losing connection and then it reconnects after a few seconds - very annoying when listening to music. It might be her phone, though, because it seems fine with my phone (older Android version)
None of these things are vital, so that's why we've waited until we had to go in for servicing anyway. Still very happy with the car, but wow, would I ever be happy if the DS would come with the tranny/engine combo that is in my loaner!
The loaner is the 35t (not the s), and it's a sweet ride, with all the pickup and responsiveness that the DS lacks. It also corners very differently and there's no dip and wobble when braking or accelerating hard. Now, the reason I want this engine/tranny in the DS instead of just going ahead and getting the F-Pace - oh, where do I start?
First off, the F-Pace is one of those infuriating SUVs (there's so many of them - the Jeep GC is another prime example) which is big on the outside and small on the inside. It feels cramped around the driver, the back seat is a joke, there's less cubbies and shelves, and the cargo space is smaller and less versatile than the DS (the rear is more raked). Absolutely no adjustments for the rear seats, so no way to make the cargo area bigger or for the kids to recline when they want to sleep.
Lots of other details as well. The dashboard and other interior bits in the DS aren't exactly high end luxury (lots of cheap plastic), but generally it's a stylish place to spend your time and the cheap bits are at least mostly hidden. The F-Pace just looks cheap period. There's an ocean of black plastic above the instrument cluster and glovebox, which might as well have come from a Hyundai (in the DS this is broken up by the passenger side storage shelf). There's a weird swooping line/break in the plastic all around underneath the windshield - looks like a bad attempt at putting a slight ripple in that plastic ocean.
Other things: the start/stop system is way more jerky than in the DS. The Meridian system has great clarity, the treble has less sibilance and the mids do a great job of reproducing voices, but where's the bass? I adjusted the bass up a few notches, but there's barely anything happening - absolutely no rumble. The base system in our DS is lacking in some areas, but there's actually some decent bass.
Don't like the small windows on the F-Pace. Way less visibility from the driver's seat than in the DS. Something that did work in the Jag is that the steering wheel buttons allow you to toggle presets - hallelujah! But (and this is a big but) the stupid thing only toggles the presets on one screen. As you know, there's three screens where you can set 6 presets for each. With the steering wheel buttons you stay on just one screen - it doesn't jump to the next screen when you get to the end of the list. This is something JLR has to figure out - this is just dumb.
So, to sum up, the driving experience is amazing, but the interior feels cheap, and it's just not set up for a family, which makes you wonder why you would get an F-Pace in the first place? Why not just get an XF and enjoy even better handling being lower to the ground and better responsiveness being a lighter vehicle? The point of an SUV is to have some space - that's what the DS has in loads compared to any competitor. The Jag drives well, but compromises on space, so what's the point?
I'll have some fun today, but I'll be happy to get the DS back!