JAGUAR XFR Review

Surprisingly or not, this is the main asset of the XKR. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking the kids to school, touring the county, fighting a supercar on a deserted road or drifting on the track: this car offers loads of comfort.

The suspension is 30 percent stiffer than in a standard XF, but the adaptive dampers allow it to excellently deal with bumps, potholes and road irregularities. The car even graduated the speed bump-cushioning class.

The same goes for the leather-covered heated and ventilated seats. They offer more lateral support than the ones used in a normal XF, but not for a second did we feel anything unpleasing while being installed in them. They even manage to defy time, making long distance travel a pleasure. As for the driver’s one, this offers 18 positions and can memorize two settings.

The car has a setup that avoids being too extreme, even when you’re driving it at eleven tenths, with this perfectly fulfilling its purpose: to offer an effortless drive.

The overall ergonomics of the interior are good, so every move comes naturally. The keyless entry system and the multifunctional steering wheel makes things even easier. The air-conditioning system handles its job just fine, although it could use a third zone in order to raise up to the vehicle’s luxury ambitions.

Another great asset for this chapter is the multitude of electric controls. You get electric power for the windows, the rear privacy curtain, the height and depth-adjustable steering column and the exterior mirrors.

There are also other features designed to make you feel good, such as the touch sensitive controls for the front seat lighting and glove box operation. We have to mention that the latter can be a little bit difficult to find at night if you’re not familiar with its position.

Of course, you can also find certain issues that might disturb your peace of mind, such as the fact that the 70 liter (18.5 gallons) tank and the 17 liters per 100 km (13.8 mpg) average fuel consumption offer you an annoying driving range (don’t do the math please).

With the “normal” settings, the powertrain allows you to effortlessly cruise at any speed you like. Even the Bowers & Wilkins audio system has a fine tuning for the volume, allowing you to use it in the “whisper” mode.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve got a classic love story here: a five liter supercharged engine and set of rear wheels that receive affection through a limited slip differential. However, Jag has brought everything into the ultra-modern era, as both aforementioned characters rely on state-of-the-art tech, while the car is also fitted with other intelligent systems, such as the adaptive dampers.

Our tech story starts under that sleek, vented hood. The motto of the motor, 5.0-liter AJ-V8 Gen III, on its full name, seems to be “Not replacement but enhancement for displacement”. So, you feed the cat with petrol, but what does it do with it?

Well, first of all, the gasoline enters the cylinders through a centrally-mounted direct fuel injection system, meeting air that is compressed by a twin-vortex system and cooled by twin intercoolers, which have a dedicated water cooling circuit. The supercharger relies on a high helix rotor design, which, among others, allows it to keep its mouth shut, so the only sound you hear comes from the engine.

Speaking of sound, Jaguar has gone to great lengths to make sure that your ears get the right tone. The pulsations in the intake manifold are swallowed by an acoustic filter, with the resulting sound being sent into the cabin. Of course, this only happens under hard acceleration.

As expected, the dominating sound comes from the exhaust and thus is a bit stronger in the rear. In normal driving conditions, you’ll feel a gentle serious voice that assures you you’ve got astronomical power and torque resources. Step on the gas firmly and the cat will almost roar - the sound is never actually explosive, neither in the exterior, nor in the interior, as the it wants to keep its ultra-white collar on even when you’re in a playful mood. However, the sound is enough to make you roar, but some extra spice would be a nice touch.

The unit works in unison with a ZF six-speed automatic gearbox that comes with steering wheel-mounted paddles, which can also be found on other XF models. However, Jaguar matched the supercharger with extra clutch plates, an upgraded torque converter, as well as new software.

This is an automatic that really knows how to behave: it offers a manual mode in which it won’t change gear unless you hit the “+” paddle, even if you hit the end of the rev range. Want to downshift more than one gear? You can! Want to hear a nice one? The gearbox is maintenance-free, so you’ll never have to change its fluid.

Further down the power chain, we find an Active Differential Control: instead of a mechanical LSD, the XFR gets a diff that uses a multi-plate clutch and is operated by a dedicated electric motor, which joins forces with a “ball and ramp” mechanism.

Real world translation: the differential is not active when it is not necessary. When you’re in a hurry, it perfectly handle torque distribution between the rear wheels, allowing you to tackle corners at impressive speeds. When you’re not quite in such a rush, you can deactivate the traction control (pressing the DSC button will just bring you into a less intrusive mode, you’ll need to keep it pressed for 15 seconds to completely get rid of it) and send the car more sideways than you though, without spinning, as the system “locks”.

So, you can really use the 510 hp, which come at 6,500 rpm, and 625 Nm (461 lb-ft), which arrive at 2,500 rpm, to push the Earth backwards and it will push the car forward as a result, but it would be nice to find out more about the handling... The suspension is around 30 percent stiffer than in a normal XF, but the story is much deeper than that.

The XKR comes with Jaguar’s Adaptive Dynamics, a system that monitors steering inputs and relies on adaptive dampers to control the body’s movements. The smart dampers work, but in the real world, they feel just a bit slow in adapting to the driving conditions.

This cat definitely knows how to make you play, mixing delightful tech toys, such as its active rear differential, with feel-good items, such as a touch-screen infotainment system that also offers a TV tuner. However, the XFR does lack certain features that should be offered for a car of this caliber, such as an adaptive cruise control system.

We’ll start with the toys that appeal to everybody inside the car. There’s Bowers & Wilkins audio system that uses 13 voices and a bass to simulate a concert hall (it could use some extra volume at the top though), a 7-inch touch-screen on the center console that can be used for the navigation system, climate control system, aforementioned audio system and for the multimedia system that includes a TV tuner.

Becoming a bit less playful, we’ll mention the heated windscreen, the Bi-Xenon headlights with a cornering function, the Parking Aid pack, which includes a rear view camera and all-round parking sensors, as well as the cruise control system with a speed limiter function.

Unfortunately, like we said, when you pay 100 grand (euro) on a saloon, you do expect to receive certain icings for your cake, such as a head-up display or the aforementioned adaptive cruise control system. Not every carmakers offers them, but we would have liked it Jaguar had joined the list of those who are on the bright side of the moon.

Of course, the driver is privileged, as he can play with the 510 hp and 625 Nm (461 lb-ft) of torque in so many ways. You get three modes (on, track and off) for the stability control, a racing button that controls the throttle, stability and transmission and a set of steering wheel-mounted paddles that are linked to a six-speed automatic transmission which really listens to you.

The Euro NCAP was not shy when it came to bashing the XF’s head against its official wall. The car, on the other hand, wasn’t all that arrogant after the impact, receiving an overall rating of four stars (one star less than its main competitors), with a score of 78 percent for adult occupant protection, 65 percent for child care, 43 percent for pedestrian interactions and 71 percent for electronic nannies.

Even though the passenger compartment kept its shape during the frontal bash and the dummies were pleased with how their knees and femurs were protected, certain parts of the dashboard posed a threat for the knee/femur/pelvis area and thus this region received a “marginal” protection rating.

It is now time to get to the “sideways” part. Of course, we are talking about Euro NCAP here, so, in this acceptation, the car is hit from the side rather than powerslid. So, even though the car would’ve certainly preferred being drifted than crashed, it didn’t complain about this, receiving the maximum number of points.

However, in the more serious side pole impact, rib deflections in the dummy showed weak protection of the chest. In addition subtraction to that, the rear impact test showed that those comfy seats, together with the imposing head restraints, only offer marginal protection against whiplash injuries.

As for the child occupant protection, the vehicle offered a proper protection level, but lost points due to other issues, such as the fact that the front passenger airbag can’t be disabled to allow the installation of a rearward facing child restraint and certain labeling issues.

Open the XF’s bonnet and you see two “airbag” labels that warn you about the vehicle’s ability to lift the bonnet when a pedestrian impact is detected. The additional space is supposed to make the hit pedestrian a little bit less unlucky, keeping his head from hitting the hard engine structure. However, it seems that the system was not as sensitive as Euro NCAP wanted it to be, so the protection was evaluated without it. The bumper should be quite friendly to your legs, but the bonnet leaves enough to be desired in terms of pedestrian protection.

In the real world, the XF’s blind spot monitoring systems help a lot and its stability control (DSC) does a great job at keeping the car on the road, so, unless you disable it or really squash the pedal on the right, you’ll be safe.

The XFR is a car that will relax you, whether you like it or not. This is not a metaphor - the waftability, which is also kept during the apocalyptic maneuvers it is able to perform, is the car’s most impressive asset. It starts with the tech bits, such as the smart suspension, and goes all the way to the little details that matter, like the azure interior lighting.

First, we have the the drivetrain, which is a multi-faced creation: it can serve both as a meditation stimulant and as a frenzy generator. Then, there’s the active suspension, which can protect you from impolite roads in one moment and allow you to keep the car on the road with the pedal to the metal the next one.

Then, there are the details that really matter for the vehicle’s coziness. Let’s take the soundproofing for example: the speedometer can show frightening speeds, but you’ll always feel like you’re in your living room, having tea with your passengers (please excuse the cliche). Want another example? The seats. They manage to raise up to the vehicle’s performance stats while rivaling the level of comfort offered by a good massage, even though they don’t come with such a function.

Of course, there are one or two things that could be enhanced from the comfort point of view, with the most important one being the rear passenger space. Like we said before, this is enough to please your body, but not also your mind. However, the car manages to get under your skin and make you forget all about this - just touch that Alcantara headliner and the thought will slip from your mind.

However, it’s this refinement that is also the cat’s biggest flaw. You see, the XFR never manages to feel all that hardcore. Even when you’re driving it at the limit, you don’t feel you’re on the edge. The suspension allows just a bit too much body roll and the exhaust is a little too quiet.

If you mix the right hemisphere of the brain with a helmet, you won’t be able to give the XFR a 10. Don’t get us wrong, it’s performance is bewildering, but we are talking about the way in which it communicates this to you here.

This car is so discreet in the way it looks. It somehow manages to have “R” bagding inside and out, as well as “Supercharged” inscriptions on the wheels and hood, without anybody noticing that you’re driving a speed demon. It’s just like a big cat: nice fluffy paws that conceal deadly claws.

The XFR is nothing short of a perfect 21st century real world translation of Jaguar’s “Grace, Pace and Space” slogan from the 60s'.