5 month Porsche less with a Jaguar XKR
03-29-2015, 07:32 PM
#1
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5 month Porsche less with a Jaguar XKR
Roughly 5 month ago my beloved 2000 Carrera 4 cab got totaled by a unobservant driver 
As a friend put I went with my heart and not my head and replaced it with a 2011 Jaguar XKR. yes its a GT car but a very different one to the 996.
I was asked to come back and give a honest impression of the change.
So here goes.
The good 510 BHP whats not to love and it sounds like very cool. It looks beautiful, biased opinion may be but it has to be one of the prettiest cars around.
Power and performance obviously goes to the XKR, unfair comparison.
Handling to the Porsche at 15 years and 150,000 plus the Porsche felt more composed and so much easier to get the best out of.
The 996's PSM never felt intrusive other than in snow and was easy to 'turn off' The Jag's is way to aggressive in either on mode and to turn it off you have to press and hold for 10 seconds. If you want to move on snow turn it off completely. On dry tarmac its almost scary to turn off as it will smoke the tires on the highway at 70 with the system fully off.
Back seat goes to the Porsche a 5'4" petite female can not sit upright in the Jag, luggage space goes to the Jag.
Reliability to the 15 year old Porsche. So far the Jag has spent nearly 5 whole weeks at the dealer all under warranty resulting in a new wire harness which seems to have solved the issues. But torn rubber boots on the rear anti roll bar at 24,000 miles is worrying. New brake pads under warranty at 24k apparently the stability management systems is hard on pads frequently applying a sym braking to keep it in line ! but I will say undetectable to me.
Wind noise goes to the 15 year old 996 cab I'm serious and the dealer tells me it normal ! its not bad but I'm not impressed.
Bottom line is the Jag is a awesome and fun car but very different.
There will be another Porsche in my future for sure.
As a friend put I went with my heart and not my head and replaced it with a 2011 Jaguar XKR. yes its a GT car but a very different one to the 996.
I was asked to come back and give a honest impression of the change.
So here goes.
The good 510 BHP whats not to love and it sounds like very cool. It looks beautiful, biased opinion may be but it has to be one of the prettiest cars around.
Power and performance obviously goes to the XKR, unfair comparison.
Handling to the Porsche at 15 years and 150,000 plus the Porsche felt more composed and so much easier to get the best out of.
The 996's PSM never felt intrusive other than in snow and was easy to 'turn off' The Jag's is way to aggressive in either on mode and to turn it off you have to press and hold for 10 seconds. If you want to move on snow turn it off completely. On dry tarmac its almost scary to turn off as it will smoke the tires on the highway at 70 with the system fully off.
Back seat goes to the Porsche a 5'4" petite female can not sit upright in the Jag, luggage space goes to the Jag.
Reliability to the 15 year old Porsche. So far the Jag has spent nearly 5 whole weeks at the dealer all under warranty resulting in a new wire harness which seems to have solved the issues. But torn rubber boots on the rear anti roll bar at 24,000 miles is worrying. New brake pads under warranty at 24k apparently the stability management systems is hard on pads frequently applying a sym braking to keep it in line ! but I will say undetectable to me.
Wind noise goes to the 15 year old 996 cab I'm serious and the dealer tells me it normal ! its not bad but I'm not impressed.
Bottom line is the Jag is a awesome and fun car but very different.
There will be another Porsche in my future for sure.
05-10-2015, 06:21 PM
#3
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Sorry to hear about the 996; what a shame and unfortunate but your consolation prize is pretty nice. I went to the local Jaguar retailer last week after hours to poke around and they had a couple of XKR's and XKS's. They looked great up close and through the side windows the interiors looked better! The recently announced F-Pace crossover <gasp> has me interested in the brand since Jaguar is stating it will have great road dynamics. A good-looker too and probably lands at a lower price point compared to the Macan which I like but is a bit out of my budget. All the best with the XKR and hope the bugs get worked out for you. It's a beautiful machine.
05-11-2015, 04:40 AM
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Ha! Not quite that big but larger than our cars. The XK's look like they would be great cars for distance with sporty but not sports car handling. I've never looked at this new generation of Jaguar cars until recently and they look great inside and out. Hopefully the F-Pace when it is released next year (?) will be what they say it will be.
