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There are a couple of things about this Jaguar That I find mildly infuriating, but the thing that stood out to me first is the fact that the badge on the back says 35t, you're thinking 3.5 liter turbocharged but no.
Under the hood there is a 3.0 liter supercharged It's a V6 engine which is fine but come on Jag do model numbers not mean anything anymore?
Fortunately that badge is affixed to the back of an excellent sport sedan with fantastic handling, stellar good looks, and an oddly satisfying sound.
Lets take it for a spin.
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So nitpicks with the badge aside, that 3 liter, supercharged v6 under the hood is good for about 340 horsepower, and about 330 pound feet of torque.
That is split between the front and rear axles by an optional all-wheel-drive system.
It's actually a pretty sporty set up that defaults to about a 90% split towards the rear, giving you a very sporty feel when you're on dry conditions.
They it can instantly shift up to 90% torque To the front axle, when things get slippery, making it feel nice and stable.
It's a really good compromise.
Now between the engine and the differentials is an eight speed automatic transmission.
It's pretty much the only gear b ox you can get if you're an XE driver.
It's got a sports mode and a normal mode and it also has pedal shifters which are nice when you need to down shift quickly for a pass or when you're doing a bit of sporty driving on a Twisty road, however those paddle shifters are also a bit of a point of contension for me here in the exces cabin.
They're made out of this really sort of cheap kind of hollow sounding plastic that just feels out of place.
Place in the rest of this luxurious interior.
You've got leather and chrome and gloss black everywhere that you can see and then you put your hands on the steering wheel and you've got these video game feeling paddle shifter's, that's just not very good.
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One of the other things that I'm not in love with is the in control tech in the dashboard, it's got a big screen and it's a pretty responsive touch interface But it just doesn't seem like things behave the way I want them to when I get to the various features.
I won't go into detail, we've got a separate video for that.
But I will say that the system did crash on me at least once this week, to a black screen that needed me to reset the entire car just to get Infotainment back.
That's unacceptable.
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Another issue I'm having is with the Meridian Audio System that comes with in control touch.
This particular one is giving me a wierd buzzing sound from the speakers, and the frequency range of the human voice which makes listening to podcasts and talk radio just annoying.
That's also unacceptable.
I'm not really in love with the tech here.
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Now the thing that I like most about the XE though is the performance.
That 3 liter V6 engine is just an excellent powerplant with great power, good responsiveness and a great sound.
It's not as aggressive as Jaguar's V8, but man, it just sounds good.
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The handling's also pretty great, this car actually borrows its suspension components and a bit of its external design from the Jaguar F-TYPE sports Coupe.
So the suspension components are about as sharp as they are there, which means we've got really responsive turning and great handling.
And, again, this car just sounds fantastic.
So fun to drive.
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This R-Sport 35t all wheel drive model is pretty close to fully loaded coming in at around 63k.
For that sort of money, the issues that I had were the dash board tech and firm interior materials, does give me a little bit of hesitation.
Though the performance, the handling, and the looks definitely live up to the sport portion of Jaguar's sport luxury reputation.
This is a more than worthy adversary to some of the Germans in this class, and if you don't want to be just another guy in a three series or a A4, we've got your car right here.
Though, maybe lease instead of buy.
